a2k

Oh yeah! I'd completely forgotten the original plan was to dye it blue. It looks awesome. It's gonna look great shined up too. 

Looks great. But I can't wait to hear it! 

Okay... where was I? Oh yeah, scarf joints with a mitre saw. I think it turned out okay. Probably a little too risky to make standard operational procedure, but for this project it worked. I cleaned up the surfaces with my sanding beam, got everything glued together, and got the truss rod channels installed. Photoz:

I went a little too deep on one of the channels - about 1.5mm, so I'll put a fillet in above the rod. And I'll need to be careful not to take away much any behind the rod when carving. And one channel is a little off center - I think it's close enough that it should be okay. 

Headstock plates are off to get the logo lasered into them. 

Here's the tiny glue line at the scarf. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. 

Finally, I'm glueing up the "heal" that needs to bulk up the double-cut neck. What could be more fun than a picture of two pieces of wood clamped together with glue?

Moving along! I'll get the necks shaped and then go back and finish the routing in the bodies. 

That cherry fingerboard is gonna be stunning. 

17 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Really interested in this.  I've always avoided scarfe joints because of this issue.  Never really thought of using a chop saw but that joint you have there looks pretty damned good!

I've gotta admit that it's working out okay but not the 100% foolproof method I'd hoped for. The sample I'd tested with was thinner than the actual necks. When I cut the necks, the pressure from the saw twisted the wood, which ended up making a, ever-so-slightly warped cut. Perhaps if you have a taller fence and can camp the neck to the fence at both the top and bottom of if, you could avoid this. I think I was able to get a good glue surface and should be able to clean things up with a little bit of sanding and a leveling beam. 

You are FAST! Looking great so far.

Looks like the face of the neck is level with the top of the body. Do you match your bridge height entirely with the fingerboard? 

11 hours ago, Mr Natural said:

"tool library" wish my neighborhood had one of those

Yeah, I was pretty stoked to find that out. Here's a directory of other tool libraries. Looks like Atlanta has one. 

There's a small shop space off the garage too. My wife even pointed it out. "There's your bass building shop" (but she was probably thinking "sucker - I get the entire house, and he's happy to have a little dungeon off of the garage"). 

4 hours ago, Phaddie said:

Small Update.

The maker space has agreed to let me teach a computer building workshop in exchange for use of the space.  Going tomorrow to check out the kits.

 

Phad.

That's awesome! 

I got a little shop time in today and did some test cuts in preparation for the upcoming scarf joints.

The original plan was to follow the site tutorial and make a jig that holds the neck at the right angle and run it through the table saw, but the table saw blade isn't big enough.

So the new plan is to use the mitre saw. It angles up to 60 degrees, so I'm adding another 17 degrees with an angled face to get a 13 degree cut. Test cuts seems okay. 

Anybody see any issues or red flags with this approach?

I jumped into this knowing nothing and have ended up building some pretty nice basses. It's totally doable! Read a book or two, follow along on a few threads here, and get to know the workflow before you get into the shop. At least that has been my plan.

Depending on where you are located there might be a maker space with everything you need, or a community college that teaches woodworking that will give you shop access if you take a course. And of course there's youtube to show you how things are done. 

Anyway, I look forward to seeing your build. 

Unfortunately this is likely the last project in this huge shop. We are moving back to the states in July. I currently own approximately zero clamps. But there is hope.. the new house has a small shop space off the garage and the neighborhood has a tool library a few blocks away. 

22 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Those are some decent sash clamps you're using  

The shop as a whole series of them in various sizes, ending in half a dozen monster clamps that must be 6 feet long. 

Just came across these videos of the Marleaux Soprano bass. Maybe this project isn't so crazy! Now I want one...

Slow and steady... here are some progress shots from the past two weeks:

Alignment pins to get the tops on the bodies. 

Clamptastic, guitar 1:

Clamptastic, guitar 2

Trimmed down to the templates:

And the back edges rounded:

Now I'm shifting my attention to the necks. I want to get these together and up to the carving stage before I route the neck cavities to confirm depth. One neck is already good to go (it's some extra from the neck of the koi bass). I squared up and glued the other neck - flamed maple with a rosewood stripe. 

Next up: 

- run the necks through the drum sander to get the thickness right

- cut the scarfs at 13 degrees

- prep and join the scarf joints

- cut truss rod channels

- get logos etched onto headstock tops

And I still need to make a decision about pickups...

Thanks for following along!

8 hours ago, ScottR said:

To get good quality quilted maple to just "show through a bit" is relatively simple. Just sand it smooth, say up to 320 or 400 grit and wipe on the dye. It is amazing what that will do. Or sand it smooth and spray it with lacquer that has been tinted with the dye. 

Many like to "pop" the grain to get a more dramatic effect. That is normally done by dyeing it in a darker version of your final color, say blue deepened with black. Then sand it back leaving only the darkest area with any dye in them and then dying a gain with the color you were going after in the first place.

Here are a couple of my own builds with dyed quilted maple:

 

You can also find several tutorials on this  in our tutorial section and youtube videos galore.

SR

 

A good build thread never gets old! How thick was the top you used on Justin's guitar?

23 hours ago, charisjapan said:

Yes, those little holes are tremendous tonesuckers! Just like sound-absorption baffles, all those little holes and bit-depth irregularities will cause uneven reverberations between the flat top and your cavity floor. 

By strategically reducing the area of parallel surfaces within the chamber, the harmonic profile of standing waves is normalized thus ensuring a consistent resonant response across the audible spectrum. 

Yeah, that's it. Plus tummy comfort cuts cuts. 

It was great hanging out yesterday in "my" spacious shop! Gets lonely in there.

Pictures do not do the Chinaberry justice - that's a beautiful piece of wood with the triple threat of beautiful grain, figuring, and chatoyance. The bass plays and sounds great, too!

Now if I could just get used to having no head on a bass... I can jump between 4, 5, and 6 strings without much issue, but take the head off and I have no idea where my hands are anymore. 

17 hours ago, a2k said:

Even though nobody will ever see the insides of the chambers, the OCD part of me that wants to go in and clean up all of those circles left by the forstner bit. Any reason why I should clean'm up? 

7 hours ago, ScottR said:

It is amazing how much changes in the width of the kerf. The closer your board is to flat sawn the bigger the difference will be.

SR

Ah, that makes sense. I was wondering what the trick was - I split it with a band saw so the kerf shouldn't have been too severe, but then I also ran it through a thickness sander to get it flat. I *think* the book-matched effect is still there and hopefully the strings/pickups/bridge will obfuscate the issue with the grain not lining up as a perfect mirror image. 

Moving right along! Last week I got the bodies rough cut and chambered, wiring channels routed,, tops glued together, and templates cleaned up. So far so good. Here's the photo journal progress report:

Bodies rough cut...

Tops book matched. It's amazing how different the grain is considering they are two ends of one piece of wood.

Everything rough cut, assembly line style.

Because I'm not using a tone-o-matic bridge, I made a little extension to my template to leave enough wood to mount the bridge on after chambering. 

Lots of time on the drill press.

And then on to the router for the chambering and wiring channels. 

I tried out the increasingly popular method of attaching the template by putting masking tape on the template and wood and using CA glue between them. Big improvement over double-sided tape! It's easier to get a precise alignment and quicker to clean up. 

I also made it up to the mountains for the biggest snow storm I've ever seen. 2 meters in less than 3 days. I took this mid-way through the storm:

Here's the plan for this week:

- Glue the tops on the bodies

- Route the bodies to size

- Round-over the backs 

- Route the neck, electronics, and pickup cavities 

If I get all of that down this week, I'll start working on necks next week. 

Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like the answer is a fairly clear "yes". 

I've been approached by a guy at the wood shop who wants to build a guitar for his grandson. He has lots of experience in shops (worked as a boat builder & in an aircraft machine shop) but has never played a single note on a guitar. Think he can be successful? Know of any builders who have never played?

I don't mean to get into the age old chicken and egg discussion... (which came first, the guitar or the guitarist?)

10 hours ago, Prostheta said:

BTW - since I seem to be the most guilty person for derailing, I might as well mention that I love your new avatar @a2k 

Arigatou!

I've been following along eagerly from the start. Can't wait to see the finished product! (Please don't rush on my behalf, though!)

That's a dramatic visual transformation! And going from 11 lbs to a little over 9 will feel pretty dramatic on the shoulder too.