Narcissism

Well, i haven't worked on this in a while due to a move and other expenses. So i've just been kinda doodling on it and pencling in contour marks and input jack locations, and neck contour lines. So, i have money and a question for suggestions. Where should i put the input jack? I definately want to put it on the side on the bottom wing. I'm not sure if i should put it somewhere inside the circle, or on the far left flat part in the pic in the post above. What do you guys (and occasional gals) think?

I used a wet wash cloth and a ski tuning iron (the kind that melts wax onto p-tex bases). That melted the glue and the fretboard actually just warped and twisted itself right off the neck. It took a bit of time, but i used that method to transfer an ebony fingerboard from one guitar to another. Who knows, you could probably use the fingerboardless neck for something else?

Dude, that's pretty ****in sweet right there

the spectralite that i used only had 3000rpm max, but it was for training on high temperature wax. I made a jig, and a 3D puzzle with mine!

Robots ftw lol. now if i could only find room for one...

So far, i've read about and watched a few ways to do it: Spokeshav, which is my personal favorite Router template, which to me looks like a circus ride Belt Sander, which looks like it'll do a good job, but seems time consuming and doesn't really get into all those little areas Orbital Sander, which seems to work okay Chizel, which worked for me, but i think its kinda iffy, as much more wood can come off due to grain shape, inner faults, etc. and Microplane, which is the newest one i learned about just surfing around in this forum. I'm sure there's lots of other ways, but which way do you like the most?

We like to think outside the box I do like the fingerboard though. I was also wondering why no one's done a laminate fingerboard in a long time.

am i correct in assuming that you used a chizle to do the rough contouring? It looks very nice!

The first thing that pops into my head is "hu-bwah?" I like the grain pattern you have on the back, as well as the little inlay thins on the front. Very unique! I wonder what it sounds like.

all i can think of is some dirty hippy sitting under a tree... weaving a guitar out of little pieces of rope...

i used my router to make my control cavities, and they came out pretty well. I did one cavity freehand, and i did the other with a stencle. This is the example, not the rule; but my freehand one came out neater and cleaner lol. Either way, what i did was i found the zero by lowering my router bit till it was just touching the wood surface. Then i set that at zero. Then i went down 1/8 of an inch, and locked it. Then i pulled up, and angle plunged a bunch of holes until i had something that i could go in the correct direction to in relation to the cutting direction, and the bit's spin direction. After i had that all roughly cleared out, i moved down another 8th of an inch. I continued doing this till i was 5/8" down, as my pickup is 6/8" or 3/4" thick. After i had a rough depth routed out, i smoothed out the edges at one depth with a heat treated double fluted 1/4" bit. I recommend using a stencle and practicing on a scrap piece of the same type of wood though. If you need clarification, let me know and i'll make a slideshow

noramlly when you first string up an instrument, you have to stretch the strings to full tension and play a little bit before they'll properly stay in tune. That thing's cute by the way! good luck!

Well, i used the router to flatten it out... for the most part. the base of my router wasn't big enough and i didn't account for that on the rails, and it fell, and the bit took a small chunk out >.< No worries. I gotta have a place to put the batteries anyway!

Well, i've been working quite a bit this weekend. I managed to get both pickup holes completely routed and zipped in there perfect. there's a mistake in the bridge position one, because the router hit the clamp that was holding my template and it came lose. Its not too bad, but its definately a little ugly. Whatever, i'll call it character. Its my first bass *shrugs* I also dug out that screw i broke off using a drill. I drilled two holes next to each other right up against the broken screw that was lost in the body. Then i pulled/dug the broken screw out with a pair of needle nose pliars. Then i cleaned up the hole with a 1/2" bit using the drill. Then to clean that up and make it straight and even, i used the plunge router. That thing's become my friend! Anyway, i filled the 1/2" hole with a hardwood dowil that my local hardware store happened to carry. I also bought some nice stainless screws so this wouldn't happen again. So here's the progress so far! [edit] Brian in the picture on top of the magazine is my hand plane. I used it to level off the dowil to the body. Its pretty handy for everything except making good joints so far. I'll try it out on the heal though!

Awesome! Just needed some reassurance. Had i known that i was buying such a handy tool, i would have bought a few more bits! Thanks guys!

So here's what i've got: As you can see, my neckthrough neck is thicker than the body wings. Now, what if i get two pieces of wood to set the plunge router on, clamp em down on either side of the neck, and then run the bit over the maple ridge piece at the appropriate depth(1/4" at a time obviously). Do you think that would get rid of the ridge? I'm just wondering if anyone else has done this. I have a lot of CNC mill experience, but unfortunately i don't have access to one, nor have i ever worked with something this large. To me, my router is basically a little freehand milling machine. thoughts? comments? criticisms? experience?

Yeah, the screw extractor i found was the smallest one that was offered. I ended up just drilling a hole next to the original broken screw, digging the screw out, drilling in a dowil sized hole, inserting a dowil, and then sanding it off. It came out pretty sexy! I'm still picking screws. is zinc okay? i'm assuming your standard wood screw is going to end up being kind of weak. I'll probably just go stainless.

The past two weeks i've been working on my bass, all i've done is sand sand sand. The end result is pretty nice though! I spent about 3.5 hours sanding the back part of the neck that sticks out of the body. What ended up happening was pretty much a whole lotta nothing. So what i did was i got out the dremel, rounded off the edges of it and just contured it to the rest of the body. Its a good temporary solution until i get the patients to grind the entire thing down level. I also used a file and a palm sander to contour the horns a little bit too. Here's how that turned out: Then i got ambitious and started playing with my router. I used some of the scrap wood and carved a few L's into it using a square and a few clamps. It worked out pretty well, and seemed easy enough. So little by little, i carved out my first pickup cavity! Its not done yet. I still have some fine routing to do, but this is a rough cut: After i'm all done routing, i'm gonna go over the entire body one more time with 600 grit sandpaper. then i'll work on the headstock once the tuning machines i ordered come in!

I bought a bridge from them. It had a little ware on it, so be aware that returns do go back into product circulation after an inspection just like most other stores. The bridge looks fine everywhere except for the back, which doesn't matter because that's not the part you're supposed to see anyway. If i had a clear guitar that i was installing it on, then that would be another story

These are very good ideas! I like the one where you cut a slot in the top and use a flathead screwdriver to get it out. That seems to be the least damaging way to do it. The EZ Out things i looked at were all too big for extracting the screw, and are mainly for removing screws that still have the head intact. So i'm going to try putting a slot in the broken screw first. It sucks because the screw is broken off just below the surface of the wood, but luckily i don't have to worry about finish details because the area will be covered by the bridge. Either way, when i get this thing out i'll be putting in stainless steel screws and then i'll paint them gold or something.

Upon closer inspection of my bridge, it looks like Warmoth sent me a refurbished one. There's wear on the spaces where the strings pass through. So that's one bad part. The other bad part is that all the screws that came with the bridge are brass... Who uses brass screws to hold in high tension stuff? I think whoever returned my bridge couldn't find the original screws, so they just threw in some matching ones and said "that'll do." Well... that's a long shot, but whatever. I'll head over to the shop tomorrow and use the drill press like you said, Roman. I think my pilot holes were definately large enough. I'd already had the bridge mounted before so i could figure out pickup placement, intonation, body limits and all that good stuff. The screw fit in snugly with enough force to keep it in there, but apparently that force was too much for the screw itself. *heads to work to buy new gold plated stainless ones* Thanks guys!

While i was installing the bridge on my bass, one of the screws that holds the peice on snapped off inside the body. Is there any way to get this out? The head of the screw is snapped off, and the rest of the screw is all the way in the body just below the surface of the wood. Thanks

Very nice! I wish i had enough money to build mine at 16!

OIC! In that case, i can only imagine what it'll look like once the swirl is put on! Can't wait to see it :thumbs up:

I like 1 and 2. I don't think it'll make a difference at all, but maybe having the controls placed in 2 will eliminate headstock dive? nvm, i remembered that most of the weight is in the bridge and pickups. I like 2 though. It goes with the body well.