komodo

Of course you can see the major flaw. Grrrr. Back plates shifted on glue-up and insults the incredible figure. Sigh, it is the back, and water under the bridge at this point and a learned lesson. Drak would've burned it, I'll play it and move on to the next build.

First pass started, this is the amber for sand back. For the love of everything sane, ignore the stock music. When I build, I always have some kind of song in my head similar to the music I imagine this guitar playing or sounding like. To me, this one is the guitar break in Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son.

That totally makes sense. Not super intuitive though! I'm very excited about this build but need to finish my current one. I'll take my time over the winter getting the body inset and the fretboard inlay done.

LP template is from the wood supplier. I've been looking for a nice poplar (mappa) burl for a LOOOOONG time, ever since I saw the Jerzy Drozd basses. I think he was using that before I saw anyone else using it. But, I actually just found that this morning and scored it as it has a really nice overall burl and figure to it. It's pretty thin, maybe 1/4" so it would work well for this design as the inlayed piece, or as an overall flat top plate. I also just saw Prosthetas 8 string in the DL section. The scales of that are really close to what I was going for here, and he alerted me to the Hipshot bridges which I did not know about before. One thing I've always wondered, and maybe i should ask this in another thread: With a reverse headstock such as Prosthetas design, does the extra string length PAST the nut have an effect on the string tension beyond scale length? One point of the multi-scaler is for tension balancing, but would you get some tension balance with all perpendicular frets at say a 27.5" scale but with an extended reverse headstock?

And then there is this . . .

Warning! Wood Porn! ScottR- i know it's ambitious. It all really centers around the inlay. Also, I believe that may be claro but I'm not 100%. I do have a chunk of Claro and it's denser than this crotch. As I dug in my wood stash to see what option I might have for this build, I found more than I thought I had. My swamp ash is a one piece, I also have two pieces for a glueup. I've got two 1/8" pieces of wide ebony I could face it with and do a Black Machine thing. I've got two ebony fretboards in case I screw up. Then I found a set of quilt maple, not as nice as my current build but it's still 3-4a sausage - and its a full 1" thick! I found a spectacular bookmatched flamed top, and threw un a pic of some curly koa just to finish off. Lol I tried to warn you.

Cutting nut, test fit bridge to help set nut action and any neck heel adjustment before glue in. About had a minor heart attack putting this stuff on.

Wait, didn't you say you had some Tonerider pups, and weren't they gold covers? Yes, but that was before, and when it was going to be all natural. With an amber tiger eye finish, it needs something else enitirely. Like SD SH-5 custom 8 (Alnico 8), and a Jazz for the neck. But they look like this.

They came.

The fan scales were going to be 26.5 - 28" with the neutral fret at 7. This assumes I can afford the single string bridges which is what stopped me before. The Hipshot is inexpensive but then the bridge is perpendicular and the fan range needs to be less. If its a Hipshot, scale will be 26.5 - 27.5. Hipshot pickups will be SD Pegasus and Sentient. Single string bridge pickups will be Aluma Deathbar(s). Body is swamp ash, with insane feather crotch walnut. Neck is Cocobolo, bolt on but way up into the body. Here is a mockup that still has the very very rough octopus inlay placement. The inlay will have tentacles that curl where the dots would be. Also, my goal as you can see is to inlay the crotch walnut into the body, inspired by Jerzy Drozd basses. More to come.

This build was has been in my head (and on paper) for a long time. The body design and even the wood I was going to use ended up in a bass I made for home recording. I'm not 100% that I'll use that design again, but I'm pretty sure. The raw neck blank has been thicknesses and scarf joint done. Wait, I mean the compound angle scarf joint. For the angled frets. Because it's multiscale. Because it has 8 strings. Why Cthulhu? Because it will have a full fretboard inlay of Cthulhu that will take me all winter. The original was an octopus (get it?), but I've since determined that isn't djenty enough. So, ancient god alien creature. Here is the bass with the basic design. The first pic was before it was fretted and finished. Full specs to come.

"Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse." H.P. Lovecraft

ah great design. When you break the top and bottom edges, the image field becomes a slice of a much larger field. That looks better than trying to cram a design into a fretboard space. My next inlay is a large one and of possible cephalopod-like origin. Maybe not. Maybe more in the ancient godlike creature realm.

I made a sled like this to make a sort of overhead pin router. The sled (which doesn't move) has locator pins that go into my table saw out feed table, and a centered pin mounted in that same table directly under the router bit. There are a couple pin sleeve bushings so I can change router bit sizes. The height is adjusted with the plunge router, and it has a dust collector chute attached. As with my other builds, I got to a point and mothballed it and have never even tried it! When I get my shop cleaned I'll get some pics of it.

Thnx. But seriously, I encourage anyone to try it because it's not very hard. It's more of a slow methodical process. It's low stress and forgiving compared to lots of other build processes. I'd say carving a top, cutting fret slots, even dropping money on an expensive bridge is worse than inlay. My next build is another one that I had started but put on pause that will have a most ridiculous inlay. I feel like it's totally within my reach, but will likely take much of the winter to do time wise. I'll start a thread on that build in the near future, with the inlay documented.

I found my hard drive that had way more build pics from earlier stages of this build, many of these were from the inlay process. I'll drop those in here, just before we do the dye. 1. Cut everything from a pattern. 2. tack it onto the board and scribe around it. Rub chalk on that to fill, wipe it off and you have your routing lines. 3. Route those sections out, you can go outside the lines some. 4. Fit all the pieces, and pack ebony dust in the gaps 5. flood with thin CA. 6. Block sand to get everything flush to the board again, and presto. Easy. LOL The ebony dust trick is so cool it's not even funny. You would be hard pressed to see a line with the smallest loupe.

The sickness will come.

Hella sanding, blisters on blisters. Neck is final sanded, grain filled, then dyed black and sandback cause the filler wasn't dark enough. Then some shellac seal coats, Body binding done, scraped, sanded and ready for a final 320 sand before D-day. Rubbed some naptha for a D-day teaser.

I have never done a binding before, and I thought Weld On 16 had more of a model glue working time (cause duh, the tube is the same, so) when it actually flashes off like super glue. So, the combo of doing too long of sections with too little glue resulted in poor adhesion. I tore it all off, scraped it and the channel and reapplied this evening. Meanwhile, my robust porter is definitely over-carbed as I've had two bottle explode so far, A first for me. Question for anyone - I had some black binding from who knows where, and then some brand new binding from StewMac. The StewMac is softer plasticy, and my other binding is harder, almost fiberglassy with crisper edges. Does anyone know if StewMacs changed or LMIs is more like that?

I can try. BTW, if you haven't tried that brown binding tape in my pic - you can get it at StewMac - you HAVE to. It;s the bomb. I use it in my shop for everything under the sun, it's the greatest tape in the whole world. Super sticky, you can write on it, tears just like masking tape, lasts forever, etc.

I'm giving her all she's got captain! Really trying to get it spray ready soon without rushing or cutting corners. Couple hours in the evening after work, getting tired but making headway.

Yeah, although, I could be very wrong on that. The wood was acquired a long time ago and I don't remember where. It's extremely light and non-oily for a rosewood, also very light and resonant. Madagascar rosewood / Palisander is said to have a roselike scent when worked, which this does not. I'd say it's peppery if anything. After looking at specs on a bunch of rosewoods - I'm gonna say this is more likely Panama (Yucatan) Rosewood, which would put it in the range of mahogany as far as density, weight, etc. It feels more like a dense Honduran mahogany when you work it. Besides the best tap tone of any board I've ever had, the neck has two square carbon strips epoxied in it so it should make a good one.

A neck is born. Easily my favorite part of building and I don't know why. I know I'm not alone on this one. Usually, I'll work both sides at the same time and work the whole length (that's what she said), but this time I did one side, then flipped and did the other. For whatever reason it was even more enjoyable. I've also decided I will glue this in and finish it with the body. The grain is very open and needs filled. I can always sand back some for a satin finish, or whatever.

Back binding channel cut. I'll skip the belly cut since my gut is holding even after recently brewing 15g pale, 11g robust porter and 11g tripel. Now you know why I have been slackin on this build.