SIMpleONe89

Yup they're definitely worth for the low price so do try them out. One complain I have is the handle is too small and my hand gets tired after a while.

I think mine is a little like the D but I'll try and round the edges a bit more.

What style do you like? I realised most people like C shapes and like to hook the thumb over the neck. I myself have smaller hands and I like to play with the thumb right in the middle of the neck. It was how I was taught.

Very nice!

Here's a time lapse of me carving the neck.

It could be the angle from which the pics are taken but I prefer a flat profile because I like to play with my thumb flat against the neck. I did this for my previous two guitar builds but then again I'm a guitarist not a bassist! I'll try it out with the strings later on and see how it plays.

I finished shaping the neck and I'll upload a time lapse showing how I did it with nothing but files, a chisel and sandpaper. The result: I'll glue a piece of blackwood on the back of the headstock after I'm done with the body wings. As for now I'm not a 100% done with the volute.

Then I installed the frets. I think I got better at fretting because I took a lesser time to finish everything. I also rounded the fretboard edges so it was quite tricky to get the frets to seat nicely at the edges and blend into the fretboard. I'll continue to work on beveling and rounding the fret ends later. Might have to fill the gaps with some rosewood dust. But looking good without fret tangs!

Thanks Andy! @Prostheta Fortunately nothing funky happened when I unclamped the headstock. But I'll definitely remember to use a caul next time! So I unclamped the neck and was pleased to see no gaps. Then it was time to radius the fretboard. I hate this part because it takes time and it's super dusty. So to help with the sanding I used a hand plane to create a radius but I didn't take too much wood because it's only 14" radius. This is the beautiful indian rosewood fretboard sanded up to 1200 grit. Then I also installed the side dot markers. I decided not to do any inlays and let the beauty of the rosewood speak for itself. Also I'm sick of inlaying. It's not fun trying to handle small pieces of abalone with a jeweller's saw and with my terrible eyesight! Then I rough cut out the headstock. I'll refine the shape later on once I order the tuners so I can position them properly. Here's the neck so far...

Oops! Should've used a caul. For now I've not seen any gaps but I'll definitely use a caul for the back of the headstock.

Wow that's cool!

Ok so I've been working on the neck for the past few days. Did the truss rod channel. And the carbon fibre rods. These will help with the stability of the 6 string bass neck. And I also glued on the headstock veneer, which is made of Wenge and Jarrah. I'll also add a blackwood veneer to the bottom once the neck is shaped. After the headstock veneer was glued on, I routed the truss rod access channel. I'll probably go with a flamed maple truss rod cover from the scrap I have lying around (literally lying around). Then I glued on the fretboard. To prevent it from slipping, I tried a new method of using toothpicks as locating pins. So I clamped the fretboard into position, drilled a 2mm hole in the fret slots at both ends of the fretboard through into the neck, and stuck a toothpick in. The frets will cover up the hole anyway. Also, this time I didn't forget to remove the masking tape!

Then how would you plan to hide any defects? Solid colour? Heavy stain?

Fantastic work.

Wow that must have been a pain trying to keep them from sliding off. So many parts to deal with. The results are great!

Looking good. How do you intend to fix the bridge posts? I must say I'm terrified of drilling bridge posts because I've gotten them wrong before and the guitar was pretty much unplayable!

Zebrano has open grain but I guess it depends on the finish you want to achieve. I grain filled mine and it's very smooth and the wipe on poly gives a nice sheen to it. Not sure if tung oil is good enough as a protective finish.

Then I stuck a long straight edge and routed it to size. And sanded it all flat. There you go! Just 3 hours of hard work without a bandsaw and a jointer!

Thanks guys. All those big, expensive machines would surely make my life easier. Less suffering, but hey, who needs the gym? Ok now I'll show you how I did the neck taper without any big machines! It's not that hard really! First, I had to mark out the measurements - 52mm at the nut, 79mm at the 24th fret. Then I drew a straight line connecting both dots, all the way to the end of the blank. Then I cut out the taper, staying at least 1mm away from the line. It's funny how when I first started cutting out things with the jigsaw I cut at least 4-5mm from the line, but as I got more confident the distance shrank. But of course I had to leave more room for error with the hand saw. My jigsaw isn't that great so I had to use the hand saw on the thicker parts. It heats up fast and the blade bends. By the time I was done my arms were so sore.

Great to see how you conquered the problems and the end product looks awesome!

Then I glued on the rosewood binding. I made a stupid mistake of trying to glue both at once. I saw a guy on youtube gluing the binding by driving the fretboard and binding into a wedge. I think I may have over done and one side of the binding wasn't flush with the bottom of the fretboard. In hindsight I should have done one first with super glue and binding tape. This is what happens when you try to rush things, let alone rushing something I've not done before! Anyway it turned out fine because it was only 1mm off the fretboard base. I then sanded it flat without sacrificing much. The fretboard blank was 8mm to start with and I took it down to 7mm. After that, I proceeded to cut out the nut shelf. Cleaned it up with a chisel and some files. And now the nut sits perfectly.

Now it was time to work on the fretboard. I printed out a template for a 34" scale bass and cut the slots with my Hosco pull saw. I had to make sure the slots were deeper to compensate for the radius later on because I was going to bind the fretboard. Because my plans call for a 79mm thickness at the 24th fret, and my fretboard was 75mm wide, I had to use some rosewood binding, 2mm each, to bring it to the correct width. The rosewood binding would also help to hide the ugly fret tangs. But before I could glue the binding on, I had to cut out the fretboard taper, taking into account the measurements without binding - 48mm at the nut and 75mm at the 24th fret. Then I cut out the fretboard with my jigsaw. And tried to sand and plane the excess to the exact width. This took too long and I was already tired from all the fret slotting and sanding. So I used a straight edge and routed it with a flush trim bit.

Then I sanded the top edge to remove the glue and to make all laminates flat. I really wished I had a drum sander, planer and a jointer to make life much easier! But with the rock classics playing on Spotify, sanding wasn't so painful and I eventually got to this: From this:

Thanks Carl. Sorry haven't been posting but I've done quite a fair bit of work. After the glue dried, I had to clean up the laminates. For the headstock, I used my Shinto rasp to level the mahogany pieces, using the maple piece as the guide, since I had already shaped it to the correct size. I also used my orbital sander and a chisel to get the laminates flat. I could've built a jig to route it flat but I didn't have enough material.

That looks great!