Andyjr1515

In the meantime, one of the things to finish off before I give the headstock its final coat of Osmo is the ferrules. I found some unused 6-string electric through-body ball end ferrules and attacked them mercilessly with a file until they gave up the fight and fitted compliantly into the holes: After giving this its final Osmo and buff, it's the electrics installation...

Actually, no Having been over on 'the dark side' for quite a while, the next two builds are going to be back to sanity and a couple of fairly conventional 6-string electrics. Do you reckon I'll get bored?

Yes, indeed....but nowhere near as sick as with the ebony I've been doing for a fill-in job!

I'm really pleased with the Osmo Polyx and really, really pleased I came across the 3044 variant The finish is now complete bar-the-shouting and it is remarkable just how close this is to the raw, sanded, wiped, dry timber: ...and yet the surface is super-slinky: Got a touch of tidying up to do and then it's the pickup / electronics installation, the final hardware installation and the final set-up. These things always take a lot longer than expected, but the end is most definitely in sight. To the point that I've just bought the wood for the next two builds...

Welcome! Have you had a look at it from inside the control chamber? If you can take a photo, that would help. With just that one photo to go on at the moment, I would say it's hit something or been hit hard by something quite thin. If so, you will probably see the whole sunken bit of wood protruding the other side. Two bits of good news if it is - first is that it is very unlikely that it leaves a critical structural weakness. Second is that it should be reasonably straightforward for someone who knows what they are doing to fix it...and reasonably invisibly.

You are quite right...for the final coats I generally use standard wet and dry. Ref the abranet, I just happen to have some to hand that's the wrong size for the handle - and don't have any Mirka gold which would, indeed, be better

I continue to be mightily impressed with the quality of work and attention to detail. This thread makes a great read!

Me follow instructions? What on earth could you have been thinking? No. I've tried a couple of methods. First is pretty much the way you say above, but also I've tried a variation of the slurry and buff method. After an initial 'sealing' coat done your way, I've then applied a second coat, applied with some medium abranet abrasive pad to slurry it, followed by a wipe off the excess and immediate buffing with a micro-fibre cloth. It seems to have worked very well. I'll know for sure in the morning when it will be fully dry for a final buff-up.

I'm very impressed Just to see what happens, I've done the first light coat on the ebony too. I think if it was at all thick you'd see the white, but actually applied thinly I probably won't even bother masking or scraping.

The primary finish I wanted to trial was the Osmo Polyx Oil Raw (3044). Its claim is that it minimises the 'wetting' effect on lighter woods. I was keen, however in not losing all of the flame figuring of the sycamore in the process (it has a whitening filler in the oil that minimises discolouring of the end grain but does, of course, therefore risk impacting on the wood figuring). I also wanted to trial the Crimson White Stain to see, if applied very thinly, how much that would mask the figuring. With the Osmo, I wanted to check: Whether it did reduce the wetting darkening and tinting effect sufficiently Whether the figuring still showed Whether it could be 'slurry and buffed' Whether a satin silky feel could be achieved Whether it was sticky-less neck capable... I've done enough trials today to know that I'm going to use the Osmo for the main finish. Still got more work to do to verify the neck. First of all - freshly sanded (left) vs Osmo Polyx Oil Raw 3044 (centre) vs untreated timber lightly dampened with water (right). Pretty impressive: If I'd wiped the sanded-only properly, the darkness difference would be even less. The main thing, though is that the yellowing is substantially reduced - and that's just water! Figuring visibility is less, though. Then compare it with tru-oil on straight grain. Osmo top left, tru-oil top right, untreated bottom: Now that's VERY impressive. So what about end grain? Osmo top, where it's been sanded smooth, tru-oil middle, untreated bottom: Then what happens to the figuring if I use a very much thinned single wipe of the Crimson White Stain, left to dry with Osmo on top (left) vs Osmo on the untreated wood (right): I was expecting the Crimson stain to reduce the flame, but wow - for a single wipe of 50% water-thinned stain - the flame has gone...completely! Actually nice colour so, as a white stain on say, Ash, I think could work well. But not on my build. I want the one on the right! So I've done a trial coat of the bass in the Osmo - it will be sanded off to make sure I'm fully back to clean wood before I do the 'final finish', but this is broadly how it's looking after the first coat: That's the kind of look I'm going for so decision made - Osmo Polyx Oil Raw (3044) it is! And does it slurry-and-buff....it does indeed....it does indeed

The fibreglass rods I went for were for kite-fliers. Cheap as chips, to be honest and they do work well - I'm just not sure I went for ones that were quite thick enough so there's quite a bit of flex: I've use dowels too where I needed a bit more oomph (centre of the cross brace and the middle of the top spar. It's interesting because although they do look quite flimsy, they create enough force to bow the 12mm chipboard top quite markedly!

OK - now that's VERY cool!

Just caught up with the Glastonbury shot. Just how cool and gratifying is that!!!!!! Well done and well deserved

Not sure how, but I seem to have missed the recent progress on this ! Wow - there's some good stuff going on here In terms of your go-bar deck, what thickness of what wood are you using for your bars? I use fibreglass rods which are a bit too bendy and dowels which are a bit too stiff. Yours look pretty much fit for purpose....

That is splendid, @Norris

That's great news!

Can't wait - it's been a long time coming

Yes - we all have blots of various types. This one below I regard as a birthmark @psikoT - yours is looking really - I mean REALLY - good. Great progress, too. Great job.

Thanks, folks. All being well I should be able to start the final sand and finishing tomorrow. I'm going for straightforward tru-oil slurry and buff and will be trying to keep the resulting darkening of the wood to the very minimum possible. I can't wait to see how it feels once it's silky smooth. It's a very difficult bass to photograph - there are compound curves all over the place - but this is turning out, in the flesh, to be a stunning and genuinely beautiful (rather than just striking) bass. It's all credit to Mick who, I'm sure, had in his head exactly what he wanted it to turn out like when the rest of us (including me) could only guess It has certainly convinced me that I should continue my pursuit of slim and very slim instruments...

I did a fair bit of 'final' shaping and sanding yesterday - still a bit more to do but another day's effort should get me to the finish-sanding stage. In the meantime, I levelled, re-crowned and polished up the frets: Plans often don't work out quite how you figure, but my aim is to get this essentially finished by this weekend.

Today's job was cutting the saddle slot. I used the Dremel with the precision router base and a 3mm bit: Rigged up a guide jig with thin packers that would ensure that it stayed level and flat when clamped down: Then clamped it, checked it all and slotted it: Drilled a hole from the slot to the cables channel build into the neck and put in the piezo element for a trial fit: Shaped the bone nut blank and strung it up. And blow me! The flipping thing actually intonates properly!!!!

For the clamp, I added some side pieces (it need to remain open either end) and an incline: ...and tidied up, but still waiting the overall final sanding, ending up like this: It's always going to look 'function over form' but hopefully softened a touch.

That made me literally laugh out loud. (and then, thanks to the continued effect of the home-brew, sob uncontrollably for an hour or so....)

Wow! That's got even more bling than the latest Audi models (and that's setting a high, high, bling standard!) I think we need a new descriptive word - bling doesn't even get close. I just LOVE that double notch headstock.....

There's a home-brew that makes all of my fret markers look like that - even the ones I was sure were dead in line yesterday!