spacecowboy

Weather has been very very good here in the toon so not alot is getting done, but I did have a go at the headstock volute thing I decided to put in, I personally think it looks ace and I'll be able to etch the bass name or my name on it, or something! Still got blending and rounding to go and the volute isn't the final shape but the idea works for now. This batch of wenge is very very dark when some white spirit is on it, it'll look lovely lacquered!

Pickup cover and ramp cut and shaped ready for routing I had 4 ideas for this cover, solid ash or wenge, or reverse the ash / wenge splits but felt this option looked the best. Installed the inserts for the bridge in the bridge slot. Wiped the bass down with some white spirit before thinking about the next list of jobs to be getting on with! But for now the sun's out and I want a beer!

Got t'ther side of the pickup cavity routed, thats pretty much all of the work done for the router now on the body and neck! Hooray! I'm fitting Bartolini Original Quad soapbars to this bass and currently have 3 pre's I can wire in to, think it'll either be a Glockenklang 2 band or EMG 3 band... the Bart's will be housed in the pickup cover in their own routed slots and then I can move the entire cover / ramp assembly up and down with the hex screws. Got a bit more of the carving done on the back, this will be enough for now and I'll finish it properly once the fingerboard is on and I'm blending the radius' in, but happy with how it's going so far! I have the pickup cover / ramp gluing now and will be able to shape and fit that after work tomorrow, and I will be aiming to get the fretboard on the neck by tomorrow night!

Bass is out the clamps and the bridge slot was finished. Then time to remove some meat from the wings for the pickup cover / ramp, forstner bit comes in very handy as always. One side of the cover / ramp is done, and I'll get the other half done tomorrow!

Got the fretboard side inlays installed and trimmed flush... I did a quick check to make sure everything was still lining up and what needed to be square was and... ...Glued the top wing on so I can move on to finishing the routing on pup cover and bridge, then carving and shaping properly begins! Excited to have a rough bass come out the clamps tomorrow and sit it on my knee, the 30" scale seems amazingly comfy reach wise so I think this is going to be a fun bass.

Not a huge amount done today but I managed to get an hour and a bit in, trimmed the fret board down to profile and got the frets in, thinner fret profiles than usual to help with the spaces between frets on this 30" scale, no headaches should be able to get the other wing glued on soon!

The Wenge? I find it very nice to work with, not too hard, the worst bit is how brittle and splintery it is when you first cut and carve in to it! But it smoothes down wonderfully and isn't hard to shape, I don't find it dulls any of my machines or tools any quicker than other wood either! It's my favourite wood, it's why I use it all the time! 😉

Started to roughly improve the profiles of the wings prior to gluing to the neck, I want these as rounded as I can get them however the lower horn has a sharper point which I really like, it'll make sense later on! Another check to make sure I'm not taking too much off prior to glue up! Started tapping away on the upper horn to start the weird taper down to the neck con cave feature most single cuts have! 40mm bowled down to 20mm will take a while but this is a start! Felt like I had enough of the bottom wing down to get it glued on, it will help me decide where I want the scoop on the upper wing before I glue that on too, I don't have so much a belly... Rather ribs... They need a tummy scoop too! That's it for today though, got a Chinese on its way (2 hour wait mind!!!) And me and the missus have lots of Fargo to catch up on! Thanks for looking!

So it didn't go too badly at all, nice fit just need to continue to blend it down and in to the volute, hindsight would have been to sink it in to the headstock a couple of mm and sanded it flush... I know for the next one! Routed the cavity cover recess and started a finger groove to remove the cover I'll only be able to finish this when the wing is glued on... Got the hole drilled for the pickup cables pre glue as it's so much easier! Jobs list is building up best get cracking!

+1 for the cap!! Good luck with new builds looking forward to seeing what follows!!

Think they'd float if I put them in a pool?

Why I can't just be happy making a bass without indulging one of my stupid ideas when it pops in my head is beyond me, last night I saw the back of a Ken Smith headstock and thought... Mmmm what if I did something similar to their weird spiky thing but softer and with the contrasting ash 😩... Cue hours of careful chiselling in to a perfectly good volute... Just to satisfy an itch... It does look pretty cool though, and if anything it'll strengthen the headstock neck relationship having this as a brace, my plan is to blend this in to the volute on both sides to get it perfectly flush and then to reduce the thickness of the part on the back of the headstock to a couple of mm and this will be where I can etch in the model or bass name or my epitaph... Looks nice now as a solid block but I'll have to see what it looks like when blended and cut. I've got to leave it well alone now, no more off piste shenanigans.

Ok so I had a thought... And may have done something I'll regret... But it may also look good... I'll reveal it once it's done... Or I won't and I'll abandon another build! 😂 Yes that's in the volute! 😬

Got the body wings sanded to their profiles. This is when a bobbin sander is priceless. Routed the electronics cavity, wanted a specific place for the battery I'm this bass and lots of areas for screwing setting I keep on forgetting to do! The ash charred a little here but it'll be getting copper foiled so not to worry. Did eventually put a headstock laminate on thought this piece was stunning so popped it on and took a bit of meat off the back side of the headstock to get it back to 15mm Started the rough carving of the neck radius and getting a volute worked out, I'm going to try and get a bit of the shaping done now before the wings are glued on I've left the very edge untouched so I can get the fretboard on accurately, the board is 8mm thick and I like to carve at least 4mm of that in to the neck to create a nice smooth feel. I've done a rough map of where I need to carve once I've fannied on with the neck a bit more again I'll do as much as I can before gluing, not too much though still need good gluing faces! More carving over the next couple of days and a glue up at some point!

phwwwwoooaaaaarr! Gorgeous! And you're not alone I sit and have a good natter with my planks too...

Lovely job mate

Photos photos photos!!

Haha, first one in my avatar 8th one is this build! It is however my first attempt at a single cut neck through again after that one!

Body wings are roughed out, I'll be getting these on the sander tomorrow to neaten them up, excited to start some of the carving on the wings and get the cavities started, I'm going to be doing as much as possible with the wings before gluing them on, learned during other builds it's so much easier to carve when they're not part of the bass! No photos of it but I have taken the neck down to final thickness and mapped where I will do the carving to blend in the wings but that will be done when the wings are glued on! On to the carving... My favourite bit!

That's some beautiful wood! Great work!

Quick update this Sunday Eve! Got the neck tapers cleaned up with a router, I usually do this with either a plane or my electric planer but last time I managed to put a slight chamfer on the neck so to avoid that the router ensured the faces for the wings were nice and straight. The roughing out of the profiles was started on the bandsaw, this included reducing the body section to 40mm and the neck to 20mm, these will be again neatened up with the router, I'm going to drop the neck to 18mm in the centre (8mm fingerboard) and work out my neck radius from that, this is my first 6er so going to have to carve in a slightly wider flatter radius than I normally would. The volute is roughed in here too. The blend between neck and headstock is roughly done, need to square the face of it off with the nut but that's a quick job later on, I've decided against the laminated headstock for now, I'm quite a fan of the grain on it! Going to have to think about fretting the fingerboard and gluing that on really soon so I can work on the carving of the neck, might also fret it after the carve, unsure of how I want to go at it!

Awesome job, that looks great!

Lots of router work today! Great way to spend my day off work 😬! Got the rout for the pickup / ramp cover and bridge done to their final depths, their screw housings all exist in the wings so this was a simple cut. Need to clean these up to get rid of the router marks. Bender appeared before I routed him away 😉! I got the tapers rough cutted in with a 2mm tolerance per side which I'll clean up with a router later, also broke the handle of my bench vice! 😩! Clean break though, easy fix! I don't quite know how I want to sort the blend between the neck and headstock yet and it's volute so I decided to rout the profile of the headstock down a few mm to see it and mark out the rider positions... I think it'll help when I'm carving! Thats enough for today though! Heading to the coast with the missus and the dog for some well earned fish and chips!