Prostheta

Don't get me wrong Chris :-D

I used some of the dark Titebond on a mahogany neck with purpleheart laminations and that turned out nicely. I can't say that the choice of glue really made a difference however! I guess it would be useful when glueing up open pored woods like wenge and padauk as it wouldn't be as obvious in the pores breaking across glue lines, but I don't think I'll be buying any more myself.

I would definitely go down the lines of veneers though - they're much more predictable that accent lines from glue, which I presume will be variable depending on clamping pressures and mating surface evenness. I love veneers and the way they break out over contours!

I suspect that the dark Titebond was created for non-perfectionist woodwork where mating surfaces aren't always going to be planed tight parallel and glue will be apparent if it is a contrasting colour (say, kitchen units or general home carpentry).

Just my two cents Chris - I wouldn't want you to spunk out some money on a bottle only to find it doesn't do what you are hoping it does!

Surely you *don't* want visible glue lines?

She's a beauty alright. Love that wild-looking top.

I think I might invest in an Xacto kit now you've shown that the results are worth it Matt! I'm going to inlay a board with ES335 style inlays, and straight lines would be easier to achieve with a rule and a knife!

Not according to my wife :-D My beer belly is testament to that effect!

For the feelgood factor, I Forstner'd the tuning peg nut/washer recesses, drilled the tuner holes and test-fitted some spare tuners I have sitting for a four-string bass. I have five lightweight open-gear tuners on the way....

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

I guess it would have been with the two flat ended blades like a chisel - is that right, Matt?

Easy. I presume you have a jointer?

Cut it along the centreline (or make one!) with a fine kerf bandsaw unless you can afford to write off 1/16" with a table saw, and individually thickness each half with a "common width" thicknesser. Rejoint and reglue. Much more painless than using the phone or worrying about what to do next. Rip that sucker up and give it hell man!

If you want security and not perfection then a couple of winds of masking tape will stop it rattling, despite it probably not doing so in the first place. If you want perfection then you can dowel it, then redrill. Get yer tape out and get on with yer new year celebrations kid.

</han solo>

Oh yes, 5/16" = 10/32". Therefore 1/32" difference. Spitting distance!

UPDATE!!

Today I rounded over the back and used a rasp to shape in the back of the neck to body joint, and to improve access to the 26th fret. Without further deepening the cutaway, access to the high A is easily manageable with my second finger although full hand access to the second octave is comfortable through to my pinky. I'll leave it there methinks. :-D

The general shaping of the horns is round on the inside curves and I have brought down the maple to the black poplar pinstripe at the tips. This will allow me to finish the faux bind and bring the dyed top down into the cutaways. I am considering routing off the laminated ebony fingerboard binding and replacing it with flame maple binding to continue the theme and further tie the instrument together. Anyway. To the Batcave!

OTHER SIDE OF NECK JOIN

THE BACK

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that I have routed the control cavity on the top side of the body. This is because I am planning on having the pots only accessible from the back so as not to cover up that awesome maple with knobs and doohickeys. I like the cleaner symmetrical look this will give the instrument. Given that I ditched the idea of an EQ system, I thought that a pair of volume controls and a kill switch are all I would require. I used a Dinky cavity template for the routing which is more than capacious enough for two batteries and pot bodies, although I am tempted to bring the cavity shape out somewhat to match the outline of the instrument.

Ah. Indeed. Well knowledge shared is always good if you want to look at this positively :-D

Can pine be strengthened a little by wicking CA into the grain where the post bushings are installed? Surely even one extra mm of hardened material around the posts being pushed into the softer surrounding wood will be better?

Thanks! As you can see, I don't clean up just to take build-porn shots :-D

The neck is a little thick but since bringing that down is in my mind part of final prep and sculpting, I'm happy to leave it a little dirty!

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

UPDATE!

Routed the back for the neck tenon which has had two additional pieces of bloodwood and four black veneer pinstripes added either side (because I love it, and they'll add further interest to the neck-meets-body sculpting) and glued the whole thing together! I might even consider a control cavity at some point.

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

Another shot...

I've never tried MECs, and I'm in no hurry as I've always gotten along with EMGs. I'm about as likely to consider something else instead of EMGs as much as I'd like a pink bass. Unless they were Bartolini's in which case I'd sneak the pink bass in under a blanket before stripping it silly and checking those Barts out.

Use the search function as this has been covered many times before.

Awesome. I'll have to give that a try on some scrap mahogany to get practice in before epoxying a real instrument to the bench :-D

Thanks Russ/Wes/Setch!

That's exactly what I thought also. Just not sure whether it's available economically outside of trade.

Woohoo!! Araldite in larger quantities!!

http://www.resins-online.com/resin-online-...tegory=araldite

http://www.resins-online.com/resin-online-...tail.php?id=102 - 200ml Araldite for just under £20. Still a little pricey.

http://www.resins-online.com/resin-online-...etail.php?id=97 - 250gm for just over a tenner. Sound better.

Can epoxy be thinned down with a solvent such as alcohol, thinners, acetone etc. to extend it's workability and help it soak into pores better?

Sorry! Don't think people are ignoring you man :-D Not everyone has something to contribute to the threads they read.

The nut should be pretty high, so you can cut it back during the final setup! I'd hazard thickness of fingerboard (if mounted at the end instead of in a slot Fender style) plus the height of the fretwire plus half the thickness of your heaviest string gauge plus a couple of mm to spare. Then cut it back. Since you're going fretless, you need the nut slots to be just marginally higher than the fretboard - enough so open notes don't buzz and you can comfortably slide notes back down past first and into the nut without the note deadening itself too much. Again, this should be in your final setup.

Calculate your neck width when you can provide the specs of your nut string spacing (depending on what you want of course) and spacing at the nut. When it comes down to it - if you can specify those values then you can quite easily figure out the rest! It's a common sense train of thought and design.

A 30" scale will work as you don't have to intonate I guess. You'd get better results with a 32" scale as you will have more string mass to sustain notes.

Read more into other people's builds and the tutorials on the site and you'll find yourself forming a better idea of what you think you want and more specific questions to ask. Don't put router to wood yet till you've done the design!!!

Hell, I brainstorm ideas myself so don't think you're the only one man. I find the best thing to do is to write down what I want from an instrument and then go back through it, editing it. You'll be surprised how much just vocalising ideas can do for your thought processes! Errm, anyway.

I'd recommend deciding on one tuning too, else you'll end up setting the instrument back up every time the instrument readjusts to the new tension forces when you switch.

Best of luck - you have a great resource of information on here!

http://www.mec-pickups.de/

...although the German distributor is Warwick...throw 'em an email...

Yeah, but if you compare the price of the hardware (tailpiece, bridge and baseplate for bridge) and factor in shipping, it's actually still a good deal. Some top end bass bridges cost WAY more than those and aren't as good quality. The only difference is that they don't have the Warwick "W" logo but hey - I'm more than happy with that.

I think the difference here in the UK compared to the US is that you can't walk into home depot and buy a shedload of epoxy easily. In the UK it tends to be stocked as small tubes for repairs, along with small 3-5g bottles of CA. Not economical! TBH I don't know of a source in the UK off the top of my head. There's not enough call for it in general, so B&Q and Homebase etc. don't seem to stock sizeable enough bottles.

What other major applications have we got for epoxy? I would suspect boat builders....

I only hope I'm not senile enough at thirty to have not answered that one!

Go to www.basscentre.co.uk and click on Warwick in the listbox on the left. You can buy four five or sixers in black gold or chrome.

UPDATIO!!

Not much done apart from further sanding on the top, and routing the mortice (can you call it that?!) for the semi neck-through tenon. The routs for the tailpiece and the bridge need widening slightly (I find it difficult to put wood back in) and the faux binding stripe around the edge tidying. Once the tenon is in place, I'll sculpt the heel and we can look at some shellac-induced crazy dyeing!! I'm a little tempted to add some blue to the red dye I have to add a purplish tinge. Somebody talk me out of that one if you will.

CLICK FOR LARGER VERSION

I won't reprint here as it's not my place to do that. I love the guys down to earth attitude to building! As long as wood is good and solid, he'll use it. No pretensions as to what is a "tone wood" or indeed what woods "combine well". Tone comes from the player.

Amen Carl.

http://www.ctbasses.com/CTinterview.html

Good reading!