Hector

it's green! (?)

i use the safe-T planer, and the robo sander. by the way, i highly recommend the safe-t planer. I use it for a lot of things in my shop.

I see a pig's face in picture #17! awesome looking guitar man!

hey scott I just wrote a PM for you about the template set! thanks a lot!

there are many many ways to do that. here's some I found on the web. 1 another one one more and here's the method I use

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!! thanks for that! made some progress today, routed the truss rod channel, the control cavity and the cavity for the jack plate. also sanded the fingerboard (12" radius) here's a mockup pic. more pics here

That's the kind of thing that happens when you don't plan ahead. always make plans, drawings, notes, gather as much info as you can. study them, and after all that, you start cutting the wood.

hi there, so after a long time without working on this project I managed to do a lot of guitar building today here it is. more pics here. strat album sorry about the pics, I sold my digital camera so I could buy some wood. lol. now I have to use my cel phone camera. more will be done tomorrow.

hi todd! got it!! thanks for that! gonna try that in the next few days, i'll let you know how it went!

got some purpleheart. more pics here. bass album

hey todd, yes I do have a router. And I'm gonna try to make laminates with it. but my router bit is not long enough to do both edges at the same time. I spent some time thinking about it, and it hit me that I can try to thickness the wood in my drill press with the robo sander! I'm gonna try that ASAP. more great news, went to a neighbor city and found some purpleheart!!! not the size I wanted but its ok. now I got 4 boards of flatsawn wood (20mm thick, 120 cm long, and 8 cm wide) that I should be able to make a quartersawn laminate. I also got one board that had some flame on it. And I decided to use it as a top (4 piece, 2 bookmatched sets).flame top here it is! more pics here. bass album I got a question, the wood was very purple when I got it.I cut and sanded, and now it's brown! you can see the diference in the picture. the brown pieces are sanded and finished with french polish. will it oxidize to purple later on? If I leave the wood unfinished will this happen faster? thanks for everything guys!

I wish I could make a laminate neck, but I don't have the power tools to make it. so it's gonna be solid. but I'm still tryin' to see what I can do about that. and maple is almost impossible to find here in brazil.

I vote for purple heart. Stiff, strong, not as heavy or hard as Ipe, and local to you. Oh, and the only wood I can think of the might move as little as mahogany. of course . . . it's purple I still think Jatoba is good too, but it's also super hard and heavier. hey todd, I went to every wood shop in my town looking for some more wood choices, but I couldn't find jatoba or purpleheart, aparently, the wood market here is dictaded by the wood of choice of furniture designers. and that wood right now is imbuya. Looked for pau-marfim too, hard wood, light colored and nice to work, but couldn't find it. the problem here in brazil is that we have a large selection of woods, but they're very hard to find. unless you live in the north region, i've been told that even the price is 10 times cheaper there. but i'm gonna stay in this quest for neck woods. i'll let you know as soon as I find something! thanks for the input.

I'm done talking. time to start this thing! http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=29418

hello! started making some sawdust today this is gonna be my first bass. some specs have changed: 34" scale. 4 strings. mahogany body. ebony fretboard. set neck - mahogany, ipe or something else. not sure yet. I'm still looking for some wood that may be the middle ground between those two. I'll let you know as soon as I make up my mind. EMG J set. oil finish. hope you guys like it!

beautiful work!!!

i wanna see some pictures!!!

you got it!!!!

hey jon! you're right. it is very dense! I think brazilian walnut is Imbuya, another name for ipe, is ,well, green ebony! lol. it's gonna be a challenge. well see, if it turns out bad, I'll use it as a proof of my super human strenght.

that's it!

I was able to get some ipe wood (86cm x 6cm x 3cm) Its not long enough to make a neck thru, but maybe a bolt-on. It's a very hard wood, many brazilian luthiers use it for fretboards. almost impossible to plane, spent some hours sanding, and managed to get it flat. on one side there's a bad crack that I still gonna have to see if I can avoid it. One thing I forgot to tell you, is that I don't have the power tools nedded to make laminations for a neck thru, or multiple pieces necks. So it's gonna have to be one piece. anyway, here's some photos of the wood, ipe do you think I should use it for the neck?? It's gonna be a pain in the *** to carve it, but I'm up for it! thanks for all your help guys.

thanks for all that info guys, I'm gonna look for a denser wood for the neck, that should balance things out. I'll let you know as soon as I decide something! and when I start the build I'm gonna post in the " in progress and finished work" thanks again. great forum. great people.

yeah, i used the wrong words (english is not my native language) sorry. I know that is impossible to answer that (as a matter of fact, that is one of the coolest parts of building guitars, to put strings on a completed instrument and see how it sounds). lol. I was hoping for some input on what kind of sound I would get, not exactly, just to get idea...more treble, more bass, punchy, that kind of stuff. one other thing, do you think I need to reinforce the neck with carbon fiber? the mahogany I got is very good quality and well quartersawn. (35" scale, 5 strings)

hi rich, Yeah, I know what you mean... and I'm only asking these questions, because I've been doing some research and noticed that many basses are being built with dense woods (laminations or not) even harder than mahogany. such as wenge, ebony, maple, rosewood, purpleheart, and many more. Also because mahogany is all I got in my shop. with my experience I can predict or at least have an idea of how an electric or acoustic would sound, considering all these factors (scale length, body/neck/top woods and thickness, electronics and all that) but to me the bass is a very different world. I figured i'd better ask, gather as much info as possible and then see what makes sense to me.

hi everyone, I built some guitars, acoustic and electric. but it's time to do a bass. Since I'm not a bass player I need some help. I'm gonna build this bass for a friend and he wants lots of low end and sustain. if I build the body and neck with mahogany, ebony or brazilian rosewood fingerboard, neck-thru or glued long tenon, how will it sound? (the electronics will be active EMG J-set) any suggestions? It's gonna be my first bass, and I don't wanna make any mistakes.