# New Build - Heretic Paradigm 6



## HaMMerHeD (Mar 10, 2018)

Hey gang. It's been a while. I hope you are all well.

Lovely.

Right then, off we go.

So I'm making myself another instrument. Here are specs:

*General Info:*
6 string bass guitar
Bolt-on neck
35" scale
26 frets

*Wood:*
Swamp ash body (Fraxinum americana)
Quartersawn hard maple neck (5 pieces) and fretboard (Acer saccharum)
Bookmatched swamp-ash headplate.
Truss rod adjustment at the head

*Hardware:*
2.03" (~52mm) Graphtech Black TUSQ XL Nut
Hipshot A-style brass bridge, 0.640" spacing (~16.25mm), chrome
Hipshot Ultralight Y-key tuners (3/8" posts), chrome
Jumbo nickel-silver fretwire (LMII FW57110)
One double-action truss rod
Two pultruded carbon fiber reinforcement rods
Dunlop dual-design locking strap buttons, polished nickel
D'Addario XL light stainless steel strings (.032-.130)
3/4" (19mm) vol/tone knobs, chrome
5/8" (16mm) EQ knobs, chrome

*Electronics:*
One passive MM-style humbucker pickup
Aguilar OBP-3 onboard pre-amp
18v wiring
Active/Passive switch
50K EQ pots (low, mid, high)
500K master volume and passive tone control
.100uF Sprague orange drop passive tone capacitor

*Finish:*
Black pore-fill and purple dye job
High-gloss clear lacquer

It's meant to be something of a double-cut big brother for this bass. The spacing is narrowish because I'm old and my fingers aren't as stretchy as they used to be. Also I want to do more tapping and chords and such, so there we are. This will be my first time working with Swamp ash and quartersawn timber. I've only ever used northern White ash before, which is very hard and very heavy. I'm excited for the look of ash without the pain of carving the hard, heavy northern shit.

Regarding quartersawn wood:
I believe it is wildly overrated for neck building. Wood warps and deforms according to its orientation to the bark, which on a perfectly q-sawn neck, means that it is more likely to bend laterally, perpendicular to the strings, which can't be corrected by a truss rod. In practice, single-piece quartersawn necks are more likely to twist than flatsawn. But I like the straight grain look of properly quartered maple, so here we are. I'll be ripping the maple and making a 5-piece laminated neck with opposing grain and such, just like I would with a flatsawn board. The truss rod will be installed in the center laminate (5/8" thick), and the carbon fiber rods will be epoxy-bedded into the two stringers (3/8" thick). I may or may not glue some walnut and/or mahogany veneers between the maple pieces. I haven't decided yet. I like the look, but it's a *lot* of very fiddly work.


Here's the design:






It's a big bass. It'll be about 46.5" long, 13.5" wide. I changed my standard headstock design for this build. I'd been using the old one for ~6 years, and I felt it was time for an update. Here's a side-by-side comparison (new on left, old on right):






What do you fine folks think?

And here are all the bits that have arrived for it so far:





It's not much, because I just ordered everything on Thursday. The wood and Hipshot stuff hasn't even shipped yet, so I think it'll likely be another week and a half before I can make some sawdust. I ordered everything but the lacquer and the dye from these vendors: bestbassgear.com, bellforestproducts.com, kieselguitars.com, hipshotproducts.com, and bassstringsonline.com. I am not being compensated by any of them for this thread, but I know a lot of people struggle with where to find stuff. I've used all these vendors for a long time, and I know them to all give great customer service and stand behind their products. I bought the lacquer at Autozone, and the dye from Woodcraft.

Here's hoping I can get started soon.


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 11, 2018)

I'm sure the pictures are great but unfortunately they aren't working. The 3rd party sites like imgr and photobucket have changed their policies so embedding on other sites doesn't work anymore.


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## skeels (Mar 11, 2018)

skeels likes this

Good to see you again, buddy. I am back after being MIA for a while too.


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## jwade (Mar 11, 2018)

Postimg seems to work pretty well, maybe give that a shot.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 11, 2018)

I guess i'll just use SSO's built-in image stuff.










BlackMastodon said:


> I'm sure the pictures are great but unfortunately they aren't working. The 3rd party sites like imgr and photobucket have changed their policies so embedding on other sites doesn't work anymore.



If that's the case, imgur should really stop giving sharing links.

I found this (https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/201569776-I-can-t-see-the-images):
*Are you unable to see your images on a forum? *
We allow hotlinking on forums, but hotlinked images cannot be used as content for a website, including blog posts, avatars, site elements, and advertising. You can read our terms of service for more info. If you believe your site has been mistakenly blocked, please contact us for assistance.

So it seems they do still allow hotlinking for forums. I can actually see the images just fine in the OP. So I'm not sure what's up. I've emailed them for more info.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 12, 2018)

The pre-amp arrived today.




If John East makes the Cadillac of on-board bass pres, the Aguilar OBP-3 is the Corvette. Key features are 18 decibels of boost and cut on the Mid and Low bands, 16 dB on the high band, and an easily adjustable mid frequency cut-off. The resistors are there to reduce popping with the mid switch. I'm not sure if I'm going to put a mid-switch on. I hadn't planned to, but it's so easy...

It is a *lot* of wires though.

Also, looks like the wood will be here on Wednesday. So that's fun.


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## KnightBrolaire (Mar 12, 2018)

HaMMerHeD said:


> I guess i'll just use SSO's built-in image stuff.
> 
> View attachment 59667
> 
> ...


imgur blocked sso because people use imgur versions of their photos to sell guitars/gear, which is apparently against their TOS
basically, stay away from photobucket or imgur, they don't work here.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 12, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> imgur blocked sso because people use imgur versions of their photos to sell guitars/gear, which is apparently against their TOS
> basically, stay away from photobucket or imgur, they don't work here.



Yeah, I worked that out.

Fortunately, in my day job, I'm a web developer, so I'm building my own image hosting platform.


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## KR250 (Mar 13, 2018)

HaMMerHeD said:


> The pre-amp arrived today.



I wired one of these up for a buddies bass, it sounds great! Good choice. I'm trying out the Audere pre-amp now since the wiring is quite a bit simpler.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 14, 2018)

I got some more hardware today, and the wood!

But first, the hardware:


Knobs, output jack, nut, volume and tone pots, and the pickup. It's a Car...Kiesel 6-string MusicMan style humbucker, designed for bridges with .64 spacing, which is what I'm using. I chose it because I liked the price, and I like MM style 'buckers. The smaller knobs will be for the EQ, and the larger are for master volume and passive tone.

Here's the wood:


Swamp ash, quartersawn maple neck, and quartersawn maple fretboard.

The ash has a lot more character in the grain than the hard northern White ash I normally use.


It's 59" long, 9-5/8" wide, and 1-3/4" thick. The body blank needs a board 41" long and 7" wide, and the final body thickness will be 1-1/2", so this will give me a lot of wiggle room. I'll also have enough left over to make a matching headplate.

The neck maple is perfectly straight, so I'm excited about that.


There's a little bit of runout toward one end, but it's not bad. I'll make that the headstock end. It'll be ripped, laminated, and scarfed anyway. The board is 53" long, and 4-3/4" wide, by 1-1/16" thick. At a minimum, I needed 45" long, 3.5" wide, and 7/8" thick, so again I'll have some wiggle room.

And last but not least, the fretboard! It has a lot more visible curl than I thought it would. I'll be able to get two six-string bass fretboards out of this board, or one six-string bass board and 2 regular-size guitar boards.


This board is 28-5/16" long, 5-1/2" wide, and 1-1/16" thick. I'll re-saw it into two ~7/16" thick boards and choose the most figured one for the fretboard for this bass. It only needs to be about 3-5/16" wide, so I'll be able to rip the darker heartwood off the one edge and have nice, clean white maple for the fretboard.

In terms of raw lumber, this may be my most expensive build yet, though it's only really about $200 worth of wood. The 4-string this 6-er is being built as a companion for is made of about $30 worth of hard maple and ash.

Anyway! I'm excited about the wood. It exceeds my expectations. Bell Forest Products really came through for me. The ash in particular is just fantastic.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 15, 2018)

I got some more stuff in today. Self-adhesive pickup foam, center-detent 50K linear taper EQ pots, the active/passive toggle switch, the passive tone capacitor, and...some chrome screws I think. I'm still waiting on the bridge and tuning machines from Hipshot. I think they might have shipped today.

Anyway, I tweaked the design a bit, changed the neck spec, and fleshed out the pickup cavity route.




I tweaked the upper horn, to make it look a bit more substantial and a bit more tapered.

I decided to go with a 3-piece neck...mostly because I'm tired of all the fiddly work with gluing 5-piece necks together.

And I bumped the fretboard up to 26 frets...because why not? I have the fretwire, and the board is long enough, and it'll make the neck pocket a bit bigger, so I can put more neck screws in.

So, win-win-win, as far as I'm concerned.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 17, 2018)

I decided to go with threaded inserts and 1/4"-20 socket cap machine screws for attaching the neck.

So I got those, as well as a full-size print. This is a big bass. Today I'm going to try to get the body slab done.



Stainless steel 1/4"-20 x 1" and 1/4"-20 x 1-1/4" machine screws and brass inserts.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 17, 2018)

The body blank is in glue and clamps:




I decided to go with a sinusoidal grain pattern, because I think it's more interesting that way.

Now imma go work on the neck blank.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 17, 2018)

I got my fretboard prepped and marked.




I'll slot it tomorrow. My slotting tools and technique are rather different than most I've seen, so I'll go into some depth about it.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 18, 2018)

So I was going for a neck beam width of 3.5", and it ended up being this:


So, just a little more than half a millimeter off. The final overall neck width is only 3.263", so I've got plenty of room.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 18, 2018)

OK, so I got a lot done today. The neck beam is glued together, and the fretboard is slotted.

My process was borne of necessity: I needed to slot a board, and I couldn't afford to spend hundreds on one of those fancy StewMac/LMII fret slotting jigs, and I sure couldn't afford to buy a CNC router to do it for me. So I invented my own process.

My slotting tools are as follows:


Stewmac fret saw
Verified square speed-square
3M Super 77 spray glue
Blue painter's tape
Printed full-size template
Some clamps
First step is to cover the fretboard in masking tape. This is to make cleanup after slotting easier.



Second step is to mark the back with the direction of the nut, and of the jointed edge. This is so that you reference square off of the square side, and don't slot it backward.



Third is to prepare the printed template.



I cut it down the middle for two reasons: One, in case i put the first one down wrong and have to give it a second shot. Two: since the exposed spray glue on the blue tape helps the speed -square/cutting-guide stay put.


Naturally, I fucked this step up and put it on crooked.

So I pulled it off and used the other side.



To be continued....


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 18, 2018)

Then it's just a matter of sticking the speed square up against the jointed edge of the board, lined up with the printed line representing the slot to be cut.


the edge of the speed square that is pressed against the board is beveled slightly so that the saw's teeth don't rub against it and get dulled. This makes it look, at this angle, like it's slightly off. It's not.

Then you just press the saw against the speed square and saw away.


Voila! A slot is born!

Then you just work your way down the board, one slot at a time:



Eventually, you've cut all your slots, and you take the tape off, and the template and spray glue come off with it.


(The cut slots don't line up with my drawn lines, because my drawn lines were incorrect. I measured every slot very carefully afterward, and they are all placed correctly.)

Of course, you have to adjust the placement of the clamps from time to time. Not a big deal though.

From start to finish, it took me 50 minutes. It would be faster if I had a better jig, but this is so cheap and easy, I'm just not motivated to spend hundreds on the LMII jig (the StewMac one isn't big enough to do a 6 string bass board anyway).

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you broke bitches to have more confidence in your modest tools, and a cheap and effective means of cutting your fret slots. The most expensive part of this setup was definitely the StewMac fret saw with depth stop. With that saw, and the speed square, and the can of glue, this whole setup cost me about $66


I do feel I should mention that, if you are starting a build, and you're going to order your fretboard from LMII, it's *definitely *worth paying the $9 to have them slot it on their CNC slotting machine. It will be more accurate than you can do with a handsaw, and $9 is a hell of a deal. They will slot any number of slots at any scale, as long as it fits on the board. Professional luthiers buy pre-slotted boards from LMII all the time. If I was charging someone for my shop time, it would cost a hell of a lot more than $9 for me to spend that ~1 hour doing it.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 19, 2018)

So I got a care package from Hipshot today:


0.64" spacing aluminum type A bridge




3/8" post chrome ultralight tuners

And I also got my router templates back from the CNC shop:



And the pickup fits!



I now have almost everything I need to finish this thing. I'm only still waiting on some chrome pickup screws, a pair of white felt strap button washers, and of course, enough spare time to do the work.


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## MoonJelly (Mar 21, 2018)

HaMMerHeD said:


> Anyway, I hope this helps some of you broke bitches to have more confidence in your modest tools, and a cheap and effective means of cutting your fret slots. The most expensive part of this setup was definitely the StewMac fret saw with depth stop. With that saw, and the speed square, and the can of glue, this whole setup cost me about $66
> 
> 
> I do feel I should mention that, if you are starting a build, and you're going to order your fretboard from LMII, it's *definitely *worth paying the $9 to have them slot it on their CNC slotting machine. It will be more accurate than you can do with a handsaw, and $9 is a hell of a deal. They will slot any number of slots at any scale, as long as it fits on the board. Professional luthiers buy pre-slotted boards from LMII all the time. If I was charging someone for my shop time, it would cost a hell of a lot more than $9 for me to spend that ~1 hour doing it.



Message received. I think your setup is far more efficient than what I've done in the past...LMII here I come lol

And suddenly the reason shops charge so much for fanned frets is clear to me. You may need to do it by hand and it takes ~1 hour or more.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 21, 2018)

MoonJelly said:


> Message received. I think your setup is far more efficient than what I've done in the past...LMII here I come lol
> 
> And suddenly the reason shops charge so much for fanned frets is clear to me. You may need to do it by hand and it takes ~1 hour or more.



Fanned frets increase complexity on a several levels. Cutting the slots is the least of it, I think.


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## KnightBrolaire (Mar 21, 2018)

MoonJelly said:


> Message received. I think your setup is far more efficient than what I've done in the past...LMII here I come lol
> 
> And suddenly the reason shops charge so much for fanned frets is clear to me. You may need to do it by hand and it takes ~1 hour or more.


last time I tried to cut fanned frets I went super ghetto. I basically had my fret saw, my t-square, a clamp to hold the t-square in place and my template (which I taped to the fretboard). Hammerhed's way with the painter's tape/spray adhesive seems way more efficient as far as holding the template in place. Knightro told me he does it essentially the same way.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 21, 2018)

So I did the scarf joint this evening. I do this in basically 4 steps:

cut the head off the neck blank (miter saw)
route a 10 deg angle into the neck beam (router + sled)
route a complementary 10 deg angle in the headstock (router + sled)
glue them together
Not rocket surgery. I make my neck blanks extra long so I don't have to try to cut the head off at 10 degrees.

So here are some pictures.

First I draw some parallel lines on the face to be cut off, square to the edge.


These are to help me ensure that my cuts are square.

Then I put it in my sled:



Set up my router with an extra-wide base:



And start cutting:


It's not square, so I adjust and move on.

Adjustment is done by rotating the neck beam slightly and making another cut.


Nice and square, so I route the rest of the way down.




Then I do exactly the same thing with the headstock piece.



Once the routing is done, I sand the faces and glue that shit up.



I developed this method because I was tired of the anxiety that comes from trying to cut at an angle, then flattening it. This method gives me plenty of wiggle room, amd is almost fool-proof, as long as you take it slow.


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 22, 2018)

I missed your build threads, Hammer.

Love the idea of the parallel lines drawn on the neck/headstock pieces to make sure you're square. And agree it's the most fool-proof method and probably best way to do a scarf, I guess the only drawback is it wastes more material but I can't think of a time where you would need the grain to match up exactly and would need that extra wood, since the parts that are cut away are hidden by the headstock piece and fretboard respectively.

Anyway, clean clean clean work!


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 22, 2018)

Yeah, it does waste a little more wood, but honestly, it's not as thought the boards I buy to make necks from are always the perfect size with no waste in the first place. The board i started with was 53" long, which was about 9" longer than it needed to be. So that extra length was getting wasted anyway.


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## Grand Rabbit (Mar 22, 2018)

HaMMerHeD said:


> Fanned frets increase complexity on a several levels. Cutting the slots is the least of it, I think.



This is true, but even still I use hand tools to cut my fanned fret slots and it's not too bad. I usually use a squared wooden block as a fence, clamp it in place and japanese pull saws with a very fine kerf for the cut.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 24, 2018)

I set about routing the truss rod and CF rod slots today, and this happened:



The collet let go of the bit, and it proceeded to try to climb it's way out. Of course, it made a funky sound, so I shut it off, but this is how far it got before I could reach the switch.

I am....rather upset about this. Caliper says it's 0.503" deep. I'm going to try to figure out if I'm in danger of cutting into it when I shape the back of the neck.

I may have to get some new wood and start the neck over.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 24, 2018)

Well, it's fucked.


This is what the cross section of the neck at that point would look like.



I could patch it, but it would be visible, and I'd rather not knowingly build a weak spot into the neck.

So, into the burn pile it goes. Gotta go order some new qsawn maple.


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## BlackMastodon (Mar 24, 2018)

Bummer about the neck, could you re-purpose it for an asymmetrical/jazz profile neck?


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## skeels (Mar 25, 2018)

skeels does not like this! 

Had a similar thing happen on my neck thru tele.. Watched the bit sink back into the table while I was trimming the ferretboard to the neck... Guh. I feel your pain.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 25, 2018)

So I built this neck blank a few months ago, and then decided not to continue with the rest of that build.







It's about 3mm too narrow for the heel on this build, but I can glue some wenge on and make it work.

It's not really the look I had originally intended for this bass, but it's not bad.

What do you fine folks think?


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## Knarbens (Mar 26, 2018)

Dude that's a bummer! I feel you.

The new blank is nice and the glue joint won't be visible on the wenge I guess.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 26, 2018)

Yeah, it's easy to hide glue lines with wenge.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 28, 2018)

So the "new" neck blank was originally made with a simple wenge + maple veneer + wenge headstock, which I didn't want to do for this one.

Plus, I discovered that the wenge pieces weren't totally square, so I ripped it along the veneer line and squared the wenge, then jointed the edges.

I decided to incorporate some of the ash into the center lamination of the headstock, which I will dye purple to match the rest of the bass.

Also there'll be a purple dyed headplate.

If that's confusing, it'll be come clearer soon.

So here's the head (wenge, maple veneer, walnut veneer, ash core, walnut veneer, maple veneer, wenge):





It's all built up to be the same width as the neck blank.

I'll have to add some width to the neck blank around the heel to make it wide enough, and I'll have to glue ears on the headstock as well.

But it's wenge, so it'll be easy to conceal the glue joint.

Right.

So...the scarf joint.

I'm going to add my wishbone detail to it, like this:





But instead of ebony, I'll use padauk.

And speaking of nearly-invisible glue joints...that headstock has ears glued onto it.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get the scarf joint done tomorrow night, so the Padauk 'wishbone' lamination is in glue and clamps right now. It's actually 7/32" thick piece of padauk with a 1/42" maple veneer sheet on each side, for a total thickness of about 0.266", or ~6.75mm. But cut on a 10 degree bias, that gives about 1.5" (~39mm) of extra length to the overall neck blank.


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## neun Arme (Mar 29, 2018)

HaMMerHeD said:


>



Well, that's some pretty good looking neck right here.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 29, 2018)

neun Arme said:


> Well, that's some pretty good looking neck right here.



Thanks, here's the front.




It's a 27" scale, 26 fret baritone with SD Nazgul and Sentient pickups. I built it about 2.5 years ago I think.


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## neun Arme (Mar 30, 2018)

Yes, I remember that guitar.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 30, 2018)

So, I trimmed and glued the wishbone lamination onto the headstock piece today:




As you can see, it's just a ~1/4" piece of padauk with thin maple veneers (1/42", or 0.6mm) glued to both sides.

Then it's glued to the back of the headstock so that it is included in the scarf joint.





This is the...3rd to last glue joint in this project. Next is the scarf joint, and last is the fretboard on the neck blank. Then I can start shaping and placing hardware.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 31, 2018)

My observation is that people tend to really over-complicate gluing scarf joints, using staples or toothpicks or all kinds of other stuff.

Yes, the wood gets very slippery when you put glue in the joint, and it can seem really difficult to get them to stay still. And yeah, toothpicks and bamboo skewers can do an OK job sometimes.

But as with all my other processes, I've developed something that is very easy, reliable, and quick.

There are basically just 2 steps:

Immobilize the parts
Glue and clamp them together
Here's a bit more detail:

First, I clamp the neck beam to a long, flat plywood board. Then I put glue on the headstock and position it, then clamp it to the same plywood board.




This effectively immobilizes both pieces, so they won't scooch apart when pressure is applied to the angled surfaces, and I'm ready to apply clamps to the actual joint.

So I do that.


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## KR250 (Mar 31, 2018)

I'm totally stealing your moves now.... that "jig" looks so simple and effective.


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## MoonJelly (Mar 31, 2018)

This should go on the "Luthier Life Hacks" thread.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 31, 2018)

I got the truss rod and carbon fiber rod slots done:







I'm getting to be pretty excited about this project now. I should be able to get the neck cut out, make a neck pocket router template, and hopefully get the threaded inserts in the neck tomorrow.

For tonight, I'm just gonna epoxy in the carbon fiber rods.


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## MoonJelly (Apr 1, 2018)

Love the colors on that neck.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 3, 2018)

I hadn't really thought much about the body profile other than "rounded bevels on the front, and round on the back", so I took a minute to draw out a rough plan for the top.






What I mean by "rounded bevels on the front, and round on the back" is basically this:




The back is fullly smoothed and comfy, and the front shows some hard lines.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 3, 2018)

I didn't get a whole lot done today. I just leveled the neck heel addons that I glued on the other day, to bring the neck heel to the right width.






I glued on rather a lot more than was strictly necessary. It only needed about 1/16" on each side, and only for about 3" from the end of the heel, but my thickness planer doesn't do 1/16" thick, and it doesn't do less than 12-1/2" length. So I glued on some extra.

I cut the glued on pieces so that they were about 1/16" proud of the neck on both sides, then took them down with a #4 Kobalt plane, a low-angle Stanley block plane, and some Sheffield bench scrapers.

The glue joint will be just about invisible when the neck is carved and finished, and anyway, it'll be almost entirely contained within the neck pocket, so it won't matter much if it isn't invisible.

Also, the neck blank is cut to width. My process from here out (for the neck anyway) is as follows:


Epoxy in the carbon rods (they need to be scraped down a little first)
Rough-cut the neck taper (~1/16" outside the line)
Cut the final taper on the fretboard
Install the truss rod and glue on the fretboard
Trim the neck to the fretboard
Add ears to the headstock
Add the ash headplate to the headstock
Shap the neck
Lots of steps, but it's not terribly time consuming stuff.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 3, 2018)

I may actually amend that process a bit for this build.

I'd like to use the threaded inserts in this neck, and I have had a really hard time getting them into wenge in the past so I'm thinking about putting them in from the top, before the fretboard goes on. But if I do, it'll mean a pretty significant process change because I'll need to fit the neck to the neck pocket before attaching the fretboard. And of course that means the neck will have to be trimmed to final shape first, and the fretboard trimmed to the neck, rather than the other way around, which is how i normally handle scarfed necks.


So...not entirely sure at this point.

Thoughts?


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## GXPO (Apr 4, 2018)

I think I've never built a guitar but this is all incredible. Thoughts and prayers regarding the inserts.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 5, 2018)

So....god damn it.

I marked my lines, rough cut the neck on the bandsaw, attached my straight edge router template, started routing....and then watched a big shard of wenge get torn off and flung against the wall.

I didn't take any pictures.

I don't know if I can fix it, or, frankly, if I want to.

Also now I need new hearing protection.


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## MoonJelly (Apr 5, 2018)

Shiiiit. I feel your pain on that one, only mine was a shard of ebony. It was on the face of a body and it took some of the body with it. So I thought if I could find it I'd glue it back in. It went somewhere in the grass and I never found it. 

I still have the body sitting in a corner for like 2 years now, I keep thinking I'll come up with a way to inconspicuously repair it, but it's essentially firewood to me now.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 5, 2018)

Yeah.

I think I'm going to set it aside for possible future repair and use in a different project. But for this one, I'm going to go get some maple and press on with my original plan.


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## Knarbens (Apr 6, 2018)

So sorry man! :/
Do you have a spiral cut flush trim bit?


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 6, 2018)

I do, but it's a top-bearing bit, and I was using the template on the bottom. I was using a bit with a 1/4" cutting height, and had only about 3/16" of the bit engaged with the wood. So I'm calling it an internal weakness.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 10, 2018)

Shit, sorry to hear about the set back. Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to cut ebony/wenge/hardwoods using the router "backwards" to avoid tear out like that? I thought I remember hearing about that somewhere, though I'm not surprised if that's wrong.

Regarding the neck inserts below the fretboard, don't you really just need to shape the heel area on the neck and match it up on the body before drilling for the holes? As long as the centre lines match up I think this should work.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 10, 2018)

BlackMastodon said:


> Shit, sorry to hear about the set back. Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to cut ebony/wenge/hardwoods using the router "backwards" to avoid tear out like that? I thought I remember hearing about that somewhere, though I'm not surprised if that's wrong.
> 
> Regarding the neck inserts below the fretboard, don't you really just need to shape the heel area on the neck and match it up on the body before drilling for the holes? As long as the centre lines match up I think this should work.



Yeah, some climb-cutting might have prevented that. But I dislike climb-cutting, as it is perilously difficult to control.

And yeah, all I'd really need to shape is the neck heel before I can put the threaded inserts in. But since it's no more work to set up for a full-neck taper cut than it is to just shape the heel, I prefer to combine those operations.

The plan for that operation is this (After the scarf joint is routed and glued...again):

Taper the neck,meaning: go from square neck blank to final-width at the nut and the heel.
Make a neck pocket template
Route the neck pocket
Fit the neck heel into the neck pocket
Drill holes in the neck for the threaded insert
Install threaded inserts (using epoxy to lube instead of wax)
Use a tapered/sharpened 1/4-20 screw to mark for drilling screw holes in the neck pocket
Drill holes for neck screws, with 1/2" diameter counter-sink for the washers

I did go get some nice maple and have glued the new neck together. I'm just waiting on some free time to appear before I go do the scarf joint.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 11, 2018)

While you have the neck in the heel, can't you just drill through both to make sure they align correctly and then drill in the neck with a wider bit for the inserts if necessary?


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 11, 2018)

They may align correctly that way, but it's more likely that the bit will deflect with so deep a cut.

I prefer to mark the center point of holes, then drill. Otherwise you are almost guaranteed to get those insert holes drilled off-center.


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## FloridaRolf (Apr 11, 2018)

Damn, sad to read about that. I'm still struggling with the pieces of wenge for my neck and may even scrap that wood because it's such a pain in the ass to work with and even planing with all that grain crossing everywhere is almost impossible.
Keep your head up!


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## MikeNeal (Apr 11, 2018)

That's the downside of wenge. You can get all the way done a project but the last millimeter - then bam massive tear out.

For what its worth - I only climb cut wenge these days. It can be sketchy. And it's a major reason i went cnc


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 28, 2018)

New neck is mostly machined. I need to go get some epoxy for the CF stiffeners, then Imma taper the fretboard and glue it on.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 12, 2018)

So...being very frustrated by my plethora of neck problems, I let the project sit for a long time. Far longer than I intended. But hey...I have a toddler. Life...finds a way to get in the way.

But recently, I took the project back up, and I have made a lot of exciting progress.

I have a neck, and it's looking pretty good. It's made from a 3/4" Purpleheart core, two 3/8" hard maple stringers, and Jatoba...sides.


Looks nice, yeah?


I also decided to change the headstock. It's more like my old one, but updated and streamlined a bit for a 6-string bass.



Tuners fit!


And I made the headplate. It's made from two 1/8" slices I took of a bit of swamp ash body slab cutoff. Of course, it needs a matching slot for the truss rod access.




The updated headstock is bout 5/16" wider than the 4" blank, so I'm gluing on some ears on the head tonight, and I'll glue the ash headplate on tomorrow.

(Also, sorry about all the broken images. I'll see if I can fix them.)


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 15, 2018)

So I cut the headstock out.



Then thinned the backside a bit:



And cut the headplate to about 1/16" larger than it needs to be:



And glued it on:



Once it's out of clamps, I'll install the truss rod and glue on the fretboard, then trim them both to size.


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## Pikka Bird (Sep 16, 2018)

Dude, I'm so glad you're going back to your old headstock. The other one was nice, but very much like the one that ... well, that everybody else uses. Your own design is so much more unique, without crossing over into "weird for the sake of it" territory. That's a difficult thing to nail.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 16, 2018)

Thanks Pikka. I did tweak it a lot, so that it would fit six bass tuners and not look comically large or be too heavy. There's really a lot that goes into headstock design.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 16, 2018)

Also I did this yesterday,


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 16, 2018)

So, regarding tuners.

I really like angled tuning machines on basses, like this:



But I think pointing straight out makes it look bigger and more impressive.



What do you guys think?


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Sep 16, 2018)

Angled


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## Albake21 (Sep 16, 2018)

Yup, definitely angled.


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## odibrom (Sep 16, 2018)

Angled is faster...


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## MoonJelly (Sep 16, 2018)

Yeah, I like the straight look better on this one.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 16, 2018)

I think I'll go with angled. I love the look.

I didn't get a heck of a lot done today.

I made the cavity cover.


Holstex faux carbon fiber looks pretty legit.

And the neck pocket routing template.



The template is 2 thicknesses of masking tape on the loose side, because the neck will be finished in clear gloss lacquer, and I still need it to fit after it's all finished. It'll be a snug fit with lacquer on.


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## Bearitone (Sep 18, 2018)

Straight


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 22, 2018)

I went to go route the pickup cavity today, and this happened:




It's not uncommon when routing that little spot with MM shaped pickups.

So I glued the piece back on, and i'll try again in a couple of hours.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 22, 2018)

Pickup route is done.


I did those 1/8" radius corners with an Amana 47224 router bit. I got it here: https://www.toolstoday.com/miniatur...outer-bits-with-upper-ball-bearing-guide.html

I also drilled for the pickup wire.


My technique is that I just tape a steel ruler over the opposite end of the pickup route, put a 12" long 1/4" D bit into my drill, and drill through the corner, into the control cavity. In this bass, it was 1/2" to drill through.

And I'm thinking the pre-amp will live here, attached to the side wall with 3M foam mounting tape.


Also I drilled for the output jack.

It's coming together nicely.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 22, 2018)

Last update for today.

I got the threaded inserts in, so I'm ready to install the truss rod and glue on the fretboard.


I had intended to put all five of the threaded inserts in from the top, but I accidentally installed the center one from the bottom. Oh well.




I'm gonna glue the fretboard on tonight, and hopefully bang the frets in tomorrow.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 23, 2018)

So, last night I glued the fretboard on, and this afternoon I trimmed it to the neck (with this router bit).



I think it's coming along pretty well.

I did do one goofy thing though. I forgot to mark the neck pocket for the screw holes before I glued the fretboard on. I had made a screw for this purpose by grinding one of the 1/4-20 screws to a point, the idea being to clamp the neck in the pocket and then thread the screw into each insert in turn, until it made a mark for each hole in the pocket.

I can still do it of course, but it'll just have to be a small process change. I'll cut the head of the screw off and thread it into each insert and press it into the pocket, then take it out and put it into the next insert, etc., one at a time.

Dumbass move, but not really that huge a problem.

I still need to route the pockets for the battery boxes, and also make the control cavity a little bit deeper, and that should be all of the machine-work complete.


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## HaMMerHeD (Sep 30, 2018)

Took a break from bass building this weekend to get a good start on this box for my wife.




Mostly wenge, with a brilliant piece of walnut for the top and bottom.


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## HaMMerHeD (Oct 7, 2018)

I didn't have much time, so I did a very small amount of work this weekend.

First thing I did was route the electronics cavity a little deeper. It lacked about 3mm from being able to fasten the pots and switch.

So once that was done, I needed to do the last bit of routing:

Battery box cavities.

I bought these Kmise 9v battery boxes on Amazon...because the price was right.



But I needed a router template, so I went ahead and made one. The cavity is 1.0" wide and 2.5", and needs to be 29mm deep.


(Here's a PDF of the template if anybody wants it.)

I thought about the best way to drill the wiring tunnel from the battery boxes into the control cavity for a while, and just couldn't come up with a way to drill at the right angle.

So instead, I've situated them on the back of the body, about 1/4" "north" of where the pickup cavity is, so that I can drill from the pickup cavity into the battery box cavities. It's the obvious solution, of course, but one that eluded me for some time. I was thinking up all kinds of loony shit, including chopping a couple of hex-shaft drill bits so that I could use one of these guys.

Anyway, I marked where the battery cavities will be, but then the baby was in bed, so I didn't get to drill and route them out.


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## HaMMerHeD (Oct 7, 2018)

Also, here's the basic profiling plan.


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## HaMMerHeD (Oct 14, 2018)

I had a small surgical procedure done on friday morning (snip snip!), so I couldn't spend as much time as I would have liked in the shop this weekend.

But...I got the battery box cavities routed, and the wire tunnels drilled.

First, I drilled for the wires:



Then I routed the cavity for the battery boxes:



Had to make sure all the wires would fit:


They do, but it's a very tight fit. I might drill a separate hole for the battery wires.

The cavity needed to be 29mm deep for the boxes to fully seat, so I did that.


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## Defyantly (Oct 15, 2018)

Looks sick man!! Good luck with recovery and keep cranking on this! Its gonna be awesome!!


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 5, 2019)

Good evening everyone.

I hope you have been well. I have, but also very busy. Toddlers tend to take over one's life.

Anyway, I did a little bit of work today. The neck is now fitted to the body.



So, the neck has some brass threaded inserts in it, and I used stainless steel 1/4"-20 socket-head cap screws to attach the neck, and 1/2" washers in lieu of bushings/ferrules. It should hold pretty well, I expect.


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## Bunkatronic (Feb 8, 2019)

Nice man! The planning for the contours is looking like it’s going to work out awesome!


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 9, 2019)

I placed the bridge drilled for hardware today.




Everything fits!




And looks good doing it, I think.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 9, 2019)

I started working on profiling the neck tonight.





Then it got dark (and cold) and I had to stop about halfway through. It's coming along well. You can see by the maple that it's a bit lumpy around the middle bits, so I'll get all that trued up tomorrow. I don't generally want it to be arrow straight. I prefer a more parabolic shape.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 10, 2019)

It's cold and rainy today, and so since my neck carving buck necessarily protrudes out my garage door, I didn't proceed with the neck today.

Instead, I worked on the body.

My primary material-removing tool is this big 17" farrier's rasp:



The coarse side (shown above) removes material faster than anything else I've tried, including that damned Shinto rasp. The other side produces a much nicer surface, but still needs some work.


Once I get it in the rough shape I want, I switch to my StewMac dragon rasps.




They produce a pretty good finish, but not really sanding/scraping ready. After the dragon rasp, I switch to a bastard file, which is ready for finessing with sanding and scraping.

But that's for another day. I'm tired.

So here is how it sits today:


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## KR250 (Feb 10, 2019)

Killer, I'm a huge fan of bevels all the way around. Looking great.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 10, 2019)

Well, I went out and did some work on the neck anyway.

You can just see the where the scarf joint is glued...



It's lined up pretty OK though, I think.


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## Purelojik (Feb 10, 2019)

Damn dude thats pretty dead on


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## Defyantly (Feb 11, 2019)

That's one clean glue joint!


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## Omzig (Feb 13, 2019)

Dam Ash looks so cool when carved and beveled & this is going to look killer with a ceruse finish.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 14, 2019)

Needed a new RO sander, so I grabbed this variable speed Bosch.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Feb 15, 2019)

HaMMerHeD said:


> It's cold and rainy today, and so since my neck carving buck necessarily protrudes out my garage door, I didn't proceed with the neck today.
> 
> Instead, I worked on the body.
> 
> ...





I love how the grain runs opposite on the left and right. Sort of a radial symmetry type of thing. Very cool.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 15, 2019)

Thanks. It was definitely a deliberate choice. With ash, I prefer those sinusoidal grain lines over the more common M or W orientation.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 16, 2019)

So I became worried about the structural integrity of my control cavity.




The top over the cavity is about 5mm thick, and the edges are heavily beveled. So I worried that there wasn't much meat in the corners, so I took a cue from acoustic guitar builders and made some kerfing.

https://www.lmii.com/116-kerfing

Kerfing is used inside acoustic guitars to provide extra gluing surface area--and therefore some strength--at the edges where the top and back glue onto the sides.

So I made some out of some swamp ash cutoffs:




And I'm gluing it in.




It won't go all the way around, and I'm ignoring the areas with the screw 'pillars'. But I hope this will help encourage it to be strong.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Feb 16, 2019)

That's just super cool. A nod to traditional luthiery. Love it.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 16, 2019)

And that's done.




Tomorrow I hope to finish profiling the body and radius/fret the fretboard.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 17, 2019)

I only had about 90 min to work today, so I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but...I made some progress.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 17, 2019)

The bass-side (upper) edge is exactly the proportion I wanted.




Once I round it over and smooth it out, it'll be perfect.


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## crackout (Feb 18, 2019)

Nice scarf joint!


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## MoonJelly (Feb 19, 2019)

HaMMerHeD said:


> And that's done.
> 
> View attachment 67077
> 
> ...



Dang, man. You just solved for an issue I'm having with a build. It has a wenge top and when I was routing the control cavity I accidentally went too close to the top, now there's an area about 1/32" thick and I was puzzling over how to address it. Combined with my original idea, this will be a perfect solution.

Much respect.


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## 73647k (Feb 19, 2019)

Just read through this thread - wow, really looking forward to seeing this one once it's complete. That upper horn looks super mean by the way


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## Solodini (Feb 20, 2019)

This is really looking great!


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## BlackMastodon (Feb 20, 2019)

Incredible work as usual, and an awesome thread with all the pictures. Keep up the awesome work, man! Really looking forward to seeing this one done.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 24, 2019)

Did more work today.







The body shaping is now finished, so I'll be doing more work on the neck...and then finish sanding and scraping.


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## HaMMerHeD (Feb 24, 2019)

I did some work on the headstock this afternoon. First job was to tackle the fretboard -> headstock transition. So I clamped a stop block onto the fretbooard and began filing away.




It went pretty quickly, even though I was filing across end-grain.



It's not as seamless as I had hoped.



But oh well.

Neck joint is coming a long, but still needs a lot of work.



It looks...like a bass, hanging out with its lesser siblings.


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## Solodini (Feb 25, 2019)

I really like your singlecuts.


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## Defyantly (Feb 25, 2019)

Dude this thing is taking shape pretty well! Good work!


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 17, 2019)

So I slipped on the ice and fucked up my foot at the end of Feb and couldn't really put my (excessive) weight on it for a couple of weeks, but it's a lot better now, so I got some garage time. Today I:


Radiused the fretboard
Re-cut the fret slots to depth
Opened up the nut slot
Installed the frets
Filed and beveled the fret ends
Drilled for the tuner screw holes
Installed tuners and bridge
Strung and tune

I use Carl Thompsons fretting method. You can see a detailed (somewhat rambling...he's an old man, give him a break) description of that process here:



And here are some pictures from today.



There were minimal mishaps during the whole fretting process. I did get superglue all over the fretboard, but that'll clean off easily enough



Strings pull straight past the nut, and Hipshot bass tuners continue to be the best.



Strings are spaced very well across the fretboard. Only minor adjustments might be necessary.

So that's it. I'm going to leave it strung at tension, hanging in my office for the week, to make sure it has some time to settle (and break if it's gonna).


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## 73647k (Mar 17, 2019)

Been looking forward to seeing this one progress. Sucks to hear about your foot but I'm glad you're doing alright man!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Mar 17, 2019)

can you give like a 2 sentence synopsis of Carl's method?


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 17, 2019)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> can you give like a 2 sentence synopsis of Carl's method?



Cut the fretwire
Apply super glue to the slot
Place the fretwire on the slot
Smack it hard in the center with a hammer (i use a vinyl mallet and a deadblow mallet)
Smack each end to set the ends
Smack along the length, from the center to the ends
Wipe off excess super glue

Repeat 23x


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## Solodini (Mar 18, 2019)

Looking great! Good work!


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## Defyantly (Mar 18, 2019)

Great build! I bet it feels good to have it stringed up for the first time too!


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 18, 2019)

Defyantly said:


> Great build! I bet it feels good to have it stringed up for the first time too!



it do


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## Purelojik (Mar 18, 2019)

Man great work. I saw those videos and have the stew mac flat machined beam. One thing i noticed on my most recent build which i'll post later is the fat/wider surfaces arent machined flat. there are some imperfect areas, the narrow sides with the beveled ends are machined flat. Just thought i'd mention that since i literally just took mine out and measured it against a true surface lol.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 19, 2019)

Thanks alex. I actually use a bit of laminated and jointed hard maple do leveling. Way cheaper than stewmac's beams.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 23, 2019)

Sand in the place where you live!




I hate this part.


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## Defyantly (Mar 24, 2019)

Love the upper horn!


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 24, 2019)

So I finished sanding the body, went up to 320 grit. The I put the dye on.

Here's the before and after:




I had to dick around with the color in photoshop a lot to get the color to look right, but there it is.

To apply the color, I mised Transtint Purple dye with denatured alcohol, at first with a very dilute, maybe 20:1 ratio. I then rubbed the color on with a cotton rag (scraps of an old T-shirt) a few times, until it got to about a lavender color, and let it dry.

Then I mixed some more dye, this time around 10:1, and hit it with a couple more passes until it got to the color I was after.

As I used denatured alcohol, it dried fast.

The next step for the body is to spray the clear coat.

But for now, the neck needs finish sanding, and I need to dye the ash headplate. I'll spray clear coat after that, so I can spray the neck and body at the same time.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 24, 2019)

Here it is with the blue single-cut version.


I like it.


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## Defyantly (Mar 25, 2019)

Love the deep purple color you got form that dye! Are you gonna leave the neck natural or dye it too?


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 27, 2019)

So I took this afternoon of from work (because I felt like it) and I used some of that time working on this guy.




I sanded the dye back so that, when I re-apply it, the grain lines will be darker. I did the same thing with this blue guy:



And I think it worked pretty well.

Also the neck is sanded and ready for seal/dye/spraying (or will be, as soon as I go get some acetone and scrub off the super glue).

(Also, I got a new phone, so the photos are a bit better. Yay.)


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 27, 2019)

So right now the body weighs 1395 grams, and the neck weighs 1175 grams.

For mah fellow amuricans, that's 3 pounds, 1 ounce for the body 2lbs, 9 ounces for the neck.

So, without hardware, we're looking at 5lbs, 10 ounces, or about 2.5 kg.

The blue one, fully assembled as it sits right now, weighs 4.071kg, which is about 9lbs. So there's that. (It's made from regular hard, heavy northern White ash, so I expect the 6 string will be...maybe a little lighter? About the same? I don't know. We'll see I guess.)


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## Albake21 (Mar 27, 2019)

That purple looks even better now! I love it sanded back like this. Cant wait to see this finished.


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 27, 2019)

So here's _Dye Job II: The Deepening_




And there it will stay.


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## MF_Kitten (Mar 28, 2019)

This looks a lot like a hybrid of two of my designs. That's not an accusation, that's me saying I like your taste!


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## Solodini (Mar 28, 2019)

Albake21 said:


> That purple looks even better now! I love it sanded back like this. Cant wait to see this finished.



Same! I wasn't keen on the dark purple but I love the light, sanded purple with grain lines!


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## HaMMerHeD (Mar 28, 2019)

Sorry to disappoint! It was always going to be that deep Royal Purple.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 2, 2019)

Time for a seal coat...




I'll apply it with a foam brush, then level sand and apply again.

The neck will get the same thing, and the sealer is how I'll keep the purple dye from staining the back of the headstock.

Hopefully.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 2, 2019)

So...the sealer fucked up my color. Dissolved the dye and made it run.




Or rather, I fucked up the color with the sealer.

Dumb thing to do. I should have anticipated it. So...imma strip it down to bare wood, redo the dye, and spray the clearcoat directly on, no sealer. (The neck will still need a sealer...more on that later.)

Super fun times.


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## Defyantly (Apr 3, 2019)

Dude that's a bummer. Hope it comes out ok on the next go around!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 3, 2019)

Man I wish I had said something. I've never had a good time rubbing shellac directly onto dye. Spraying it works okay if you do light coats iirc.

You'll get it cleaned up though. Godspeed.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 3, 2019)

Yeah its really not a huge deal. Just a brief setback. I should have realized that shellac dissolved in alcohol was going to mess with my color. C'est la vie.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 3, 2019)

Water will move it around too. Basically brushing is bad.


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## KnightBrolaire (Apr 3, 2019)

alcohol+ alcohol based dyes =bad day. I did the same thing on my strandberg refinish and had to sand off the shellac.


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 14, 2019)

Here we go...again...



I really hate sanding.


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## HaMMerHeD (Jul 28, 2019)

I am way beyond ready to be done with this fucking bass. So today I finished sanding all the shit off.




Or at least as much as I care to.


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## HaMMerHeD (Jul 29, 2019)




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## Defyantly (Jul 29, 2019)

Looks great and i love the purple!


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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 10, 2019)




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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 18, 2019)

So I just went in to start spraying more clear coats, and noticed this.




So....I think I'm done with this stupid fucking project. I would rather burn the whole thing than sand that shit back off A-FUCKING-GAIN.


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## KR250 (Aug 18, 2019)

Deep breathes, set it aside for a bit and tackle it again later. Sucks to see that so close to the end. Maybe some careful sanding while masking off the surrounding area?


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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 18, 2019)

No. It's got to go.


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## Defyantly (Aug 18, 2019)

HaMMerHeD said:


> No. It's got to go.


 it's got to go to the shelf for a bit not the burn bin! It's still in great condition you just need to reset your outlooks so you can come back to it with a fresh perspective.


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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 19, 2019)

So I have this "body blank" i made some years ago that is a really cool piece of padauk on top of some african mahogany, with a maple veneer between. It was cut into this wide 'strips' so that I could make some horizontal laminates as well.




I may repurpose it for this...I'm not sure yet.

I would need laminates between those blocks to make the thing wide enough, probably incorporating at least some of the neck woods to unify the design. But I think I really want to do something simpler.

Simpler, like a 5/16" ash top and back, with a 7/8" walnut or mahogany core.

I'm not 100% decided yet.

The only thing I am quite certain about is the purple body will die a very painful death.


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## HaMMerHeD (Aug 24, 2019)




----------

