Prostheta

I keep a jar of binding scrap melted in acetone which I have used for filler, so I presume it might be possible to use it as "glue" also....

The information attached to the bending iron sold by Stewmac seems good reference:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/I-0689.html

So Indian Rosewood is easy and Brazilian Rosewood difficult....I wonder how this figures with Cocobolo Rosewood! I think i'll thickness sand a piece of scrap cocobolo in the workshop and do some experimenting on it with the soldering iron....

My current build is a camphor burl topped mahogany Warwick vampyre-style instrument, and i've decided to bind it, body neck and headstock. As you do. After a couple of attempts at figured maple, and laminated ABS i've made a U-turn as I wasn't happy with the finish of either. Neither were perfect and I wasn't 100% happy with the way they were turning out. Out came the router and off came the existing binding.

I'm about to purchase a few runs of wooden binding and was wanting a bit more information on which woods are more "forgiving" when it comes to steaming and heat forming for tighter curves. Obviously fibres will only compress/expand to a certain point, but given a bit of care and patience I believe I can make it work.

Now, the woods i'm considering are:

- Cocobolo (i love the way it looks when polished up)

- Figured Walnut (ummm...splintery and easy to fracture like the flame maple I used first of all?)

- Ziricote

- Lacewood

I suspect the best of the four would be lacewood as a gut feeling - with a black purfling line this would probably suit the camphor burl nicely also....

By the time you get to around 10° the edge is fairly long anyway and passes happily over gaps of 1-1/2" unless you have a very thin pair of neck blanks! 17° might be too short however....

I tried that exact same method Perry, but found that the chipout on the thinnest leading edge was unsatisfactory and the old router/handplane technique prevailed! Still, good to produce a "coarse" stage from which you improve it to a "fine" result which is ready to glue up. The only way I thought of to reduce chipout was to clamp a safety piece of wood on the trailing edge as support.

I wouldn't associate with him either. After a couple of beers he gets more than a little bothersome :-D

You only celebrate birthdays that are multiples of three?

You are wierd,Dude...

Well... duh!

It is interesting to note that there are two spikes in the age groups so far. I'm guessing the older group is having a 2nd childhood.

Apparently, proof of:

"Live fast, die young"

"Or die trying, perhaps after tolerance of fifty or so"

Of course....I forgot where I saw the zero fret instruments on here - thanks for reminding me!

Indeed! Enjoy making sawdust and let the instrument make music!

That flows a lot better. If you look at the centre of yours, it is basically square! The one you posted becomes more slight from back to neck, and the corners work with each other and flow.

If it were mine, I would be tempted to split it centrally and remove a wedge shaped piece from the centre to make the neck side less wide so it tapers, before rejointing and glueing.

I'm considering trying a zero fret in a future bass build, but have not experience with them at all really. The main reason I want to use one is to even out the tone between open notes and fretted notes. A very simple intention.

A few things have come to mind before I jump in here. Firstly, what kind of pressure should the string have on a zero fret? If the headstock is angled, should the string break over the fret by a few degrees, run over the nut and continue as normal or should it have a slight pressure similar to a fretted note? I can perceive arguments on both sides of the fence, neither of which I can agree more with. Personal preference, or a real difference? I'm wondering how string angle/pressure over a zero fret will affect tonality and also how it will affect string bending (remember....bass build here).

Your opinions and ideas on zero frets are appreciated in advance.

Will - sorry to hear you're kicking the game mate. The wood you sent me has all gone to cherished projects and you will be missed.

Would it be too much to ask as to why you're deciding to close shop?

I think as far as mahogany goes, it is personal preference as to how you start the oiling. I found that the black CA I use is great as a grain filler and when finish sanded prevents you from going through a few tons of oil!

I had a problem keeping the oils from the padauk from being lifted by cloths soaked with acetone. I think sealing the maple off with shellac was recommended to me although this will sand straight off in your case! Perhaps masking off the maple when you get to higher grit sanding, and using a foam sanding pad instead, so you don't remove the tape?

I believe it depends on where you want the adjustment to "come in" as the rod will exert pressure centred on a certain point on the neck, from and to the end points of the rod. I believe that the location of where the neck meets the body (adjustment ends) comes into play somewhat also. I think the overall differences are fairly miniscule as long as the rod has more control over your neck than vice versa....! If i'm thinking correctly, the ends of the rod should like just before the nut, and just over the heel/body-neck meeting point?

Can anyone give us a quick pointer or two on this as i'm using sense which doesn't always mean i'm correct! :-D

Indeed. I'm in the process of building a 30" scale instrument for which I am using a 21" rod. The adjustment length i've calculated correlates with Perry's recommendation and i'd put my money on it working out. Which I have done by committing. But anyway!

18" sounds reasonable. Any indications on what body shape you want to build, fretboard length, etc?

Mr Bungle did it better. Nice bass, but a totally different style to what I like....the moving line underneath at the bass end is very nice though!

So guys, ugly guitars....?

Anyone?

So...yeah anyway

It looks as ugly as a butt. Presuming an ugly butt is available for comparison of course.

I'm going to do some reading and searching on bending binding well. I'll refine the technique before I commit to the build!

I think as far as necks go, it's a balance between how you want it to feel in use vs. the protection it provides vs. the cosmetics. I've only finished with oil or wax, and it's easy to gum a neck up with oil so it's worth some practice to find what feels and works for you I guess. See what people with more experience than me have to say on this one!

Thanks Wes - wouldn't ebony or bubinga be so much more harder to use than maple? I'm going to offset the colours using the black poplar and the maple. I think i'll go and re-thickness some maple now....

Very much a craftsman's job then Erik, which I don't consider myself to be at the moment! I was wondering whether something like say, sheet lead would be useful as a mouldable caul for the outside of the maple after steaming and heating it up enough to becoming pliable. Obviously fibres can only stretch/compress so far before breaking so i'll have to rethink this one on your advice. Perhaps if my maple binding was a little thinner? I've got a boatload of the Stewmac maple binding and I would love to get it wrapped around this body! I might try to knock up a jig to thickness sand this binding to say, 0.04" thick instead of 0.08" thick as i'd like to see if I could try and get this wrapped around the curves. I have a load more dyed black poplar veneer which I use for pinstriping, so I reckon this would work nicely as as maple/poplar/maple bind. The thicknesses would be a lot more forgiving in that respect I guess! I suppose that it would be an exercise in teaching myself the limits of woods and bending if I mocked up a simple bending jig using a soldering iron and a malleable caul....aluminium foil between the lead and the maple should prevent the lead marking it up....

I didn't bandsaw the edges off, I merely ran the router back through the binding to remove it, and cleaned up the channels with a blade. I wouldn't want to distort or change the general outline of the body in any way just because I decided to redo the binding!

Indeed. I've actually taken that binding off as I wasn't 100% happy with it, and I there's no reason for me to BE happy with it if it's not 100%. I've taken your advice, resanded, rechamfered and re-cut for the binding. I just need more binding now....

Any advice on what tools to use to bend figured maple binding? I guess that using a soldering iron and plenty of wet tissues to buffer the heat and something to support the outside edge whilst bending....

I recess pretty much all of my tuner bushings using a Forstner bit which is slightly larger than the socket I use to tighten the bushings. This instrument has a radiused headstock veneer which I just recessed afterwards rather than cutting it beforehand:

This headstock was recessed without an overlay or veneer....

Much the same as THIS which is again a simple Forstner'd recess into the headstock.

This allows me to use a thicker headstock than "standard" if I want to bevel or contour the edges of the headstock for interest. I like what you've done there....it reminds me a lot of my mainstay gigging RBX bass which has a plastic overlay on the headstock. I removed it and laid glow in the dark vinyl behind the circles for the tuner bushings which looks very cool :-D