spacecowboy

There is a really interesting section of the Wyn Basses documentary where Mr Wyn drops various block of wood on to the floor of his workshop for you to hear the differences in sound... While interesting, it's severely flawed as an example of identifying unique wood tones, the inconsistency in block thickness and overall size renders the argument in my eyes (ears) invalid as it's not universally like for like, shock horror that the massive block of ebony sounded different to the splinter of bubinga... Regardless, I do believe that denser timbers have unique vibration characteristics and it's this factor that results in a different tone, maple while incredibly hard has a closed grain allowing a smooth and solid surface, Wenge is also very hard but very brittle and prone to splintering, it will never be a solid smooth surface like maple and while yes you can get a smoothish finish with Wenge the grain is still relatively open, undulating and porous and completely different to Maple not just texturally / structurally but audibly. I guess a visual example would be where maple is a pane of glass, Wenge is sandpaper. This again in my opinion must affect the sound heard, but the argument around tone is a multi faceted one, after you've debated the pros and cons of the neck timber you can move on to the neck laminates, body woods, scale length, hardware, strings, pickups and electronics they all add and take away sonic characteristics from each other. As many others have said when you put the bass in to an audio mix the sound of the instrument changes, once you've tweaked your amp and basses eq and the engineer has tweeked your channel on the mixing desk I wonder how much your maple fretboard is influencing what is heard... Perhaps not alot, but definitely a little. I'm also several whisky's down so don't listen to me.

Updates! So while it seems like my new truss rod is being sent by carrier pigeon, I've left the neck for now and moved on to the bridge. For now I have no idea how well this will work, but If i'm designing and making my own bass I'm going to try and make my own bridge. I routed out the saddle shoulders and a slot for the string block? Is that what it's called? I've been referring to it as a choke. Decided against timber saddles so will use these 3D adjustable saddles I have. Think brass / gold would look better... Rounded the sharp edges and cut the string block / choke / tree / thing... out of Ovangkol, spent about an hour sanding it to fit and glued it in place. Aesthetically I love it, so hopefully it works well. Next! Well I'm heading off on holiday today... so I'm going to have a relax! but when I get back hopefully the pigeons have made it here and left me a truss rod and I can finish the neck routing. The bridge needs slimming down the block is currently 30mm thick and will be taken down to 20mm and then drilled, the bridge will be set for string through stringing and I need 5 mounting screws under the bridge saddles to mount this on the bass. Really don't think I'll glue the bridge to the bass in case I need to repair or replace in the future. Thanks again guys!

Exactly that. I'll be putting a 20 degree radius on the fretboard and the Ovangkol will be part of that, then the neck shaping will continue from the back around up to the edge of the fingerboard and I'll knock the edge off with a small fillet 0.5 to 1mm. In CAD it takes about 5 seconds... let's see how long it takes with tools

Updates! Glue up of the scarf joint was all ok so I planed up the top face and checked everything for square. I've marked out a centre line for the truss and then popped some tape on to make sure I can easily locate it when routing. I've ordered a new longer truss rod for this build, the 600mm one I had was a bit too short so I'm swapping that out for a 630mm so that'll be arriving in a couple of days. I cut the Wenge fingerboard timber down to thickness ready for slotting the frets, I had some left over Ovangkol from the neck so my plan here is to prep the finger board and then whittle off 5mm either side and then bind the two edges with the Ovangkol to hide the edges of the frets. Think it will look lovely when it's all cut to size... does make me think I might have to make the nut from Ovangkol too though... we'll see. The block from the end of the fingerboard will be used in some way to make the bridge, I'm going to be designing that in CAD at somepoint today while the missus is getting her hair cut.I want to use the end of the fingerboard block so the grain is consistent from the end of the neck to the start of the bridge. I have this piece to maybe fashion some saddles, No idea if these will work, I do have some adjustable saddles from a 3D bridge to use if this idea fails and I'll just sit those saddles in to the wenge. Next: Fingerboard prepping, fret slots need cutting, board needs cutting to size, binding glued, and then design the bridge... Enjoy your Sunday!

I bought the Zebrano on a whim with some other timbers as I could include it in the postage for free shipping, turns out to be one of the nicest parts of the bass so far! 😂

Those are very kind words from someone who's builds I really admire, your work is consistently fantastic. I've never attempted an instrument before, there's so much to consider and think about all the time the brain is always working, I've definitely got a few questions to throw your way when I get stuck if that's ok? When I come to make the bridge which I'll be making in Wenge too (spot the trend on this bass... it's probably going to end up weighing 10 kilos!) I'd love some feedback, I'm also going to attempt making a Warwick Jan3 style nut from timber too... Thank you.

Thank you very much for the kind words! 🙏

Thank you 💪

Updates! Took the clamps off the neck, planed a reference face and then thicknessed the neck flat. Then it was the first squeeky bum time moment... cutting the scarf joint. I have chosen to do a scarf joint on this bass primarily for joint strength and getting a good grain direction within the headstock area, also means my timber stock is half the size. I made a couple of prototypes with the angle cut from a single block... the short grain edge looked awful and the waste was criminal. To make this task easier and more accurate I've made a simple 13 degree jig that runs up against my fence I can clamp the board square to the jigs face and table and slowly guide the neck through... So far so good... To clean up the joint faces I've made this 13 degree router jig, the timber rather than the router sits on a 13 degree angle plane as I found this easier to work, once I have the timber lined up I can clamp it in place and whittle the cut face down with a palm router. The routing leaves a nice level surface ready for sanding. Cleaned up a treat. Repeat the process for the other side and then check the fit, This surfaces closes up nicely under hand pressure so on to the gluing! It's in there somewhere... The biggest worry with the neck was making sure that once I'd flipped the board over for the scarf joint that the timbers still ran parallel to each other, If i'd have made one side of a laminate thicker than the other side then the mirrored pieces wouldn't line up... apart from the Zebra wood grain on the bottom laminate not running through the rest actually look really good. Joint closed up really nicely with no gaps... phew. Next: I've got another squeeky bum day... routing the cavities for the truss rod and carbon rods (probably not needed but hey ho) truss rod access will be on the body end and not the headstock (I don't like truss rod covers). If time allows I'll mark up the neck's tapering angles and prepare it for cutting... luckily it'll be nice and easy to see the cutting line with the white pencil on the Wenge... Thanks for everyone having a read or peak at the pics.

Yeah I find it's really comfortable in a sat playing position, for me anyway.

I have been through quite a few lower horn designs and when this current design has been rounded off and all blended in it looks nicer than the static CAD drawing, between that and the headstock I think I have about a hundred designs! It might grow on you? I also love the phrase "Angle of Dangle"

Thank you. It's wonderful isn't it, I originally bought the board to be used as part of the neck, but I couldn't hide that grain pattern so I had to buy another length for the neck and this replaced a piece of Ovangkol that was going to be the fingerboard.

Context; Like a lot of people, lock-down has allowed for a little extra "me" time, and, provided me the opportunity to indulge in my hobbies a little more... I've always loved woodwork, me and my Grandad when I was really little would spend a lot of time in his garage workshop making anything and everything from wood. Recently I have been wanting to buy a new bass, but while looking at loads of options I just couldn't shake the thought that I could just make my own bass? In general I know how things are made, I know how to work wood... I should maybe just give this a go... In may I started working on my design in CAD and subsequently built 6 basses from redwood, refining and working out the design. These redwood basses made me realise just how many things there are to consider while building the instrument and highlighted just how many things can quickly go wrong and destroy a build (Routers anyone?) , I highly recommend to anyone wanting to build an instrument that they start in cheaper and easier to work timbers and work the complicated stuff out before you chip in to your expensive stuff, it took me 6 attempts to get things worked out completely. So with the Redwood stuff done I'm now ready to start the final bass. Build; This is the basic CAD data for the bass I'm looking to build; I'm building this bass at the weekends and most evenings after work so I hope that updates will be pretty rapid and daily. I was keen to use a mix of my favorite woods on this bass, the neck is a 7 piece laminate, an Ovangkol heart, with a Wenge, Zebrano, Wenge sandwich either side. The fingerboard will be Wenge and the body will be Swamp Ash with a Wenge top cap or tone center, haven't decided yet as the swamp ash looks lovely against the neck woods and I'd hate to hide that with a Wenge top, while a Wenge slice in the middle would look lovely. I'll work it out later. First thing I did was rip the timbers down to rough size, giving myself enough tolerance to plane them to final thickness. I flipped the Zebrano strips to mirror each other which gives me, in my opinion, a really cool chevron look, This will be the bass body end so it's not hidden by the fretboard. I got the rip downs pretty accurate with the saw, could probably have cleaned them up with a hand plane, but I'm going to throw these on the planer thicknesser and give my arms a rest. I really love the sandwich, to my eyes it looks great. The Ovangkol heart is the perfect aesthetic compliment to the Zebrano / Wenge pieces. The Swamp ash was cut and planed and looks lovely against the neck woods, hopefully you can see now, why I don't want to cover this with Wenge! But... if I do pop a Wenge top on the Ash, this is the board I have bought for that, It has really lovely grain and is lighter in appearance than the neck timber Wenge so might create a lovely contrast. It'll only be a small top cap however, approx 5mm thick as this plank weighs a bloomin' tonne. This is the Wenge for the fretboard, fantastic grain, Think this will sand up and saw brilliantly, it's a fantastically stable piece. Got all of the neck laminates through the planer thicknesser leaving about 6mm tolerance in max width so I can pass the entire glue up through the thicknesser again to get the final thickness. Glue up of the neck is a bit of a nightmare, boards like to move all over and I had more than a couple of accidents in the redwood basses, so lesson learned here is to leave as much wiggle room as possible and then plane and thickness the whole assembly after. I Put as many clamps as i possibly could on the glue up and used belt clamps to pull the underside of the boards level as they love to move, on the next bass I build I'm going to look to bolt the ends of the boards so no movement can occur, but this glue up is definitely the hardest bit of gluing on the build, my coffee was well and truly cold after I finished gluing up so note to self and others make your coffee after glue up! The boards are sitting pretty well in the glue up, should only need minor work to get this face ready as my reference face and then I can whittle down the thickness tomorrow! So tomorrow, clamps off, quick clean up, plane, thickness, and then depending on how much time I have and how I'm feeling confidence wise I might start the scarf joint. Thank you for looking at the build and having a read.

You can tell I'm currently buying woodworking tools! Pic attached.

Same for me chaps, I've had about 5 so far in 2 minutes of browsing!

Hi Bassassin, I haven't applied any hand force when tightening no, I'm a little worried to do that with a friends bass . What I do have however is some good vices on my work bench that I have been tempted to put the neck in and "squash down" however as this isn't my bass I don't want to do anything drastic if I can help it! I'll give all the above a go and see what we can do. I'm feeling that a new neck could be an instant fix, but a mixture of the above might remedy it all. Cheers,

Hi Andyjr1515, Thanks for the reply, It's definitely a bit of both, the action is high, not so much at the nut end but the bridge end it's very high, the saddles on the bridge are bottomed out but I don't want to file the saddle until the neck is straight. The 12 - 10mm is at the 12th fret, so the fretboard at that point is almost parallel to the string, before it then rises up at both ends. When you do the string straight edge technique you mention the string doesn't seem to be too high off the fret, I haven't had my calipers on it, but it looks to be 3mm ish. At the 21st fret it's very high again, possibly around the 8-10mm mark, but I can get the calipers on the bass tonight and give you proper measurements. I'll do the things you've suggested and see if I can induce the backbow and then see what I get when the neck is back on the bass. Really appreciate the comments and suggestions. Thanks,

Hi, It's an allen key, imperial 3/16th I believe. Feels like it moves fine, but it does nothing, but does get tight, that's why I'm a little confused with it. No idea if someone else has ever had a play with it any other time. Cheers,

So got a bit of a problematic bass on my bench at the moment. I knew when my friend gave me it to setup it would be a challenge but i'm stumped with this one and need some advice. I think my friend would be fine with me saying that this bass came in very worse for wear, it's been played and gigged hard and had been left for some time in it's case, a few years i believe. The metal had all rusted and the neck looked completely banana'd, without a lie the gap between the underside of the E string to the fretboard was 12mm. So the things that have gone well so far; Its a Mex Jazz Bass, with a swapped out Bad donkey Bridge. Took the neck off the bass, gave the truss rod a few tweaks to leave over night, came back to it and the neck was completely straight, not a single gap on my straight edge. Excellent. Levelled all the frets as they were very uneven and beaten up, crowned them, got them looking super lovely, checked the fretboard wood again, completely straight. No rocking on any frets. Excellent!. Put the neck back on the bass, put the old strings back on to do some more trussrod tweaks before new strings were put on... 12mm gap is back... instantly... so the tension and pull of the strings is completely pulling the neck out of shape and causing some serious upbow. I completely loosen off the truss rod, lubricate the nut and over the course of a week start to turn it a quarter turn to tighten it up again all under tuned up string tension, the truss rod is now at the point where I don't want to turn it anymore, it's getting stiff but there has been ZERO movement in the neck, not even a mm over the course of week. In comparison a recent Marcus Miller bass setup saw all neck problems resolved overnight with no fuss. I have taken the neck off the bass again, tweaked it to be completely straight, put in on the bass again, instant up bow, no amount of tweaking will resolve it. I'm stumped. Does anyone have any ideas at all? Photos below to help out. Cheers,