Andyjr1515

Hi. I also use a humble curved cabinet scraper, depending on how hard the wood is. I'll try and find a photo of the sort of thing I use

Thanks, folks Here it is with the first fitting of the strings. Need to tweak the frets a touch in places, raise the bridge on an ebony plate so I can drop the saddles, fit a brass nut, finish off the volute and fit the electrics but I'm hoping I can pass this across to Pete by the end of next week. I also will be fitting some small ferrules in the back of the bridge elements - these are large telecaster ones I happened to have in my bits box. They are needed because they are guitar strings with small ball ends and larger bass bridge string retainers...

Well, I think this might be a case of great minds think alike . You mean like this : I'm pleased with this I strung it up this evening just to do the 'first fitting'. Predictably, plays like a lemon Lets hope that's suffixed with 'at the moment' Oh - and it weighs 5lb 12oz and yet is full-size in terms of a 6 string electric. Couple more tuners and another pickup would still sit at no more than 6lb.

I've been fiddling about with permutations and combinations of the hardware. As discussed earlier, I generally steer clear of gold, but the colours of the wood are just shouting out for something more than black to set them off. Chrome also wasn't quite right when I tried a couple of items. I tried gold tuners - they suited the headstock much more than the black. I tried a gold pickup ring - that looked the ticket. But gold bridge elements - screamed bling and cheap. So with some mixing and matching of components, I've come up with this: What do you reckon?

Now you're talking the kind of language I like!

Someone on one of the other forums was asking about the body profile on this. Here it is: I've done variations of this idea on a number of builds, including my own bubinga fretless. There are some limits, and there are some areas you need to be careful about, but it: Takes a useful amount of weight out Feels great to play. Rests on the paunch very nicely It allows a much slimmer neck heel:

I know where you're coming from, Norris, but Pete has spoken! And he's choosing tactile over bling. Actually, with the sun at last coming out for a couple of house for me to be able to see it properly, I think this looks OK too. It certainly feels wonderful. Probably one more coat and buff will do it: I'm waiting for some hardware before I can string it up and workout if I need to reshape the volute a bit but, in the meantime, I've popped the magnets onto the hatch and truss-rod cover: Excepting some unforeseen disasters or hitches, this should be finished by the end of this week. Can't believe how fast it's gone...

Oh my goodness....that is jaw-droppingly lovely Excellent thread and wonderful result.

Yes - that looks lovely. Having said that, mine is going to be quite a bit darker. Normally, I shy away from gold but it might lift it a bit What I've done is decided to hedge my bets. The hardware I prefer to use isn't expensive, so I've ordered a set in gold too and I'll see which one looks best! The spare set will go into the bits box for another time. The other quandary is varnish or not??!!! I simply LOVE the organic feel of a nice bit of wood that has been tru-oil slurry and buffed. Nowadays I do that as a prep before varnishing, which I've just done on this: I know that the grain will be visually enhanced no end by a gloss coat, but, man, this thing feels SO GOOD If it was mine, I'm pretty sure I'd go for the tactile over the bit of extra visual bedazzlement. Hmmm....I think maybe I'd better sleep on this one.... Still got to do a tiny bit of tidying up on the neck but this is rapidly heading towards being finished!

I always put an initial sealing coat on early - it gives me a better idea of the likely final colour and also shows up any missed sanding lines or glue residue! I'm getting really excited by this - I see quilting......everywhere ...and that leads me to a conclusion that, although I LOVE the organic feel of a tru-oil slurry and buff approach, this has simply GOT to be gloss varnish to bring out that quilt! I say that partly on the back of my experience on the back of my OM acoustic build. When sealed, it was an interesting figuring, and with only the tiniest evidence of quilt banding. Then I put on the gloss and this happened: Now, I don't expect anything like that, but gloss will certainly enhance any that is there... Only thing I may need to reconsider is the hardware colour. I have black, but now think it probably needs to be lighter to lift and contrast. Probably chrome, but...hmmm...would gold/brass be too bling? The back has also darkened nicely :

Very interesting discussion above. I will be very interested how this develops

Thanks, Scott Just started finishing. Being black walnut, it has darkened significantly and some great quilting is beginning to show. I'm really excited by how I think this might turn out I'll take a shot in the morning.

I know there are cheaper alternatives - and you can make your own (see the excellent tutorial elsewhere on the website) - but I do like the look and ease of installation of the original black-surround Luminlay. As long as you are using an accurate brad-point drill, it really is a piece of winkle: ...even for the difficult bits: I'm not completely sure about the contrasting washers, but this is broadly how the headstock will look. It will, of course, finish darker: This is what I mean by trying to reflect the body shape in the headstock in terms of the top and bottom horns and the offset: ...and - excusing the unfinished volute carve - the tuners similarly angled: I don't know if it makes a jot of difference, but it keeps me amused at least

NOW I understand why you said it was going to be too messy to transport it back in the car!

How about a "bijou bass"?

Absolutely! I'd love to use the stuff so if you are able to find a successful method I would be delighted to see it and would, of course, shamelessly steal the idea

I got the headstock plate done and also added the mahogany wings to the headstock. The plate isn't glued yet, but here's how it's looking: The back is a similar concept to the Mouradian-style bass I finished just before this one, using an offcut from the neck to make the control chamber cover with. I will be fixing the cover with a couple of magnets with an access thumb groove. This is most definitely my fastest build so far! Unless MrsAndyjr1515 insists I do some useful and necessary stuff in the next few days (which as you can imagine is quite likely, based on that I haven't done anything useful or necessary non-build wise for past few weeks ), the basic build will be complete maybe even before the end of the weekend! I'm certainly at the 'final list' stage. Much of the speed is down to the relatively small number of snags and boo-boos. I'm sure it's not the sign of a new trend but more probably that, statistically, at least ONE of my builds had to be major-stupid-mistake free!

Welcome and really good build on the go, @Pariahrob Ref curly maple for tight curve binding, I certainly wouldn't. I tried it on this re-body job of a pal's Peavey EVH and got nowhere at all with it. For the curly maple, I tried everything, including the 'desperate measures' methods: Started with normal pre-bend over hot pipe after soaking in water Tried again, adding fabric softener to the soak Tried a Spanish classical guitar luthier's method - soaking the binding in household ammonia (please do NOT do this unless you know how to handle ammonia!!!), wrapping tightly in tin foil, heating with heatgun, bending over a former In the end, I used much more stable and bendable rosewood with a boxwood stripe, again pre-soaked and pre-bent over a hot pipe, which I turned upside down to get the light binding line! By the way ref your earlier question, although this is solid wood rather than a veneer, this (also NA Black Walnut) has been finished in Tru-oil using the slurry and buff method. Personally I would have no qualms at using the same method on veneer. The above guitar is gigged pretty much every week and has been for the past couple of years and shows no signs of wear whatsoever. In the event of there being any damage, it is also one of the easiest finishes to patch up.

Somehow seemed to have missed this thread. There's some excellent work on show here - I love the first build. Real class. I'm looking forward to the current one being finished

These are ALL great, great builds. Every one of the entries has a feature or features that make me go "WOW - That's superb!". So, as in my voting before, I have no option than to resort to, "Which of these builds do I yearn to own, personally?" And if I owned @ScottR's entry, I would simply assume I'd died and gone to heaven. Well done, folks. A superlative set of entries

And so to the headstock. I will be following the recent theme of trying to reflect the essence of the body shape in the shape and carve of the headstock. It will be faced with walnut from offcuts of the body top, filed away at the end to expose the maple and mahogany underneath. The challenge is trying to create a bit of harmony shape-wise, while still trying to fit the practicalities in (physical size and accessibility of the tuning heads, straight string-runs, etc.. This is what I've come up with so far: I'm going to have a bash at slicing a 3-4mm sliver of walnut on my extremely cheap and small bandsaw today. If I am successful, I can cut the headstock shape from it, including the tuner holes, and make absolutely sure that everything fits, is straight, etc, before taking a fretsaw or rasp file to the headstock bit of the through-neck!

That's what's called in the trade as a teaser photo . Here I am, four years later, waiting like an expectant father by the screen, not going out, not taking phone calls, beard 17" long with birds and mice nesting in it.... Can't wait. Especially as I've just been commissioned to design a Ritter-esque single cut, all white, natural finish, hidden p/ups jobee

I just LOVE that . The colour and effect goes exceptionally well with the shape of the body. There are some builds you see where you think 'I REALLY want that guitar!!!' This has just leapt manfully into that category

Hi. Loving this build! . It's renewed my long time wonderings about doing at last a carved top semi-acoustic Abranet is a commercial set of products that are based around fitting an abrasive pad to a holder that is, in turn, attached to a household vacuum cleaner. The abrasive itself is set into an open matrix material, fixed to the holder by Velcro hooks and so while sanding, the dust is vacuumed away. This makes it almost clog-free and allows sanding in sensitive places such as the family room when my wife is not in the house a spare room. I have one - it's great for certain things but it is harder to get some real bite into hard woods. Good for finish sanding. Bit expensive, especially for the initial holder system and the abrasive does dull quite quickly, but it is nice to have largely clog-free sanding.

Yes, unusual Yes, discussed Good idea or really, really bad idea? No idea To be honest, neither of us have any real experience with playing multi-scale so it's a bit of a leap in the dark. However, because it is such a relatively small scale difference (1", whereas 2" and 3" seem to be quite common), the angle at the upper end is no steeper than, say, the one I tried out a year or so ago. The angle at the lower end is, of course a lot less. I won't know until the headstock's done and I can get a set of strings on, but with having just rough-shaped the neck...: ...I've now been able to 'shadow play' it and, certainly to my playing style, it feels OK. Because it is short scale, it feels like a 34" multiscale bass feels from the 5th fret up. However, like all leaps in the dark, in reality it might well turn out to be a lemon - so I'll mentally get ready in case I have to build him another one