spacecowboy

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!

Got the fretboard slotted today, the G&W mitre box is very helpful with this job.... Didn't need my calipers once! Then I started taking some meat off the bones and used a forstner bit to remove the bulk for the pickups and bridge routs. I'm trying to do as much as possible while the board is nice and flat and square and using the same edge for all my indexing, I'll have to taper it eventually but only when I really really need to. For the amount of material they remove and the speed in which they do it, forstners are amazing, and quiet! Tomorrow I'll route these clean and get them to final depth!

This looks ACE!

Not a lot to show for lots of hours today! Routed a small step to help locate the nut at the end of the fret board will also help me line up and square the fretboard if I cut the taper before gluing it on, undecided on how I want to get to that bit. And got the headstock angle face planed and levelled up, this will be getting a wenge veneer added as the cut through section doesn't suit the bass even though the pattern is lovely. I've installed brass inserts in to the neck to act against the grub screws in the nut to help lift it up for adjustment. Got the fretboard cut and squared up, and that gave me the excuse to finally open my new toys from G&W!! Got a fret mitre box and a fret press! Can't wait to use them! Onwards!

You're right! Job done let's wrap it up there 😉

Made a start on the nut I have lots of ash off cuts so it felt right to make it from that! I have to screw inserts in to those holes for the grub screws which I will use to adjust the height of the nut, the underside of the nut will have metal inserts in the wenge neck to resist the grub screw and push the nut upwards... Got some lacquer on the nut now and will install the inserts tomorrow with the nut completely clamped up to stop the bloody thing exploding.

So in the prototype I made I string thru the back of the bass locking the ball ends then the strings exit through the body on to a bridge saddle which sits in a timber frame very much like the examples Hellzero provided. The worry for me is that the saddles which currently are also wood may wear down over time, but honestly wood is pretty strong stuff, I'm not too worried at the moment, ask me again when it breaks

Thanks for tuning in guys! So only a small update, got the carbon rods and truss rod delivered yesterday so I got them installed today. Nice and tight, although looking at it maybe not enough spread (L-R width) for the 6 strings... will have to watch how it goes, maybe 2 truss rods in the next one! Oh and I've lopped the end off to create my 13 degree headstock angle.

Haha honestly I did try... failed miserably! I'm very interested to hear about this one though... That's upsetting to hear about the Stradi... too expensive to just buy to hang on the wall too...

Turns out this bass building lark is very addictive isn't it? I've made a few basses (8!!) since I built my first one last year, mostly trial and error builds trying different scales, profiles, pup position, wood finishes etc, I've held off doing diaries however as they were never going to be things hung on the wall. This build however could be interesting and I want it for myself to play so I thought I'd share it's progress as I do it; 30" Scale 6 String 24 Frets Singlecut Neckthru Started with this block of Wenge, this will be my central section of the neckthru. I made a bass with part of this board and made the neck from a single piece of the timber, no laminations, mainly to see if it moved and bent under tension / environment and if it could keep straight, after a couple of months it hasn't shifted so I'm reasonably confident I can proceed with just a single piece, it had a truss rod and 2 carbon rods so I'll be doing the same on this. Here I've cut the neckthru out of the wenge block and paired up some European Ash for the wings. I really like the contrast of Wenge and Ash on some other builds I did, so again using it again here. I'm going to be making the bridge and nut from timber on this build and of course the knobs so I thought i'd start with the easiest bit first! They still need an ash dot inlaying in to them and a sleeve and grub screw installing... so plenty of opportunity to mess these up! I'll be doing the truss rod and carbon rod routing next! The journey begins!

X Fodera 👍 X Elrick 👍 Shuker 👍 X Awesome job @eude!

Ooooooh @Hellzero how is/was the Stradi? Love his work! Nice collection too! A few Aries in there? 3 of them?

Well not too many guesses... 👍... 💔😥 Ibanez Fodera Cort Elrick Shuker (well done @Dood) Mine a.k.a Holyrood Park 😄

Got to love a wingbass!!

That bass is lovely!

Here's hopefully a bit of fun for everyone. I am designing a new single cut bass, 6 string, short scale, after I had designed the body shape I couldn't shake the thought of "Haven't I seen this before?" So I grabbed some images of other 6 string single cuts, cut them out, turned them black and lined them up... leads to the question, if you follow basic design principals and design your shape with care do you end up looking like everyone else? So looking at the image below can people guess the bass builder? One of them is mine mixed with 5 other brands. I'll put the results on when there's been a few guesses Have fun

This is looking so so good

I think they were listening... Just had an email that it will all be arriving with me tomorrow!

Out of interest how long did the GW parcel take to get to you and did you get any additional UPS charges upon delivery? My own parcel from GW shipped on the 9th and was held up between Portugal and Spain and then another much longer delay getting it in to the UK, where it's currently down south unmoved. It's totally understandable with the times we live in so I don't mind the wait, like you I have some templates and treated myself to their fret arbor press !! I love this build though, such a brilliant design.

Yep that looks really great! Good work

Need to see more photos of the finish! Looks incredible!

This Wyn example really bugs me, I remember raising the point on the video that he should have at least have had all the samples the same thickness and size, as you say of course they're all going to sound different!! Some are practically veneers!