Jabba_the_gut

The aluminium was glued in and filed to size. I then put the knobs back on my drill 'lathe', shaped then with a chisel, sanded them and put a coat of sanding sealer on. This is what I ended up with from all the bits: The knobs were then marked up for the position of the grub screw hole (the aluminium has been fitted to follow the grain - the first one I made didn't and it just looked wrong). The hole for the grub screw is opposite the aluminium marker. The holes were drilled then the insert fitted and glued in place with CA glue. After all this, these are the knobs I ended up with. Might need a little more finishing later but we'll see. So that's that part finished and tie to get back on with the bass itself!! Cheers

Next I cut circles of wood for the knob tops For the walnut ones, I cut a slot with my fret saw and glued in a strip of aluminium and filed flat. These are for the knobs that will just have the marker in the top. Tops were then glued onto the bodies. By luck, I found a small socket that had and outside diameter of 10mm and the knobs just pushed onto these sufficiently tightly that I could run them on my drill 'lathe' and trim them to size. The ones for the full length marker were marked up so they could be cut to get the aluminium correctly in line. I clamped these into my fret slotting jig so I could get a nice clean cut. This left me with a selection of knobs with a slot in for the aluminium

I don't have a lathe but I do have a drill stand. I mounted this horizontally and cut the head of an M10 bolt. This allowed me to clamp the knob blanks, run this like a small lathe and trim these to size. I made quite a few blanks as I know having not tried this before it would go wrong at some point and I'd end up with a number of scrap ones!!

I seem to have spent quite a long time over the past few weeks making knobs so here's a few pictures of the process I used. I've used wooden knobs a couple of tie before and I got a local wood turner to make them for me as I don't have a lathe. I still don't but I wanted to make them myself so.... First step - drill a shallow hole with a Forstner bit in the piece of wood that will make the body of the knob. This will be the recess under the knob where the pot nut will end up. Next, drill a hole straight through that will accept the brass insert later Then I drew a circle round them for both sizes of knob ready to cut out with a bandsaw Cut these out and ended up with a load of these

Out of interest, what hardware are you looking to use? There doesn’t seem to be too much headless hardware out there. A lot of four string builds use the ‘Overlord of music’ units. These can be a bit hit or miss quality wise but that is why they are cheap!! But they don’t do a five string. Nova headless units are really nicely made - I was going to use one on a build but each tuner slides on the baseplate to set intonation and things not lining up messes with my OCD!!! They are mid price units and are available in five string. Then it starts to get a bit pricey as you look at Hipshot units or ABM single tuners. All very nice quality but that is reflected in the price. The headpiece for these alone was about £70 last time I looked!! Just curious really to what you were thinking. Cheers

It’s so true - you have been warned!!

Watching with interest! I’ve been accumulating parts for a similar build - I got some Delano Xtender pickups a while ago that I plan on building around. Agree with the others regarding Newtone strings. Really looking forward to seeing your design evolve. Cheers

I'd be interested in this dependent on location.

I've been trying to make some knobs for this bass - it's taken a little while to work out how to do it when I don't own a lathe. I've also made quite a few as I've been trying different things: I will post some picture of the process later but for now here's some different designs. I'm thinking of the one on the right with the marker but without the veneers as I think they are a bit fussy. I'm also waiting for my planer blades to come back from the sharpeners so I can get on with the second body. Cheers

Lovely build again!

Yep, I settled on M5 on my builds.

I have tried bleaching in the past but not too keen on it. When I tried it on a sample of sycamore previously it left a bit of a stain that looked worse than what I was trying to remove! I don't think it would do much to this particular blemish. If I want to remove this one I would remove it with a Dremel and infill it with an offcut of maple. Cheers

Had an enjoyable couple of day where I've been able to get on with the neck carve. I always like this bit as the block of wood turns into something very tactile. Out with the Shinto rasp and start the shaping: This neck is a little more tricky as it is being fitted to an existing body so sanding the contours to match the body takes a bit of patience as to avoid removing any of the finish: After a fair bit of time with a mini rasp and some sandpaper I got to something I'm happy with. Only shame is there is a a small mark in the maple but that's what you can get with a natural material. Now it is starting to look really nice! Still got quite a few jobs to do - quite a few of these are decorative and I've still got to work out how to do them!! But that the enjoyment of making stuff - always something new to learn. Cheers

First task is to make very obvious chalk marks on the fretboard to show where the dots will go. This is to prevent holes being drilled in the wrong place for the side dots (guess who got that wrong in the past when not paying enough attention....) One of my favourite tools is this - makes finding the centre line for side dots so easy. I then use an engineers square and a white pen to mark the side line for drilling. I drill the side holes on all my necks using a piece of right angled aluminium with a hole in it as a template. Once all the holes were drilled, I glued in some Luminlay, cut flush and tidied it up. Then turned out the lights to see how it looks. I've also fitted a small piece of the offcut from the neck rods into the back of the fretboard where the thumb rest is just to add a little more strength. With that done I'm now onto shaping the neck and radiusing the fretboard. Cheers

The neck is starting to look more like it now!! I cut it roughly to size then trimmed on the router table. This is a little more difficult to do than a Fender type neck due to the angled headstock. Just takes a little more thinking about. This one is even more fiddly as it has a finger rest built into the fretboard, just needs a little patience and a bit of swapping of router bits to complete. A smidge of sanding later and it fits really nicely into the neck pocket: The headstock has also been drilled to accept the Gotoh tuners. This was done using a Forstner bit to get a really neat cut and finish - the head was clamped to an offcut of wood to ensure there was no tear-out when the bit cut through to the other side. And the fifth hole? Just decoration as I have done on my previous basses. Next task will be to fit the Luminlay side dots whilst the fretboard is still square after which I'll start the neck carve and radiusing the fretboard. Cheers

That is an idea that I have been toying with but not on this build. I have tried a couple of samples of lighting both clear and frosted type plastics. Luminlay do sheets of luminous plastic sheet so I was thinking at one point of using this for fretlines.... Luminous sheet

The fretboard is not stuck to the neck and I've had a go at making an aluminium nut to match.

Not on this one - the fret lines are firmly secured. There are a few holes in each to ensure the adhesive really locks them in place.

It won’t be a problem, I’m making the bass for Prince Andrew.

Probably getting ahead of myself but decided to make the truss rod covers from ebony and aluminium.

And the last few of the aluminium marks to be glued in place - I started getting into the swing of cutting and fitting them by this point!! It has taken a reasonable time but I'm hoping the effect will be worth it in the end. They do look a little messy at this stage but a bit of sanding and trimming and they'll look fine. A rough sanding of the board prior to final trimming of the neck and it's starting to look quite nice. After a quick bit of tidying of the edges with a router the board is ready for gluing to the neck.

I have been thinking about that and before I fit the board to the neck, I'm going to flatten the lines when it is cooler then put the board out in the sun and see what happens! I'm hoping that as the lines aren't that big that any expansion will be minimal. I will post how it goes!

Yep, but it does look nice and totally worth it!!

Finished cutting the side slots so time to cut the pieces of aluminium for the fretlines. I have to cut each piece to suit the slot to wrap around the spine of the fretboard (if that makes sense!!) It is going to be a slow process to get this done .. I only managed to get 5 line installed this evening - but they do look nice!!