mistermikev

thanks for the response. hehe "the great fish controversy of 2020". that's how this is going down in my memory! yes, the purpleheart and maple... I guess oak in this case. Purpleheart is beautiful wood... but when you pair it with something light colored... man... just really jumps out at you.

thank you sir. Just looking to replace my long missed fretless. afa scale - well... carl thompson says bigger is better! he does say that he thinks the biggest tonal difference in an instrument is as a result of the scale length. I believe he was one of the first to do a 36" scale bass. For me... just thought it'd be different and cool. hehe, I didn't realize I had any resemblance to a fish until bizman pointed it out... now I can't unsee it. Really 'fish on' was just a reference to a fav primus song and bass part... and of course les used the scroll bass so wanted to do something to nod to him. At this point I'm def settled on putting some sort of carved scales or perhaps inlaid as a mock truss cover. on another note... if anyone can comment on their own experiences... I've read that doing inlays on a fretless bass (out of anything other than wood) is a bad idea as the string will 'sound different' depending on if it's being held over an inlay. Now I've had a fretless with fret markers... no idea what the material was... but never noticed this. Saw a thread where another builder did 'trapazoid' inlays on a fretless and he said it was something he wished he hadn't done. Just curious if anyone else has experienced this?

so... laid out my rabbets/dados/grooves... oh my! and started cuttin' some groovey grooves... with dido playing on the radio as I did the dados... and then white rabbits as I did the rabbets. good times.

such a joy to see your builds... really cool stuff. rock on.

my pleasure.

I had a cheap black and decker walmart jigsaw for about 15 years. I cut through 3" thick mahogany with it. It was nothing special. finally the piece that holds the blade broke. Oak is hard... but no match for a sharp jigsaw OR bandsaw blade. not very expensive nor hard to change the blade on a jigsaw... I'd start there. Turn your jigsaw upside down and make sure there isn't a little set screw that is on a bracket that pushes the blade fwd... if there is... back that bracket off the blade. this will make the jig saw take bigger bites... but it shouldn't stop it from working altogether. wishing you the best of luck!

right on... welcome. we are all newbies on some topic or another (at least I am). Look fwd to seeing your guitar shaped objects.

hehe, yup. pretty much what was the ct 'tail' has become fishlips! love it.

wow, now I totally cannot unsee that! I like that idea way more than the ideas I had! sort of a modern impressionists fish... love it.

btw and for the record... was thinking of doing some sort of 'fish jumping' inlay or other reference somewhere. the 'fish on' is a nod to primus and the song 'fish on'. I'm a huge fan and he used a ct 5 string fretless for that song if I'm not mistaken.

interesting... you see a fish in the headstock? Honestly I've felt like the theme of this wasn't really together yet so I'm very interested where I might add more 'fish features". Perhaps I should replace it with some sort of 'scale' type carved piece?

I very much appreciate the input sir, and especially from someone whom I respect so deeply, and also appreciate the delivery with kid gloves. I was originally toying with the idea of it being sort of like a 'tulip' headstock, and the 'star' part being the typical green at the stalk... but at this point I'm not sure what it is admittedly! Perhaps I'll take another stab at that detail... maybe make it softer? maybe do something else entirely? I just wanted to add some matching oak detail to the head. woods: well, the top pictured is actually a piece of figured oak that I got at home depot. believe it or not, that is only slipmatched. The neck is a multilam of purpleheart and flamed maple in an 'alembic' style glueup. The body is going to be purpleheart at the back with some sort of maple accents. at one point i was considering trying to mill some of the figured purpleheart I have into a fretboard... but playing with the mockup I'm just not sure of it. It seems too much. Also, ebony is a much better choices afa durability esp with a fretless altho I do use tapewound strings anyway.

thank you sir I appreciate the support. I've been dragging my feet as I am trying to finish off the tele/paul and some speaker builds... but I feel like I'm about to get "the bug" and start forging ahead on this so... hope to start making small progress here and there.

Still working out some details... but have a multilam neck blank glued up and figured I might as well create a placeholder for 1 of 2 basses I'll be shifting my focus to in the coming months... I'm calling it "Fish On". Going to be a 35" scale fretless but with fret markers. was originally thinking I'd do an archtop style bridge with piezo... but I just can't live with the idea of not being able to zero in on my intonnation, and none of the piezo bridges that are commercially available do it for me... so decided I'll go with a hipshot d style and string thru. I have tentative plans to do some piezo ribbons towards the neck side. anywho, below is my goal. I think I'm going to do a compound radius on this top, or at least a more aggressive radius... still working out the details. any/all feedback/thoughts/tom-foolery/encouragement welcome.

thank you sir! that first day was pretty rough, much better now!

sister grace fiona... kind of has a nice ring.

gotta admit... had my doubts when I saw you cuttiin' wood from mom's table... but the proof is in the puddin' and love the curves and the carves. nice work.

looks a little bit like feona from ... um... that one... SHREK! man you are one talented sob.

well... my plan to use a specialized jig for my speaker build had some issues. a fail. If I had setup a longer guide board it would have worked but kept wobbling at the edges so... it would require a trip to the hardware store that I was too impatient to make so I just used a 7' level as a router guide instead... and a giant t square... t so here's a shot of the 'figured baltic birch' I bought... really nice stuff. ========================================================== so got some work done this week despite surgery for a cracked tooth on friday... I'll spare you those gory details but was avoiding the pain meds so I could work with power tools... you know... like a MAN! anywho, got my pile of sides cut up: got some roxel safe n sound while I was at the hardware store... and some polyfil, some handles... other misc crap... decided it'd be smart to do a template for my speaker cutouts since it would help prevent more scratches... so I spent $8 on a 3/4 x 24 x 24 and did a 1/2" rabbet in it, then followed with my jigsaw... then cleaned it up with a pattern bit... unfortunately the 2 7/8" radius called for by the mids is going to require some ingenuity since the pilot hole would be right at my base... may have to just drive a nail into the template and drill a hole in the circle jig. that's all I got few now!

in my humble o... if you just got a bandsaw... go check the bandsaw setup tutorials around the net... makes a world of difference. when you say angle it sounds to me like the bandsaw isn't setup right... but a good blade and solid bandsaw and you should be able to cut at an angle w/o burning. the two posts above mine - are two solid guesses. It could also be a weak motor not turning fast enough... but that's a bit more far fetched. here's to you getting her going in the right direction.

makes me want to play some George Thorogood (I am aware he plays a white falcon). very nice looking git fiddle. Excellent work. "... came in last night about a half past ten, that baby of mine she wouldn't let me in..."

my gut feeling is... not good. end grain and short. reg scarf joint would prob be better. that said... thick overlay is a great idea. I do that on all my stuff, or at least try to. it's crazy how much rigidity it adds. I like to place it higher so that it can 'hold' the nut in place... not that it matters much but it looks nice imo. also, end up with a thicker headstock. I've had no trouble getting tuners to fit the exta 1/8" of thickness I add. anywho, just one aholes o.

hehe... so true. storing that away for later use.

such a winning combo... purpleheart with some maple... lovely. nice work.

omg... well if you are going to break a bit I doubt you could break one better than that so... congrats?