a2k

I got some Watco Danish Oil off Amazon Japan. And for some reason, U.S. Amazon will ship certain sizes of Tru Oil (shhh!). I also found some varnish at Tokyu Hands of all places. I hadn't thought about Yahoo Auctions for wood. I just took a look - that's a rabbit hole I could lose a lot of time in! Anyway, we can talk about all of that offline. The bass is looking great!

Japan builders untie! err... unite! Those big router bits scare the cr@p out of me. I've started using a 1/4" and 1/2" long bit and just inching my way up the side of the wood a little at a time. Where are you buying your finishing materials? I haven't had much luck at Unidy or Vivahome.

Long tenon it is. I'm gonna lose that dongle I added to the body template and glue on a heel with a proper tenon. Besides being dongle-less, it should make rough carving the heel much easier. So far, I've prepped and glued the body blanks. Doesn't look like much progress, but it feels like it! Action shots: Here's the wood I started with - curly maple and walnut. I squared it all up with the planer and table saw... And then resewed it with the big bad band saw... Glued up the two bodies... Then it went through the thickness sander and I traced the template outlines purely for fun. These will actually be the backs of the lil' mini-basses. I love how that walnut looks. Too bad it's going to have maple hiding half of it (at 1 1/4" it's too thin to go without a top), but at least the back will be visible. Last week I played hooky and headed into downtown Tokyo with a friend to check out a crazy immersive virtual reality game. Think Star Trek holo-deck with zombies and you've got a pretty good idea of what this was. Mind bending. It also meant no shop time for the week. Here's a shot before we headed into the holo-deck: This week my plan is to get the bodies cut out and the chambers routed. If I have more time, I'll get the tops glued together (I book matched the maple) and rough cut so they are ready to glue on. I also ordered all of the hardware, so I've been getting daily care packages with random guitar parts in them. Fun fun!

Haven't already cut the body. I rough cut a template today. I think the single-cut one is going to work okay. For the double-cut one, I left a heel tab that sticks out quite a bit further than my drawing. The top edge of the pickup is about 1" from the edge of the guitar (if there is no heel extension).

Here's what's currently keeping me up at night: I'm prepping the body blanks and getting ready to cut the outline shape. The plan is to do set neck mades with existing neck scraps. They are pretty thin - 3/4". So when I set them in, they won't be deep enough to go under the neck pickup. That's going to mean there won't be much glue surface area. Seems risky to me. The normal design is to use a thicker piece of wood for the neck and have a heel that sets the neck in deeper into the body. One option is to glue some additional wood to the base of the neck that could create a heel. The other option is to leave a semicircle of wood coming out from the body and have it become the body. I'm thinking the semicircle option is better because there's one less glue line to worry about. Here's a quick side view drawing of what I'm talking about (the top shows the problem, the bottom shows the solution): And here's a really bad drawing of what this looks like from the back. Again, top shows the problem, bottom shows the solution. Thoughts? Is this a viable solution? Or should I scrap the plans to use the scraps and go get some new wood for the necks? Thanks for the input! Aaron

I gotta give you credit for keeping an open mind and gently suggesting I string up a 2x4 with 25" scale to see how crazy I was before embarking on a suicide mission.

Just to clear one thing up... A few years ago a snowboard company called Libtech introduced their "Narrow Ass Snowboards". They sold them in pairs for people who wanted to affix one to each foot. You might say that this approach has inspired my "short scale piccolo bass" design.

Busted! 25" scale, 6 strings, tuned EADGBE... How are you going to tune the piccolo bass you're working on? I've seen people just string a regular scale 4 string like the top 4 of a 6 string bass (ADGC) - Victor Wooten often plays a bass tuned that way for his solo stuff.

Thanks Curtisa! I should have been more clear in my pickup sound request. By "distinct" I mean "different from each other". Let's say I'm looking for one to sound more like Duane Allman and the other to sound more like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Does that help?

Time for my next project! I'm going make a set of guitars for some of the guys I play with (shhh! it's a surprise!). I'll be heading into the shop this afternoon to start prepping the wood. Here's the general plan: Body: I'm using a PRS McCarty template that I plan on modifying a little bit. Wood will be chambered walnut with flame maple tops. One is going to be carved, the other rounded over with an f-hole. Neck: 25" scale, ebony fretboard w. 12" radius. I'll use some leftover wood from my last two builds for the necks. One is a 7 piece walnut/maple sandwich, other is a three piece flame maple/walnut sandwich. The necks are going to be set in. Hardware: I plan on using hipshot tuners and bridge (I've had good luck with them on the basses) Electronics: Humbuckers, TBD. I'd like to have a volume knob, tone knob, and selector switch. Bonus points if I can have a knob that pulls to switch the pups to single coil. Now, some initial questions: First, the pick-ups. I am clueless to the world of guitar pups. I want the guitars to sound distinct and I think this is where I can vary things. Any suggestions of some different humbuckers I can use to get some tonal variety? Next, the pots. My bass pickups came with all of the pots I need. I assume with guitars I need to order them separately. Are there standard tone/volume pots and switches, or do they need to be matched with the pickups? Any guidance here is much appreciated! Thanks!

The week before Christmas, I played in a house band for an open jam. These are fun gigs - you never know who or what is going to show up. A few bassists dropped by without instruments and I ended up in the audience watching other musicians play the two basses I'd built. Honestly, I was a little nervous handing over the instruments because it opens me up to other players' opinions. We all think our babies are beautiful, but the truth can be painful. Standing back in the audience, listening to other people play the instruments I'd built, I quickly felt my nervousness disappear . It was magical to see and hear music being created, by other people, on instruments I'd made. Playing my own instruments is fantastic, but seeing someone else play my instruments was next level fantastic. Hard to explain... I think it's because it made me aware that I'd made something real and separate to myself. I imagine many of you know what I'm talking about. Of course, it didn't hurt that people only had kind words to say about the basses... Action shot (key detail - that's not me playing the bass!): Now, it's time to wrap up this build thread (I'm ready to get going on the next!) EMG sent me the replacement pot, I got it installed, and everything is pretty much dialed. I'm really happy with how the bass plays and sounds. I like the feel of the smaller, more vintage frets combined with a 16" radius fretboard. Tone wise, the bass sounds very "natural" with good articulation and a full, but not boomy, sound. One pickup and one tone knob is a nice change from my previous build with fancy pants modern electronics. I'm developing my building skills and while this build isn't perfect (see my three issues above), it's more representative of where I want to be as a builder. I read every build thread on this forum and the ones that generally impress me the most are the deceptively simple ones where the little details and overall quality really shine through and doesn't hide behind fancy materials or design. Following a traditional design (P-bass) was the right second build for me - it got me focusing on the basics that I had a hard time paying attention to the first time around. Here are a few more pics of the finished product: I'll see if I can get a video recorded of the instrument in the next few days. In the meantime, onto the next build! Thanks to everyone who followed along and participated in this build thread. I really appreciate your support! Aaron

I just finished a build with a one piece maple neck - no ripping and flipping. So far so good. I did let the wood sit indoors for several weeks before using it and it seems to be holding steady. Of course, I haven't made it through a few season changes yet...

This makes me want to try some more inlaying on my next build. Do you just move the Dremel freehand through the lines you scribed? And what bit are you using? Thanks for all of the idea sharing in this thread!

Thanks Curtisa - I appreciate the offer. EMG actually got back to me yesterday with a very nice email - they're sending a replacement pot my way. I probably would have gotten a faster response from them if I called. I'm traveling until 12/1 and hopefully the pot will be waiting for me when I get back.

Welcome! Sounds like you are coming into this with a solid foundation. I look forward to following along.

Yeah, I think I have a pretty good handle on the basic workflow. Considering my thinking-time to working-time ratio (about 10:1), you could say that I'm taking a "very strategic" approach. My #1 goal of this build was to improve my skills on the basic woodworking and dialing in the overall quality and in that I think I was successful. The Koi was a pretty ambitious first bass, and while it plays well and sounds good, there are some rough edges if you look too closely. This second build is a big step up in quality. Still some rough edges, but the overall detail work feels more high end. Playing tolerances are pretty dialed - low action, clean tone, very good feel. There are three very specific issues I've got with the bass: It's heavy. I haven't weighed it so I can't tell you how heavy, and it's still totally playable, but it is heavy. This is 100% a factor of the wood - I used white ash because I couldn't get swamp ash. I've got some nice light walnut for the next build, and I'm planning on trying my hand at chambering. The E string doesn't break straight across the nut. It's got a slight angle. I don't know if the problem was in the template or in mis-drilling. Gotta sort that out, and come up with some quality control in the future. I might even pencil in the string lines onto the neck while working just to make sure I'm aware of string placement through the build. The transition from fingerboard to headstock is a little uneven. I ended up doing it with a round file by hand and the process didn't create an even transition. I don't know if anyone else would ever notice, but it really really bugs me. I don't have a better solution (besides adding a headstock angle, which I prefer anyway because string trees also bother me). Still no reply from EMG on getting the bad tone pot replaced...

Thanks guys! I'm not sure I've hit my stride yet, but I definitely have gained a deeper understanding now that I'm two builds in. I hadn't seen the Ibanez BSB before, but after a Google search, yes, that is definitely similar. I'm starting the planning on the two guitars - I'm going for a theme/variation using the same general shape but one with a single-cut and very different edges (one rounded over, the other carved) so they feel like different designs. I'll create a new thread for that in a bit.

I've got a working bass! Plays great, looks great, sounds great. Besides a problem with the tone pot and a busted screw (that I will fix when replacing the pot), it's just about there. I'm really happy with how the bass plays and sounds - the fingerboard radiusing and neck carve turned out really well and the instrument feels great. And I'm happy with how the finish came out. I spent just about a month fretting over the finish. I just couldn't get the brown stain right. It literally affected my mood for days at a time. I think it's because I'd drifted from what I originally wanted and in my gut, I still wanted the original plan. So I sanded back the brown, put a light honey wash on the bass, and then blue. The resulting depth of color is hard to photograph - imagine an old copper penny that has turned blue-green. It fits the pick guard, flamed maple neck, and birdseye fingerboard much better than the brown did. Anyway, some pics: I've contacted EMG about the bad tone pot - it just didn't work out of the box (if you pull on it, it engages, which leads me to believe that there's something not connected properly internally). Hopefully they will replace it without too much hassle. And one of the pick guard screws broke when putting it in (note to self: next don't skimp on the screws!) - I'll pull it and replace it when I replace the pot. I'm not calling this done quite yet, but it's time to start working on the next project. The plan is to make a set of guitars for the guys in my band. They keep joking about when I'll be done with their new guitars, so I figured I'd go ahead and build them (shhh!!! don't tell them - it's a surprise). I know fairly little about guitars (they're just small basses, right?) so expect lots of basic questions.

Good idea, thanks for the top. I should probably do more thorough work with test samples, taking the sample to completion instead of just through the "next step". On the plus side, all of the dying/sanding/re-dying has accented the grain nicely.

+1! I've really dug the wood choices and clean aesthetic of the bass builds you've shared recently.

Amazing how relaxing this is, isn't it? For me, at least, there are two big elements that make this so rewarding (besides the obvious of ending up with an instrument made with your own hands). The first is it requires total concentration, which means silencing all of the millions of little things pulling for my attention from the back of my mind. There's no stopping to check a text message or run through my mental to-do list when a router bit is spinning. And the second, which I realized recently, is that this is a rare thing where the outcome is 100% in my control. I decide what to make, I decide how to make it, I decide when it's done. If I don't like it, I can change it, redo it, scrap it. Anyway, the guitar looks great. I hope you are enjoying it, playing the hell out of it, and that you make some more.

No pictures today - I just stopped by to vent my frustration on the finishing process. I've dyed four times and sanded off the dye three times so far because I haven't been able to get the results I wanted. Finishing is tough. First time, the color wasn't quite right. Second time, when I sanded back the grain filler, it left the color really blotchy. Third time, the color wasn't even close to right. It's amazing how much not liking the way the finish is looking has effected my entire world view - I'm not looking for perfect, but I am unable to live with the wrong shade of brown. It's even hard to go to sleep at night with a color I don't like on the bass. I had drifted away from the original idea of this project with the belief that the wood was guiding me to a different place. But when I got to that different place, I didn't like it. To quote myself from my first post in this thread: So the fourth time, I'm going back to my plan and doing something completely different than the previous three. It's gonna be a little bit aggressive, biting, and (hopefully) will inspire a little rocking out... Things are currently drying, pictures to come.

That wenge/maple fingerboard is very cool! Can you feel the difference between the woods under your fingers (in other words, do you think it will be noticeable while playing)?

I haven't been good at staying up to date with my documentation here, but I have been making some progress. A few highlights I had fun with lasers! Making a good pick guard is the hardest part It's not finished until it's finished. Photoz... Got all of the holes in drilled to mount the pick guard. So far so good... Except when I went to drill the jack hole, this happened: Fortunately it split along the grain and I was able to glue it back. So far it's holding well. Side dots installed. Those things are TINY! Sanding until my arms are numb... Frets in place. I saw those cool neck pillows you can get, but a bag of beans seems to work pretty well. Plus after the frets are in, I can use them to make some chili. Now, on to the lasers! Turns out the wood shop has a laser engraver upstairs. So I sent over a few files and had them engrave the headstock. I think it's a nice touch, and I like the irony that the only non hand made think is the phrase "hand made" on the back of the headstock. Now I'm playing with stain. Got a coat on the body. I need to get a sealer so I can fill the grain with a dark dark dark brown. I also plan on making the pick guard darker to get more contrast. And finally, the neck with it's first coat of truoil. Amazing how that stuff pops out the figure in the wood. I hope the one piece neck is stable - I really like the way it's turning out aesthetically. That's the news for now. Work has me heading back to the States for a week starting tomorrow. I'm going to resist the temptation of bringing some wood sealer back with me, and instead try to find some locally when I get back. I'm excited to play this bass!

The binding on that V really makes the shape pop. That's gonna be one cool guitar.