benh

Looks great! Love the colour

Awesome, @Matt P you are a lucky chap!

Rough cut of the top - starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere now!

A properly classy instrument, without being OTT. Lovely!

Hopefully the glue/dust dries a bit lighter than it is at the moment! Still needs sanding.

Changed my mind regarding the inlay. Not much space on the headstock as it is, and may be a little too busy with the spalted top. So 12th fret it is, sketched a new design and cut from the black MOP blank. Needs the edges cleaning up, but I think it'll look OK!

Only a small update - shaped the heel and radiussed (radiused?) the fretboard. On to another scary job next, fretting!

Started my dust collection from the fretboard!

Not had much chance to do bass related tasks this weekend, but started to shape the headstock a bit more. Getting there!

Looking great!

Gave the sides a quick scrape, happy with how the black veneer came out between the fretboard and neck woods

Starting to look a bit more like a neck now! Edit: just realised what a s***hole I'm making this corner of the garden... oops!

Clamps away!

Good thinking! Although knowing me, I'd forget to read the previous thread 🙃

Almost forgot the access hole, could have been embarrassing!

One scary job done - unfortunately I went off track a bit on the first pass, but other than that fits snug.

The angle of this photo makes it look way more tapered than it is, but tapered the fretboard this evening with the plane. Rightly or wrongly, my plan is to use it as a "template" for routing the neck blank to width once I've taken it something like with the jigsaw (once I've routed the truss rod slot - that's the next job I think, and the scariest so far)

Looks awesome!

This is looking fantastic - normally I'm teetering on the fence when it comes to single cut basses, but I definitely like this!

And probably the last bit for today, thicknessed the piece of spalted alder for the headstock.

Some black mother of pearl just arrived through the post - experimenting with a small headstock inlay is the plan!

Thanks @Andyjr1515 - glad to know I'm not alone 🙂 although I'd never dream of putting myself in the same league as your esteemed self!

Carefully marked and cut the fret slots - as I don't have the funds or inclination to buy a slotting jig, I marked each position with a marking knife, and cut the slot using a set square to keep the saw dead level - measured after cutting and all lines up as it should (phew!)

Well, one learning experience (schoolboy error) out of the way - check things still line up when applying clamps. Not that it matters too much, as it'll be covered with a spalted top, but irritating non the less. Ah well, onto the fretboard - another job to pink torpedo up! This is the fretboard blank stuck to a flat bit of melamine faced chipboard, after flattening with the hand plane.

Decided on an angled headstock - the neck blank isn't thick enough to cut the angle out of it, plus as I'm working without a bandsaw it could have been tricky. So spent pretty much the entire day in the garden measuring, cutting, flattening and gluing a scarf joint for the angled headstock.