a2k

Yep! Got here a year ago. It's a tiny installation but a neat spot with a great location for exploring Japan. Too bad you didn't get to come here, but it's never too late - lots of ex-military come back as civilians (and LOTS of them come from Florida!).

Thanks for all of the comments, tips, and the discussion about tables. Makes sense - thanks. One of the other things (there are many) I'm currently pondering late into the night is how much the surface of the neck needs to stick above the body. I guess I need to bring my fingerboard down to 1/4", apply the radius, and then measure the fingerboard edge thickness so I can calculate how thick the neck needs to be (by subtracting the thickness of the fingerboard from the height of the bridge). Japan is a mecca for gear heads of all types! What I find funny is how many stores there are here packed with amazing guitars and basses, yet hardly have an amp in sight. The Carl Thompsons are works of art - I was too in awe of them to touch them, though I'm sure the store would have let me. My 3 year old twins have taken to looking at basses with me and providing their thoughts on what I should make. They have established a clear preference for Carl Thompson rainbow style basses. I'm afraid they are going to be disappointed when they see what I'm working on (just as their feedback of a recent gig was "the band was too loud! You need to be more quiet so we can talk to people."). Thanks for the glossy paper/iron on tip - I need to make templates for the cavity, headstock, and pickups still so I will give it a try. The benches are very nice, as is the whole shop. Yes, it is in Japan (on a U.S. Army Base). Thanks for the response. I came across this video showing someone using a scroll saw to cut out the cavity cover. Looks pretty straightforward... if the shop has a scroll saw tucked away somewhere (I'll find out on Wednesday). If there's no scroll saw, I'll use a piece of scrap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsJwpBifdhQ Sounds like the compound radius may be more trouble than it's worth. I've got a few Warmoth necks with a 10" radius and my main bass is a G&L L-2000 with a 9.5" radius, so I'll probably go with a single 10" radius fingerboard. Up next is glueing the neck and hopefully hunting down a scroll saw to cut out the cavity cover. The shop is closed until Wednesday and it's killing me! Aaron

I'm going to say something you all already know: boy is this fun. Outside of the shop, life is full of distractions, once I step inside the only thing on my mind is the task at hand. It's really nice to be in the zone for a few hours, and have something tangible - no matter how small - to show for the day's effort. Something else I discovered yesterday: running walnut through a planer may be one of my favorite things to do ever. Rough boards go in, and out comes something absolutely beautiful. My next project is going to have more walnut. Anyway, here's a run down of yesterday's efforts... The goal of the day was to make some final decisions on how to use the wood I received and to prep it for glueing. First, I spent a little time on the computer planning out the neck wood. I started with three long pieces of maple and two of walnut and needed to decide how to lay them out. I wanted to make sure the edges of the neck are maple all the way so I was really working with some options on what to do in the center. Here are the options I mocked up (you'll get to see which I chose further down): After that I headed into the shop. Once there, I started by seeing if I could resaw my figured maple to have enough for front and back with some extra. I started by planing down the rough sides of the maple just to see how much I really had to work with. Here's an action shot. After planing the maple was still almost an inch thick so I set up a fence and fired up the band saw. At first pass, the band saw was totally unable to cut into the maple, so I narrowed down the board a bit and had a fresh blade put on (one of the great things about using the "company" wood shop is that they provide the blades and swap them out for you on request). With the fresh blade on, I was able to make some progress and ended up turning one board into four book-matched pieces. Mission accomplished! Here's the wood I plan on using for the front (with some water on it to show the figure): And the back: Next up, I got to work on the neck boards to get the pieces set to match the option I chose from my mock-ups. Here's the walnut after planing (again, my new favorite pastime). It's a shame this grain is just going to be glued together. And finally, all of the pieces stacked together in their positions: With a little imagination, I can see it starting to come together. The pieces are all now stacked in storage until next Wednesday when I'll be able to get back into the shop and begin glueing. So, a few questions... I'd like to cut electronics compartment cover from the maple that I'll be using on the back so the grain matches. Any tips on how to get this cut out? Is there a way to open up a slot to fit a jig saw in somehow, or some other technique that doesn't require starting at the edge? Also, is 1/4" maple strong enough on it's own, or should I reinforce it? Second, as you can see from the picture above I haven't touched the fingerboard wood yet. I need to figure out how thin to take it was this stage (before radiusing it). I've read (in my handy copy of "Building Electric Guitars") that the fingerboard should end up with the fingerboard 1/4" thick. I take it that's at the thinner ends? Any rule of thumb on how thick I should go before radiusing? And as long as I'm asking about the fingerboard, I've been laying in bed at night pondering if and how to do a compound radius. The strings will be 1 3/4 wide at nut at 3" at bridge so there's a pretty big increase. Any general guidance on if a compound radius is a good idea for this, and if so, what radiuses to use? Thanks for following along and the help! Aaron

Yeah it is. I love how the jazzmaster shape looks with that lacewood top.

Thanks Scott. I'll plane down the rough sides today and see how much I have left. The maple is heavy so I definitely don't want to go too thick.

Two updates today. First, I updated my print out with details on the fingerboard, glued it onto some 3/4" mdf (using 3M Super 77 which is conveniently sold under the same name here in Japan - thanks KnightroExpress!), and cut out the template outline. It brought back flashbacks from the hours and hours I spent with a jigsaw in high school making skateboard ramps. I need to do a little sanding but overall I'm happy with this first step and it felt great to get started. I'm sure pictures of a template in-progress are exciting to approximately nobody, but just in case, here's an in-progress shot (I used this fence as a guide to get the fingerboard cut straight) and the final template. Second, got the wood. I felt like a kid on Christmas tearing open the packaging to see what was inside. Here's a shot of the maple with one half wet to get an idea of what the figure looks like (note that it was already raining so there are some rain drops on the right size): Looks good. The pieces are 2x as long as I need and also 3/4" thick. I don't plan on carving this, so I'm wondering what thickness I should go for. Any guidance here? It'd be awesome if I could split one of the pieces to use for the front and back and save the other piece for a future project, though the sides not pictured are pretty rough. Tomorrow I'm gonna play with glue!

Thanks. I sure hope so! There should maple enough to cover the front and back or (two fronts). Here's the wood I've got coming (with the dimensions in mm and price in ¥): Neck Maple \1,440.-X 3--- \4,320.- Walnut \1,910.-X 2--- \3,820.-Fingerboard Rosewood(indonesian) \1,670.-Body Left 559 X 127 X 45(mm) Mahogany(African) \4,120.-Body Right 458 X 127 X 45(mm) Mahogany(African) \2,580.-Body Top Left and Right1300 X 250 X 40(mm)→1300 X 250 X 19(mm) Curly Maple \5,500.-X 2--- \11,000.- For those that are curious about wood costs in Japan, the total was ¥32,211 (about $270) including tax and delivery.

Thanks! Sounds like just glueing on with spray glue is the way to go. Exploring Shinkiba really was amazing. I'll tell you that if you ever visit Tokyo and go to Shinkiba, you will be well off the tourist track. Everyone there was pretty shocked to see me but also 99% patient, willing to help, and generally curious as to what the heck I was doing there. I did go into one place that seemed like the jackpot of amazing wood, but they wouldn't sell to me and politely said the sold to "members only". Sometimes around here "members only" is a polite way of saying "we don't want to deal with foreigners" (bars that don't want foreign customers will use that line when you walk in), but who knows - maybe they have a "wood of the month" club or something. If you make it to Tokyo, definitely spend some time in Ochanomizu as well. It's mind blowing what you will see there - guitars in every size, shape, vintage, and price point. I went into one store that had more left-handed basses priced above $2k than your average guitar center has basses in total. Here's a shot I took at one of the smaller shops (Japanese Sugi basses in the front, a few Carl Thompson's peeking out of the back). From here on out, this thread is going to be mostly just me chipping away (hopefully only figuratively) on my project. But if anybody has a question about Tokyo/Japan, I'm happy to do my best to answer. The wood shop is closed on Monday and Tuesday. I plan on walking in there on Wednesday with my MDF, print out, and a can of spray glue to get started.

We packed up and moved from Seattle to the outskirts of Tokyo a year ago for my wife's job (she works for the U.S. government). I only brought my 4 string bass with me. A trip to Tokyo's musical instrument district, Ochanomizu, one afternoon got me thinking about playing a 5 string again. I've got almost free access to an amazing wood shop through my wife's work so here I am at the beginning of the journey to build a bass. The plan is to make a "fairly standard" 34" scale neck-through 5 string inspired heavily by a Japanese maker called STR's LS series. I'm gonna have lots of questions. Figured I'd do my best to document the process here and hopefully get some tips, feedback, and answers along the way. Here's what I've done so far: 1. Bought some wood. This was actually harder than it sounds. I got it in my head that I wanted to buy the wood locally instead of having it shipped. My first stops were to the spots the wood shop recommended: a dizzying hobby/lifestyle shop called "Tokyu Hands" and the local home depot-esque home supply stores, but none of them had good hardwoods big enough to be useful. So my second stop was to get on the train and head into a neighborhood in Tokyo called Shinkiba. Those of you that have spent time in Tokyo know that for some reason all the shops in a certain category tend to cluster together. So Ochanomizu has blocks and blocks of guitar shops stacked 6 stories high, Jimbocho is packed with stores selling skis and snowboards, Akihabara is jammed with electronics stores. So it only makes sense that there'd be a neighborhood full of wood stores. "Shinkiba" translates to literally mean "new wood place" so it seems like a promising spot. Here's what I saw when I got off the train: And then when I got out onto the street, I found this statue: In between the buildings, I found hints of what they contained. This was not a place for retail shoppers though - just blocks and blocks of warehouses. I got up the nerve to just start knocking on doors and walking into talk to people. Keep in mind my Japanese is just below "basic caveman" level. Eventually I cam across a guy who took my upstairs from his normal SPF supply warehouse and showed me this: If you want to build a table, he's got you covered. But prices were as big as the pieces so he didn't have anything for me. He did dig up a beautiful piece of ebony that could be sliced to make 20 or more fingerboards, but it was about $300. Here are some of the table tops: Finally, I came across a small spot run by two older guys. One of them spoke some English and was a bass player! I showed him a drawing of what I needed. He had everything but a good piece of figured maple for the top. He took my email address and told me he'd call some friends and see what he could find. The next day I got an email with some photos of the maple and some options for the rest of the wood. I honestly don't know enough to tell if that piece is fantastic or junk from that photo (any idea?), but I went ahead wired them the $$$ (most transactions in Japan are via cash, so I had to take a stack of cash to the local bank and transfer it into his account). The wood will be delivered by local courier service to me tomorrow. 2. Made a drawing I used one of the tips on the site here to enlarge a photo of the bass I'm using as "inspiration" to actual size. I made a few tweaks to it and then created a full size mock up by printing out a bunch of 8.5x11 sheets and taping them together. Here's the mock-up and a picture of the papers taped together (without the final headstock shape). 3. Ordered a bunch of hardware I went onto Amazon and bought the tuners, bridge, pickups, electronics, nut, strings, strap locks, and fret wire, everything else I thought I'd need. Thanks to the wonders of Amazon Prime and military post, it all arrived to me in Japan in about 10 days with free shipping. I figured having all of the materials will be helpful as I get going. Up next: First, I need to finalize the neck/fingerboard layout on my mock up to make sure the widths are correct for the bridge, nut, and pickups I'm using. Then, I'm thinking that I'll make a 3/4" MDF template from the print out to finalize the shape and make sure everything works out before I start messing with the wood. Any easy way to get the layout from the print-out onto the MDF? In all of the photos I've seen that step doesn't get captured. I was thinking I might just glue the printout to it. After that, I'll start planing and gluing. I can't wait to get started - I still feel a bit like a poser talking about building a bass but not actually doing any of the real work, but I understand that given how little I know, I need to invest some time in planning so I don't screw things up too much. Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I'm going to have lots of questions and appreciate any thoughts, feedback, or tips along the way. Thanks! Aaron