benh

Body cut out on the bandsaw, used the spindle sander to clean up the lines. Getting there!

Pretty likely to be honest!

Rippled pear - me likey

Trying some preliminary routing for wiring - I hate drilling for wires between cavities. This will be hidden under the top once glued on, of course. The hole on the left has been filled since I took the pic, it was quite a big chunk of metal that must have been lodged in the tree - thankfully I spotted it and did some investigating with a chisel before I hit it with the router bit!

Body blank glued up, started planing the pear for the top - some nice figuring becoming visible

Thanks @Andyjr1515- may be a long drawn out one I'm afraid!

It begins... started thicknessing the cherry for the body. Unfortunately it's too wide to go through my planer thicknesser - scrub plane and elbow grease it is!

They look interesting. I shudder to think of the weight all that epoxy would add though, my shoulder's twinging already!

Love the name 😂

Looks great! Love a satin finish. Nice bit of texture too

Sneak peek of the top

New bandsaw arrived this afternoon, so may well have some updates soon!

Top job, looks great!

Tyler Hardwoods carry a nice stock of quality hardwoods - if you call them they are really helpful on the phone. They'll courier as well if you ask, although this isn't obvious on their site. David Dyke is well recommended by many. I've used Reid Timber for a few bits and they've all been quality.

I've used the Crimson spirit based black stain and found it pretty good, I used it on poplar and sanded it back slightly to give a dark grey. However when first applied it was indeed deep black. May even have half a bottle around I'd be happy to post to you to try if you'd like.

That looks AWESOME. Love it!

Oof... I've always admired ACG basses for being both interesting but classy at the same time. Most luthiers seem to pick one or the other, and are either too garish or too boring! Very nice indeed!

Looking forward to seeing this, I seem to be leaning towards rustic looking instruments at the minute

...Chair?

Couldn't think of another name - seemed fitting!

Wow, certainly looks different!

One thing I will share is the oak for the fretboard - rather looking forward to seeing this with finish:

Bit of a mysterious one as I have no progress pics (as of yet), but stuck this here as an eventual (near future!) build diary for my next project. I've owned and played all sorts of less conventional basses, but I've never owned a passive 4 string J or P bass. So I've decided that's what I'm going to build for myself next! Leaning towards jazz at the moment, but that may change the closer I get to pickup routing. Got all the wood stacked in the spare room - gone slightly less conventional with wood choices, tried to use local where I can. So at the moment, it's going to be 34" scale 4 string with: English cherry body English rippled pear wood top English ash/English sycamore laminated neck Quartersawn English oak fretboard Updates to come in the near future!

It's looking great!