a2k

Bingo! After dreaming up who-knows-what kind of crazy potential problems that could be causing this, the simplest solution prevailed. The b string was in fact not seated right in the bridge. The ball at the end was wedged in the slot on the top of where the string drops in instead of being pulled all the way in. The result was instead of breaking at the saddle, the string just went across it. This is what was causing all of those false harmonics. Literally a 5-second solution. Thanks!

I've ordered a leveling beam, crowning file, and some fret polishing supplies. Probably should have picked these up long ago... In the meantime, I've got just a few more things to complete (besides a proper setup) before I can call this build "done". The first is getting a logo on the headstock. I turns out there's a laser cutter/engraver sitting unused upstairs from the wood shop just waiting patiently for me to find it! Couldn't get the bass into the laser engraver. So instead I'm going to have it cut the logo out of a small piece of wood. I'm going to get two cut out and try applying urushi to one to see if I can get a clean, level finish. Then I'll glue it on. I'm assuming CA glue is the way to go because it's less messy, though wood glue is probably more secure. Thoughts on the best way to glue a wooden logo cutout onto an otherwise finished headstock? The second is the B string - this might improve once the frets are level and the setup is finished, but right now I'm a little underwhelmed by the tone and articulation. Notes on the string (even higher up) are more overtone than root tone. It might be the string (I've gotten bad strings before) or the gauge, but I worry it might be something else. Could the nut slot be causing this somehow? Perhaps it isn't tight enough, though it seems snug. Thoughts here? Thanks!

Thanks guys. I rocked the frets. Found some little clicks and some big clicks. Gave'm all a few taps until the clicking stopped. Strung it back up and 90% of the buzz is gone now. Overall, it plays pretty well and honestly I've played plenty of gigs with basses that have more buzz than this one. I want every note to be crystal clear though - I'm sure you know how it is. Guess I'd better order some fret leveling and crowning tools...

HOLY CRAP I BUILT MYSELF A NEW BASS!!! Here's a picture of my new instrument: I hooked everything up yesterday, plugged it in, and sound came out! The instrument sounds great - exactly as I'd hoped: full voiced yet articulate and lively, with a ton of flexibility thanks to the EMG preamp. It's truly a rush to get to hear the instrument that I've been working on for so long finally sing. It plays well too... up to the 11th fret. After that, things start to get troublesome. Despite my excitement, the upper half of the fretboard definitely needs some work. Almost half the notes from fret 12 up to 24 buzz, and a few entirely fret out on the next fret. It's fret by fret. So far, all I've done is hammer in the frets and run a straight edge over them to make sure they seem straight. I haven't done any sort of leveling, so some issues are expected but I don't really know how close/far I am. Right now, the truss rod is totally loose. If I hold down the 1st and 18th fret, there's some relief in the neck. Without a gauge, I'm eyeballing that it "looks about right". When I hold down the 12th and 24th fret, the strings are almost touching - too close? Will the string tension add more bend to the neck over time? I've got the bridge saddles raising up a bit (when they are all the way down, the strings just lay on the frets). The action actually feels good - I'm not a featherweight player and I like a bit of action, so getting things super close is not my goal. But obviously I do want the upper half of the fretboard to be playable and I'd like to avoid taking the action much higher if possible. It really seems like there are just a few frets that need to be hammered in better (or maybe even glued in if they are popping up a little). Is that appropriate at this point? Or is it better to do a proper leveling? Other recommended next steps & fixes? I appreciate all of your help. Thanks! Aaron

I cleaned out my storage from the shop last week. Realizing that I'd suddenly come to the end of the heavy cutting phase of this project was bittersweet. Here's a shot of the scraps and other misc. stuff I took home for the wood bank. Now I'm on to finishing. I did three passes of wetting the wood to raise it, letting it dry, and then sanding it smooth. By the third pass it hardly fuzzed up. I'm now on my fourth (and possibly final) coat of danish oil. It's amazing how it transforms the wood. During the dark days of the mahogany tear out, I was swearing that I'd never use that horrible wood again. I believe I angrily called it "wood for old-people furniture" at some point. I take back anything bad I may have said about mahogany. Once finished, mahogany is a magical, beautiful, marvelous wood that is fit for unicorn and dragon furniture, and I hope to be lucky enough to work with it again someday. I've been following the "saturate the wood with oil for 20 minutes, then wipe off" process. Here's a side-by-side comparison of after wiping off the 4th coat with how it looked before finishing. Striking! Up next, I need to clean up the ends of the frets, re-check that the frets are all seated well, and then put the thing together and see what I've got.

It looks great! I only saw the neck pocket gap on the full shot because I knew to look for it. That said, now that you know you can bolt it on square, I think it'd be cool to turn the gap into a design detail somehow. Perhaps bend a thin layer of contrasting wood around the pocket or something? For the back of the neck, I'd tried some Watco "Natural" Danish Oil (it's #W-15) on a sample of my maple and it added almost no color. That might be an option. I'm using #w-1, which is light but still adds quite a bit of amber. I'm about to post a before/after photo on my build thread so check there for details. I've got a sample of the W-1 around somewhere - let me know if you want to see it and I'll post a picture. Your high action issue caused me quite a bit of lost sleep over the weekend. I (gulp) didn't do a test string on my bass before finishing and because it's a neck through, there's no shimming. Hopefully the truss rod does it's job.

I'm with you on this. No interest in wasting effort and money on junk. The target I'm working toward is a quality goal, not a price point. Price and quality don't always go hand-in-hand. I don't have any experience with the low-cost stuff and was hoping there are some good alternatives, especially for the parts that cost > $50 (bridge, electronics, tuners). I'd hate to tell my kids "sorry, I can't help with your college, but I sure did build some really nice basses while you were growing up!" It sounds like the consensus is for the 'simpler' stuff like knobs, screws, plates, etc. there are some options to save a few bucks, But skimping on the critical load-bearing, tone-affecting, and otherwise playability impacting parts is risky. @curtisa's summary on the second post seems really helpful. I do plan on doing a little hands-on research. I'll probably stay away from the $7 bridges, but there may be some alternatives to the $90 bridges. If I figure anything out, I'll share it here.

This is what really scares me... It's bizarre that a nation of immigrants can be so anti-immigration.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and comments. I was hoping (but not expecting) to hear "yeah, those $7 bridges and pickups are amazing!". I'm tempted to order a few cheap parts just to inspect them - if I do I'll report back. Having someone else pay for parts is a good solution! I'm not ready to build for others yet, but that's something I'd like to work toward. Here are the big ticket items that I ordered: Single hipshot HB6Y Ultralite Tuner (Black): $24.95 All Parts Black Football Backplate: $12.01 Graph Tech Black Tusq XL Blank Nut: $11.39 Set of 4 Hipshot HB6Y Ultralite Tuner: $79.99 Schaller Straplocks: $18.95 EMG BQS Preamp: $133 EMG J5 Pickup Set: $159 Bitterroot Truss Rod: $10.99 Hipshot A-Style 5-string Bass Bridge, Black: $87.95 4x Black Metal Dome Knobs: $32 1x Black Concentric Stacked Knob: $13.50 Fret wire, 8': $13.12 Shipping costs aren't included (I was able to get free shipping on some - but not all - of the stuff that came via Amazon). I'm also not including various things I purchased but decided not to use (stainless steel fretwire, for example). I didn't always search far and wide for the best price, but I don't think I significantly overpaid on any of the bigger ticket items (I do question my decision to buy knobs at $8 each). I know it's a lot of work to go through this item by item, but I'd be very interested in hearing about alternative material options, vendors, or even design strategies that would have resulted in a lower cost build. And again, I don't regret any of the material decisions from this current build. But if there's a way to get a similar result for less $$$ (or cut corners in places that really don't affect the end product), I'm all for it. Thanks again! Aaron

I recommend staying clear of any American news media at least until after the election is over.

For my current/first build, I went all in. EMG active preamp, hipshot bridge and tuners, graphteq tusq nut, schaller strap locks, etc. All in, I dropped easily $600 on parts before I even got any wood. After wood, random router bits, a whole array of finishing options I'm not going to use, and other stuff, I'm easily in over $1000. I don't regret it - I'm really happy with how the build is turning out, I'm learning a ton, and this is a bass I hope to play. But if this is going to be sustainable, I need to trim down the costs on future builds. Last night while planning out my next project, I was poking around Amazon.com to price hardware. I started to notice that there are quite a few cheap alternatives to the brand names they sell. For example... I could get this hipshot bridge for $60, or two of these musiclily bridges for for $14.63, Or these hipshot tuners for $89, vs these YMC tuners for $18.59. There are cheap alternatives for pickups (a $7 p-bass pickup?!?), knobs, jack plates... you name it. I don't want junk, but I also don't want to pay a premium for a brand name. Anybody have experience with these low cost options? Are there certain parts where going cheap is okay, while others where it's a no-no? Are there certain cheap brands people have had good luck with? Any other ideas on how to keep costs down without sacrificing on the end result? I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts.

The first few seconds of the video play but then it stops for me. If I click through to YouTube, it works fine. Nice sounding guitar! Looks like a fun event and I think it's ***freaking awesome*** of you to donate the beautiful guitar to charity. Everybody wins.

I went boring - 90 degrees from the centerline, but that's what felt right. It's amazing how many little design decisions there are to ponder and make. I will never look at a guitar or bass in the same way. I'm currently on coat #2 of the finish. It's so fun to see the wood grain come to life. More to come...

Thanks! On Friday I sanded until my teeth were numb. I went through the ranks starting at 80 grit and worked up to 320, then used a polishing cloth. I've still got to get it wet so I can raise the grain and sand off the fuzz (thanks for the timely article on that!). In the meantime, I stuck the bridge back on and got the pegs in minus the screws. Any tips on how to get the peg screw holes lined up properly? One idea I've got is to use one of the join lines between wood pieces as my straight-line and make sure the screws are all at the same angle off straight. Probably simple enough. Once the tuners are properly secured, I figure I'd better string it up to make sure everything looks right before finishing. I'm also planning on re-checking the fret level-ness to see if any of the frets need to be tapped back in. My assumption is that it'll play like crap initially until I can do a proper leveling of the frets and get the instrument set up properly. I'm not planning on testing the electronics at this point - any reason why I should? I don't think I'm going to be able to get the hard angles I want on the logo using urushi, so plan b is to take it to a place that has a laser and have it etched in (and if they can't etch it, plan c is to get the logo cut out of a thin piece of walnut and glue it on, plan d is to just write it on using a sharpee ). My plan is nothing as complicated as what this video shows, but I think it's freakin' magic: I think I've got the finishing plans dialed in now. Sanding back danish oil and applying a final thin coat is getting the results I'm looking for. I do plan on exploring dyes and other more sophisticated finishing techniques in the future. I can't wait to plug this thing in! No photos of sanding, but here's how the bass currently looks.

It's long... I honestly let it play on my side monitor while working so it got half my attention. It's one person's perspective and he presents his opinions as fact, but that's okay with me. I'm really enjoying getting into the thinking behind a design, material choices, etc. It helps give me fuel for forming my own emerging opinions.

These are looking great. Now that you are a bit into the project, what do you think about doing three at once? Are you finding economies of scale? Is there one bass you prefer to work on or are you able to give all three equal attention? I often thought I could have made two basses at almost the same rate as I made one because the prep and setup of a step often took more time than the step itself. But then I'd worry about losing the focus gained by single-tasking.

Sneaking in a mid-week progress report here. Getting close to the end (so I'd better solve my finish issues soon!). Yesterday I got my pickup cavities routed and began sanding. Here are the photos: Hogging out material: Routing... this machine still scares the pants off of me, but I'm definitely gaining confidence with it. Testing fit: And after a first pass of sanding (and cabinet scraping to get into the tight spots - I could almost say that I carved this bass with from a block of wood with cabinet scrapers). This afternoon I'm going to begin smoothing out all of the rough spots around the instrument. There are many...

Thanks for following along and providing steady guidance and support. It really helps. I'm still not 100% happy with any finish options. I'll go back to the local home supply superstore and see if I can find some alcohol-based stain or dye. I think penetration may be at least part of the issue, so diluting things a little bit might be good. I get the exact look I want when I wipe a thin coat of Danish oil on... while it's still wet. Nice and golden color, just the right amount of gloss, and the figure has a nice slightly subtle chatoyance. But It isn't drying as super smooth. I just tried sanding back the piece with 4 coats to baby-bottom smoothness and reapplied the Danish oil. Maybe that will do it. I'd previously played with wipe-on varnish and it looks good, but the feel is just a little too plastic-y.

Time for my weekly progress report! I only got one afternoon in the shop last week due to a sick kid, but it was a good one day. The wings are glued on and looking very good. The joins are looking good. I spent the afternoon mostly cleaning up and blending the heel area. It's tricky getting into the area now, so I resorted to using small carving tools. They are slow and leave lines that then have to be sanded out. I'd love to have some sort of rasp-ball-on-a-stick I could stick in there to get the curves. Here's an action shot: And a shot of the entire back: Next up I got the bridge holes drilled and tested. So far so good. I'm also still playing around with some finish options. I tracked down some dark brown stain so I played with staining and sanding back. It brings out the figure in the maple but also brings out the grain. Interestingly, some of the grain ended up really darkening with the stain leaving almost black lines. I can't decide if these lines are good or not. Here's a shot showing the dyed piece on the left - both have Danish Oil on top (the left piece just has 1 coat compared to 4 on the plain piece). I've got the replaced pickup template ready to go, so today I plan on going in and routing out the pickup cavities. After that, I'll be sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding. Getting close!

Cool discussion between Scott Devine and Chris May about creating an updated P Bass. Pretty cool conversation between a player and luthier about the thought process in creating a customized version of a classic. Always good to hear thought process explained...

Looking really good!

Great to see some other basses in progress here. All three look great. Nice work. Are you planning on using the same hardware and pickups on all three? If so it will be interesting to learn how the sound compares between the different woods and neck styles.

I asked some similar questions of @komodo in his Uber build thread. He provided a lot of great info on his process. You can see his answers here:

You are free to disagree with all of the points except the one that making a bass counts as double experience points.

First, it sounds like the issue with the neck pocket isn't really a show stopper. And second, speaking from my deep experience of having built 0.75 instruments so far in my life (but it counts double because it's a bass), I can tell you that this is hard. Go do a survey of 100 people on the street and zero will have (or ever will) built a guitar. If it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be anywhere near as worthwhile or interesting. When I started down this journey months ago, I walked into the shop simultaneously terrified and fully believing that I was going to make a flawless instrument. Both are irrational. I'm now neither terrified nor expecting perfection. It's freeing and really helping me enjoy the process and learning, instead of being so focused on a specific end result. I know that (at this point) I don't have anywhere near the basic woodworking skills to have any business doing what I'm doing. If I took a woodworking course, the instructor would maybe - MAYBE - let me make a small bookcase out of pine or something cheap. But the desire to create is a powerful force. For me it makes up for my lack of skill - lack of knowledge and ability might slow me down, but it sure as hell isn't going to stop me. And it's cliche, but every mistake is a chance to learn. And the more we learn, the more we can create the things we dream up. As for spokeshaves... I'm in the dunka-dunka club as well. I can't tell you how stressed I was about carving my neck. Everything else I did was pretty black-and-white. But this was freehand, artistic, and there are a million ways to screw it up (with only 1 way to get it right). I went crazy slow. But I did it. I ended up doing the bulk of the rough cutting with a rasp and then the fine tuning with cabinet scrapers. I had some luck with the spokeshave, but it just never worked like I see in the videos. Not really a pep-talk, but know you are not alone...