New Build: King V Bass

[HaMMerHeD]

Hello, SSO.

Some time in the middle of my second build, I started on a third. I asked a while back whether you fine folks would rather see a King V bass or a super-telecaster built. The response was that you guys wanted to see the tele. So I'm doing the bass.

Actually, I was set to start on the tele, but the individual for whom the guitar was intended seems to be going through some manner of mid-life crisis right now. When I last talked to him about it, he wasn't sure whether or not he was going to be playing guitar anymore. So until his life settles down, I am working on something else.

I'm going to use this bass as a guinea pig for fretting. I haven't made a fretted instrument yet, and I don't want my first experience doing so to be for someone else. I'd prefer to make all the n00b mistakes on my own instrument.

I've made a fair amount of progress on this thing already, so this will be a sort of catch-up post for now.

The design is based on the Jackson King V body. My first concept for this bass was actually a Rhoads V, but for various reasons (weight, balance, aesthetics) I decided on the symmetrical King body style.

Design:


Specs:
King V shaped bass guitar
5 strings
36" scale
24 frets
(2x) EMG 40TW pickups (18v)
passive volume, volume, tone controls (each volume knob is a push/pull coil tap)
F#0 tuning (F#0, B0, E1, A1, D2...going with Circle-K strings)
Graphtech PT-1412-00 nut (1.47" string spread)
Hipshot A-style 5-string bass bridge, brass, 0.75" spacing, (2.25" string spread)
Hipshot Ultralite Tuners
Single truss rod

Mahogany Body, Metallic black paint finish, deep gloss
Maple Neck, Metallic black paint finish, satin neck, deep gloss headstock
Bloodwood Fingerboard, probably polished but otherwise unfinished

Why paint mahogany? The body blank I purchased for this thing is a 3-piece paint grade blank. It's not pretty. I chose mahogany because it machines nicely and I like its weight for balance. The body edges are going to be beveled, and I am planning to finish the bevels with either silver leaf or copper leaf.

[HaMMerHeD]

I've had the body blank for a while. It has been sitting in my shop for almost a year, waiting on me to do something with it.

First thing was to have it planed to the right thickness. It's going to be 1.75" thick. Second was to transfer the paper drawing to the wood:



Next step was to use a forstner bit to hog out as much wood as possible from the areas to be routed. In this case, the neck pocket and pickup cavities:



Then use the router to clean up the edges and route the entire neck pocket to "final" depth:



Repeat the same process for pickup cavities:



The pocket corners will be squared with a chisel later.

[HaMMerHeD]

After the routes were done, I had the body cut out. I don't own a bandsaw yet, so I had a friend of mine do it in his cabinet shop:



I had him leave some wood around the neck pocket for adjustment when I fit the neck.

After that, I routed the output jack cavity recess and the battery box cavity in the back of the body. I used the same process for this as I did with the neck pocket and pickup cavities on the top.

[HaMMerHeD]

After that, I had to wait for a while for the neck wood to arrive. And arrive it did:



The rock maple neck blank and bloodwood fingerboard blank are for the V, and the ebony board is pre-slotted with 24 fret slots with a 27.5" scale for my 7-string project.

I also grabbed this awesome curly maple fingerboard blank:



First thing was to cut the scarf, plane the headstock piece down to ~5/8", and glue it up:



The neck blank turned out to be 1-1/8" thick (28.5mm), and I am going to leave it at full thickness at the heel. I'll use the extra thickness at the nut end to make a volute.

[motomoto]

looks great man

[HaMMerHeD]

Originally Posted by motomoto

looks great man

Thanks!

Next thing to do was to route the truss rod channel:



I did it in about 4 passes. The truss rod is from Grizzly, and is about 1/4" thick and 3/8" tall. I routed the channel just a touch deep, so that when I wrap the end blocks in masking tape, it'll sit tight and flush.

Then I lined up my paper template:



And drew my taper lines on the back:



Set up the straight edge:



And setup the 1/2x2" pattern cutter bit:



And get to work:



Lots of shavings. I am going to save them and give them to my blacksmith friend for kindling for his forge.

Neck is tapered:



But not without some collateral damage:



The first side I tapered went very smoothly. The second side was problematic. The wood started splitting toward the headstock. I went slowly but it still happened. Two things saved me here:

First, the split areas are all going to be cut off anyway. Second, I drew the line slightly outside of where I wanted the actual edge, anticipating problems. So the uneven parts of the taper will also be removed before the thing is finished.

That said, I wicked some glue into the split and clamped it up. I have some carving to do on the headstock, and I don't want the splits spreading to somewhere more important.

The biggest lesson I learned from this process was to rough cut the taper on a bandsaw and finish on the router table. I guess that means I have to get a band saw.

[HaMMerHeD]

This weekend, I did a lot of work on the neck.

Fist I rough cut the headstock profile out with a scroll saw. I forgot to get pictures of that. I used some cuttings from that process to glue ears onto the headstock where I need it to be a little wider.



The next day, I cut the rest of the headstock out:



There's still a little work left to do on the spindle sander.

Once I got the neck cut to length and shaped to its final taper, I squared the corners of the neck profile and widened it by about 0.05" so that the neck would fit in. I also routed the pocket about 0.4" deeper so that the neck sits about 1/8" proud of the body:



Here it is next to the inspiration to build it:


It's a big boy.

Sorry about the crap cell phone picture. My real camera is broken.

The next step was to remove the extra wood from around the neck pocket:



I did that after lunch today, and that is where it stands right now. The next step is to slot my fingerboard and glue it onto the neck, then taper it. Then I can profile the back of the neck and carve the volute. Then I radius the fretboard and install frets. I bought a fretsaw this weekend, so I'm hoping to get the board slotted this week some time.

[BlackMastodon]

Awesome work man! And yeah bandsaws are really helpful when doing things like this. I am still looking around for a relatively cheap one.

[HaMMerHeD]

Yeah, I keep looking, but the only ones I see for sale around here are 9" or 10" hobby saws. Not really adequate.

[mrcheapyasui]

Wow looks good! That thing is huge! Do you have any bigger forstner bits? That might save you some time cutting out the cavities!

[BlackMastodon]

I was looking over here and it seemed promising:
Bandsaws, Metal Bandsaws, Vertical Bandsaws at Woodcraft

[djohns74]

Originally Posted by HaMMerHeD

Yeah, I keep looking, but the only ones I see for sale around here are 9" or 10" hobby saws. Not really adequate.

I ended up with a 9" Ryobi that was pretty cheap brand new and the perfect word to describe it is "adequate". Definitely no better than that, but just as certainly better than nothing. Of course, space was a partial concern for me, if you have the space for something larger, that's the way to go for sure, and damn the expense. But in a pinch, the smaller saws can still accomplish a lot.

[guitarister7321]

That upper horn is sicky!

Keep up the good work, can't wait to see the finished product!

[HaMMerHeD]

I've been thinking about a case for this. It obviously won't fit a standard V gig bag, and I haven't seen a hard case with large enough internal dimensions to fit the thing. It's looking like I'm looking at either a custom case (quoted around $400) or a self-made case. Right now, I'm thinking about a leather shall with a fiberglass reinforced foam insert.

Originally Posted by djohns74

I ended up with a 9" Ryobi that was pretty cheap brand new and the perfect word to describe it is "adequate". Definitely no better than that, but just as certainly better than nothing. Of course, space was a partial concern for me, if you have the space for something larger, that's the way to go for sure, and damn the expense. But in a pinch, the smaller saws can still accomplish a lot.

I have the space...I just lack the cash. I'm thinking about a 10" benchtop saw until I can afford a 17" or so.

[Cannibalbritney]

lookin good so far... you gonna paint it or veneer it with a sick quilt or flame?

keep postin picks with the progress...

im interested in seeing how this comes out.

[HaMMerHeD]

Originally Posted by Cannibalbritney

lookin good so far... you gonna paint it or veneer it with a sick quilt or flame?

keep postin picks with the progress...

im interested in seeing how this comes out.

The body and neck will both be painted metallic black.

[iron blast]

Post more pics now! lol excellent work man im deff watching this one.

[HaMMerHeD]

So I've got my fret slot saw and my "jig" ready to go. Today is for cutting fret slots. I tell myself it's not a big deal, as the bloodwood board was pretty inexpensive, but it still makes me nervous. I'd rather not wait another week for a new board.

First thing...I've lost my fret scale template. Made a new one, added some info...gotta go get it printed.



(Also, I ordered the nut for this bass and the nut and saddle for my next project today. It's going to be interesting.)

[HaMMerHeD]

So here's the "tool" I modifed for cutting the fret slots.

The fret saw I am using has a brass bracket along the back edge of the saw blade. Like this:



I am using that bracket as a depth stop. Using a pre-slotted LMI board I have on hand for another project, I determined that the depth stop needs to be 5/8" (or 15.9mm for my european friends) above the surface of the board.

I started with a standard aluminum framing speed square, which turned out to be 3/16" (4.7mm) thick. That meant that I needed to add 7/16" (11.1mm) to the plate to make the depth stop correct. For that, I acquired a small pine block from home depot and ran it under the wagner safe-t-plane until it was 7/16" thick.

Once that was done, I taped the square to the pine block and drilled some mounting holes:


The holes were countersunk on the fingerboard-facing side of the square. I also chamfered the edge of the square so that it wouldn't run up against the teeth of the saw, but I forgot to get a picture of that. I just filed it down and sanded the chamfer smooth.

Then screw the pine block to the square:


And it's ready to go:

[HaMMerHeD]

This morning I got my fret scale template re-printed and prepped the fingerboard for slotting.

First I covered it with tape:


Then used some 3M spray adhesive #77 to attach the fret template to the tape:


I used tape to make the whole thing come off easily after slotting.

The glue is drying now...should be able to start cutting in 30 minutes or so.

[motomoto]

[HaMMerHeD]

Well, the little jig was pretty good for keeping the slot straight, but unfortunately not very good for overcoming my incompetence with the saw. In addition, I don't think the saw I got for this is really up to the job. It's designed for softer woods, I think, so I was having to use way too much pressure to cut the bloodwood, and it kept slipping out of the slot and ....ing up the works in general. I got about 3/4" of the slots done OK, but the rest of them were basically unsalvagable. So that sucks.

So...I'm going to go another route.

I've ordered a new board from LMI, and I'm having them slot it for 34" and offset the slotting by ~2.25" toward the bridge so that I can add a new slot for the new 1st fret.

In the mean time, I'm going to get a better saw and practice slotting some scrap.

[Pikka Bird]

^May I recommend a Japanese saw? It cuts on the pull stroke and you will not need to use any force at all and can concentrate on keeping the blade aligned. I tried slotting and fretting some scraps I've got lying around with my (very cheap) Japanese saw, and it made some very clean cuts, even without using a miter box or any other guides.

[Metal_Webb]

I would recommend at least a coping saw, it'll help with your cutting accuracy a lot due to the blade cutting on the back stroke.

Coping saw - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Should be able to get at any hardware shop worth it's money.

[skeels]

My name is skeels and I approve this thread.