Andyjr1515

This has been progressing in between domestic duties and Christmas preparation and reparation activities The swifts have been added to the headstock plate and the tuner holes have been drilled. Still have to slim the back of the headstock a touch to allow the spindles to stick out far enough, but it will look something like this: The routing for the Smoothhound wireless Tx has been sorted. Here it is from the front: ...with full access (by owner's request) at the back. Obviously still got some tidying up to do: The fretboard has been attached: The neck/body transition finished: Control chamber and pickup chambers routed / forstner drilled and chiselled: Frets fitted and everything checked to make sure it all lines up: Don't worry that the fretboard looks a little wide on the bass-side of the body section - this will be sanded down a touch now that the final neck transition has been finished I've still got quite a bit of 'fit and function' tweaking to do, but I should be able to get onto the finishing sometime next week

I looking good, Andrew

Your routing is very clean. Any particular steps taken or just standard router bits / techniques?

I love the body carve and features @2.5itim . Can't wait to see how it's going to turn out as a finished instrument

There are some jaw-droppingly beautiful builds going on here! Rarely have I seen such a large amount of skill exhibited in such a small space!!

Very clean and neat routing and carve. Love that top wood, too

There are some very nice looking builds here. Like you, I love the lines of the double cut juniors and your two have been done wonderfully well. I assume you wire them up '50s style. I did a finishing job on one for myself recently and wired it up that way for the first time. I am staggered at the tonal differences on tap just with those two knobs! Acoustic to jazz to crunch to screaming with no pedals and without going anywhere near the amp controls! I have no idea what's going on electronically and how just a couple of wires soldered in slightly different positions can make so much difference, but the effect....simply wonderful

Well, I find the only way to choose between these fabulous builds is to simply say, 'which one would I most like to take home with me?'. The answer is, of course, a resounding 'ALL OF THEM!!!!!!' If forced to choose...it would have to be @Skyjerk 's 22 Special. Although it is a relatively 'standard' style, it is simply divine. THAT is the single cut I would want, pretty much above all others (except, I suppose, the multi-million $ ones ) Splendid entries - all of them. Well done, folks.

My pet hate is the complete modern interchangeability of there and their and your and you're... I used to get flogged to an inch of my life by a flailing bunch of rhubarb sticks for less at school. (Or should that be 'with a bunch of...'?)

I'm having a go at trying to be modern, hip and happening (See? Already doesn't work) and abandon all correct grammar, spelling and punctuation in my posts. I are sori if it implyd yu wuz d-seesd Prostheta WILL be proud of me And yes...it looks stellar.

Still not sure how the string is attached to the pulley, but it certainly looks right that the string would emerge from the bottom of it and then up to the saddle, @curtisa . Interesting that the tightening / loosening is then back to front...as you say, a bit counter-intuitive.

Hi, @Norris It's taken me a while to get round to this, but this was the Manchester Tech butterscotch job I did: It worked fairly well. Sanding sealer, then base colour coat and then the tinted 'clear'. In real life, it's a bit lighter than these pics.

Got the fretboard glued while the neck was still squared off. @Prostheta would be proud of me - full use of cauls top and bottom for the clamping!: Then today my favourite bit - the neck carve. I use mainly a cabinet scraper but take the corners off with a spokeshave and rough it out with a micro-plane bade (and gloves ) I'd previously made some plasticard templates from profiles taken from the new owner's favourite bass: Then carved the volute using pretty much every hand tool I have in my workshop plus a few borrowed from neighbours, local building sites and unsuspecting members of the public...

Love that veneer! The whole look is conversation stoppingly good The photo of the hawk is also publication standard....

Well, to be fair, it's a £3 bottle of ink, a £1 micro-fibre cloth AND £2 worth of varnish and thinners .... I don't skimp, I'll have you know I suppose my surprise was that, with carriage (it is treated as carriage of hazardous materials due to new transport regs and put onto 'specialist' couriers) it came to £100 just for one £200 build...

Delighted to hear your news, Scott I'm sure the new baby is beautiful and you have achieved a double joy - because the new baby in your workshop simply surpasses beauty. I once sold a veneered bass to a Nepalese buddhist who played in a heavy metal band (niche market). He told me that he had been 'spiritually drawn to that bass'. I thought he must be some sort of nutter. Now, looking at your build, I realise he was utterly sane....

Hi, Norris I used their stuff for a butterscotch tele last year...I'll post a shot when I get onto the desktop. It worked well but was frighteningly expensive compared to my normal methods...

I haven't got my head around it yet. I have a photo of the Ric that the prospective owner used to play and what he wants to emulate. For the sake of a couple of spray cans, I'll see how nitro from a UK supplier Manchester Guitar Tech fares...you start with an Olympic-ish White and then overspray with a yellowish tinted clear. I'll also look at car colours - there are some fiat and European ford colours that are in the right spectrum, again maybe with a tinted overspray. I'm starting to look at options while I am still a way off the finishing stage....

I'll be watching this one with great interest @curtisa

Hijack away, folks . And Yes (pun utterly intended) - the cream will try to emulate the colour of the owner's 'one that got away' Ric.

Reasonable amount of progress on this. Got the back wings glued and lightening chambers, etc routed: Then the top glued on and the edges rounded. The fretboard isn't glued yet: For the headstock, I attached a couple of wings cut from the neck excess and then went for a cutout to try to give a passing nod to aspects of the body shape: Here is what it is starting to look like: The mahogany is going to be painted solid cream. The neck, including body section, left natural and the headstock will be stained a little darker with a central cream stripe and a few swifts

Nice work . I don't rout head stocks anymore...too many 'incidents' . I cut close with a bandsaw and then finish off with micro-plane rasps. Still has its downsides but at least disaster happens in slow motion rather than in a nano-second

The figured mahogany for my recent EB-3ish bass build was just the same...if anything worse. It had been sitting in my dry but cool shed for some time and was pretty flat. I brought it in to start working on it and the following day it was like yours. I popped a plywood board over it as a caul and clamped it completely flat for a couple of days, and reflattened after each process (squaring up joints, gluing the two halves etc,) until it was ready to glue on

Very classy build indeed. Excellent stuff!