SIMpleONe89

Lol I realised I double posted the demo videos. I actually posted the same ones on 30 April. Must have missed that post!

Thanks! I hope to do a demo of the second guitar some time this week. Too many projects going on!

Ooo dusty! What kind of finish are you going for? High gloss?

Very nice! Do you glue your frets in? I think I see some glue residue. Also the cavity cover looks great!

Time to graduate onto some fancy looking tone wood! That will inspire you to work harder!

Ah but isn't it wise to put finish over wood for longevity sake?

Thanks Carl. I saw one of your post where you said Wenge can be polished up, even with a buffing wheel. That's interesting! I've got some scrap lying around so I'll test. Time for more sanding!

Ok I decided to recess the bridge. There aren't many hipshot dealers here in Australia and to be honest I don't feel like spending much more and I also don't have time to wait for shipment if I ordered it from the US. Anyway so now the action is great. I've also started to sand and prepare for finish. How high should I sand the Wenge up to? I think I want to go for a very natural, open pore finish. Will P600 be enough or too high? I sanded my previous guitars up to 240 and 320 for the end grain but I don't know if sanding higher will make much difference. I also don't want the Wenge to turn super dark after I apply the wipe on poly, so would sanding to a higher grit help keep it light?

Damn it I'm so jealous of that flamed maple neck! Mine was no where as close as yours.

Wow that was scary!

Good thing you revisited it. Looks great!

I apologise for so many photos of the top - it's just too pretty!

Ok some nicer pics as promised. It wasn't a sunny day so I had to make do.

Ah ok. Thanks for the help guys. Looks like recessing the bridge is the best option. It's not easy to find gold six string bridges with narrow string spacing. Maybe I'll just stick to this bridge.

Yes I eliminated the nut but the action was still slightly high. Would grinding the saddles be a good option? It seems like the easiest solution so far. I don't know if I should recess the bridge because that severely limits the options of other bridge upgrades in future.

Haha Project Guitar makes more sense! Today I managed to fit the bridge and tuners, because I wanted to test the action. From this test fit, the action is too high and is quite unplayable. The saddles are the lowest. So this means my fretboard isn't high enough off the body. I don't have a neck angle on this, so I'll have to modify either the body or the bridge. Which do you guys think is the best? 1. Further remove 2mm off the entire body - probably the hardest to do. I'll have to build a huge router sled to accommodate the entire body. 2. Recess the bridge by 2mm - this is possible but this means I won't be able to swap out the bridge in future. I purchased a Korean bridge exactly the same as this http://www.realparts.com.au/bridges-tailpieces/bass/quick-release-6-string-bass-bridge-chrome.html 3. Grind 2mm off the bridge saddles themselves - the bridge is gold-plated but it's a cheap bridge. I have a dremel I can use to grind it down but I'm not sure whether that's a good idea. A metal file may work but I bet it's tiring.

Wow beautiful bass! What's the backplate for?

I realised I never posted any demo videos, so here they are! Clean: Overdrive: Distortion:

Btw, if anyone is interested in seeing my entire video build diary, check it out here: I've since swapped the Kent Armstrong Dual Blades in the middle for an Entwistle AS57. It now sounds sweet and I can get strat sounds by coil splitting. Very versatile axe!

Thank you Carl! Who or what is PG? Parental guidance? Paul Gilbert? Pooping giraffe?

Once both wings were glued and sanded flat to the neck, I started to carve the contours. I did the belly, forearm contours and also carved the neck heel transition. Here's a video with a timelapse of what I did. Enjoy!

I also did a fret level and dressed the frets because it would be easier without the body. I'll polish it up after I finish it. So the last thing I had to do before gluing would be to thin the neck to match the body thickness. The neck was 43mm and the body was at 40, so I had to remove 3mm of wood with my router. Ignore my poor math in the picture. Definitely was a typo! And of course I had to make sure the edges were trued before gluing. I used some of the off-cuts as clamping cauls to glue the body wings. I did one at a time because it's my first time. I also used toothpicks as locating pins to prevent the pieces from sliding around.

Previously I left off with the electronics cavity. Now I'll show you the steps I took before gluing on the body wings. First, I had to cut off the excess on the neck. I positioned the body wings and drew the outline. Then cut it out with my hand saw. I reckon it would be much easier getting as much done on the neck before gluing. Don't want to be manoeuvring a 34" scale bass around too much! Then I also had to get rid of excess wood on the neck heel. I'm going for an all-access neck heel which would allow me to easily get up to the 24th fret despite it being a single cut. You may have seen the pictures from my previous posts and this is how I did it. I tried a few ways of removing the excess wood from the neck. 1. Hand saw - wasn't good because the saw was large and hard to control. I could've risked cutting more than I should. Maybe with a Japanese ryoba saw (have been eyeing on these for a long time) I would have more control. 2. Chisel and hammer - effective but very time consuming. 3. Router - the easiest, fastest and most accurate way. After the heel was roughly shaped, I also had to go back and carve out the neck. I also took this opportunity to round the neck over a bit more, but still maintaining a D-shape profile.

Thanks! I'm glad it's finally done.