scottyd

I went ahead and resanded with 600 grit and 1500 and resprayed the body, looking much better now. I also wet sand the neck with the same paper, looks sweet satin smooth and quick. Cant wait to get the electronics done so i can play it amped!

I was at one of the local music stores and they have a cirrus bass on display sells for $1899.00 so of course i had to play it. Well i beat on it a while, not to the store clerks liking, Its sounded good a little fret buzz but the action was set super low. I started looking it over and noticed the frets werent crowned, they were just flat like some one leveled them and called it quits. It got me wondering if anyone else has seen this on higher end instruments or do you guys think the store itself might have something to do with it. I just find it odd that an instrument of this caliber (or so i thought) would be like this...the ibanez two stands down had a nice fret job though!

Hey i love that wenge between the cocobolo!

Im just going to go out on a prehistoric limb and say the quilt is DA BOMB!! (another rather old term showing my age )

Love that scarf. How did you keep all the layers from sliding aroung when you glued that up?

You gotta be quick! Nah but really it is a pain in the butt just gotta keep working them till you a good clamp on it all.

That quilt is off the CHAIN!

This phrase is actually still in use? Why then yes, the quilt is, in fact, OFF THE CHAIN!

Im sorry what would be the proper terminology you youth are using today?

Sweet build! That quilt is off the CHAIN!

THanks Ben gotta say you got alot going on in your sig there!, yeah its my own shape and prob about as close to an Alembic ill ever own

Heres a shot of the back showing the body contour and tummy cut. I didn't countour this one as much i did my last.

this is a link showing the MM preamp its a simple bass/treble cut/boost. Notice the extra room for the 2 ninevolts (18volt) and the fibers.

Preamp&fibers

The scarf joint finished!

Scarf!

A shot with of the fibers lit up with a flashlight. Im going to use a red led or maybe blue.

Another view

If you have the space and the cash, yeah, bandsaw, lovely. If you don't, you can build plenty (about 9 in my case) of guitars without one.

Yeah bandsaws are over rated (id love one but not for the money ) its funny how jig and scrollsaws are "taboo" around here.

Neck width is 1-9/16" at the nut 2-5/16" at the 24th fret.

Still alot of work to do. I Buffed it out today, got all the hardware put on, a temporary nut and strung it up. I ran out of steam so ill have to wire up the pups and led for the fibers later. I also need to oil the fingerboard and buff a little more, make a truss cover, ect, heres a pic of what i got so far.

how often is the HF flush-cut saw on sale ? I've never seen it on sale, and I get the HF catalogs in the mail on a regular basis.

I dont know i was in there a couple of weeks ago and happened to catch it during a sidewalk sale. Great buy though. I guess it could have been a local thing.

how did you get the wood so thin to make the pickups covers/cavity covers?

I thinned all the wood with my belt sander. I mounted it on my work bench upside down and just worked the wood that way.

Yeah for me this is all a learning adventure. Who knows If tommorow I decide i dont want to do this as a hobby. (AS IF im hooked) At least i wont have thousands of dollars invested in tools!

"And yes, that is bird crap on the side of the right wing. Damn birds.."

Ahh it could be worse! Looking good though, the fingerboard is going to be awesome.

Heres a pic of the finished pickup covers. Ill post pics of the whole bass once i buff it out and final assemble it.

Man i want to do buckeye so bad but now Draks got me scared to do so!

OK got 5 coats on her yesterday, wetsanded this morning gonna try and get 5 more coats on today (coat 2s flashing now)

I totally agree. Now even if it were my job to build guitars and i made a living doing it I still dont think i would buy most of the tools they sell. I know that some tools, mostly the fretting tools and acoustic tools are needed if your banging out a high number of guitars a month but for the average hobby builder (like myself ) its just not needed..

Ok on my current bass project i came about needing some tools for fretting. Well the first thing i did was bust out my trusty LMI and Stewmac catalogs, very dissappointing. Being the cheap guy I am I started searching the local Harbor Freight for the tools i needed heres what i found.

1 Japanese flush cut saw -.024" kerf (I got mine on sell for 3.99 and extremly sharp!) you can add a "splint to it to make it more ridgid to cut slots. I bought my board pre cut so i mostly got this to clean out the slots after radiusing.) Cheap Saw

1 Plastic and rubber faced hammer- (I paid 2.99 works great! mines bigger, has a wooden handle and didnt come with all the tips this one offers) Cheap Fret Hammer

Files- $3.99 I already had a set of files so I didnt buy more. These are the ones i have

Cheap Files

Fret Cutter- $19.99 I aready had a set of these too. Still $8.00 cheaper than Stewmac!

Cheap Fret cutter

Im not going to say that these tools are any better than what Stewmac or Lmi offer but from the looks of it they dont look much different. I do know however I used the tools and they work just fine. I cant see me wearing them out any time soon. Also it should be pointed out that the "speacilty tools" offered by luthier shops are generic and without a namebrand. So more than likely they arent that much more of quality. I would just like to point out that you dont have to put out big money to support this hobby. These so called "speacilty" tools started life as regular tools! I encourage you to look at your local hardware stores and tool stores to save yourself a little money. Also the tools i chose arent the only options, theres alot more to choose from. You can compare some of the tools here StewMac