Andyjr1515

To be honest, just taking the highspots off with a cabinet scraper or the lightest skim with my trusty block plane. It's just to make sure that the plate is sitting on a flat piece of wood in that area to maximise the compression from the machine screws without overstressing small areas because of any unevenness.

Square would have fit fine - and I'm sure would have been structurally fine too - but once I have reshaped the curve of the pocket, I'm hoping this will add just a soupcon of je ne sais quoi.

Following morning and it's starting to look more like a bass: The carve of the body - almost certainly hand carved from a solid block of wood - is thinner at the top horn than the main body. As such, this looks skewwhiff, but is actually in line with the bridge plane: What I might do is split the difference - angle the neck heel a touch to maybe halve this effect and sink in the bridge elements on the same side to keep the geometry right. The body carve is also slightly wavy - which I want to retain - but at the plate here, it will need to be flattened so I don't have any crack-inducing high spots: Nowadays, I would normally chisel round and underneath something like this to inset the plate flush with the top - it is a small job but makes it look super classy - but in this case I daren't. That pocket base is simply too thin and too unknown strengthwise to risk it. I think next job is probably back to the body and starting to sort the pickup chambers. Got a busy day or two coming up but I'll let you all know how I get on when I get back to it

OK...this has gone a bit weird

But yes, @SpondonBassed - you can certainly never have too many clamps when it comes to fixing the fretboard My normal method - I use a series of radius blocks as clamping cauls and a hardwood caul at the back to be able to apply significant pressure

OK - I'll admit that this is a generous number of clamps just for the truss rod capping strip : They're only lightly tightened while the glue sets. I was going to use a wooden beam and a single clamp but then I thought about it properly

My wife always has to repeat what she says to me too

Ref @SpondonBassed 's query, the fret tang nibbler/nipper is like a mini punch tool. The fretwire slots into the shaped die: Firm squeeze and your tang is well and truly nibbled (now then, John! Keep it clean! ) Cut in the middle and you have a fret where the tang won't end up as the irritating sharp bit as the neck and fretboard progressively settle down after assembly and finishing: And that gives a sneak preview of the inserts I've just fitted to the neck: I normally use M4 (4mm) machine screws but for this one, because I want maximum clamping on the unknown timber neck pocket floor, I'm using M5 screws: When I tidy up the body carve, I will make the pocket run parallel with the curve of the plate - it will take very little off the area of the pocket but will make it look like it was always meant to be attached like that So I'm pretty sure I can fit the trussrod and glue the fretboard... ...and it's tipping it down so no chance of any useful outdoor domestic stuff just at the moment

Tang nipper, tang nibbler. I'm going to call mine Bert. Easier to remember.

I sometimes get my nibs mixed up with my tangs. But I'll take a photo tomorrow to show what it does, whatever it's called!

Excepting a small triangular needle file that I draw along the slots to relieve the sharp edges, this is pretty much my whole fretting equipment: The de-nibber is one of those tools that, once I got one, I couldn't imagine how I could do it without! Worth every penny. In terms of method, I : - de-tang one end of the wire - measure from where that end will position in the slot to the edge of other end of the fretboard - detang there - cut the de-tanged notch at the middle and I have my fret, de-tanged at both ends - run a teeny bead of Titebond along the tangs - place it in the slot, hammer one end, hammer the other end, hammer the middle to spread the tang barbs under the wood - wipe the glue squeeze-out with a dampened cloth - clamp a radius block over it - move to the next slot and repeat. Once dry, I trim the overhanging ends, then sand the remaining overhang by drawing each side along my emery-papered levelling beam. Then I tilt the board 45 degrees on the beam to create the bevel. And here we have a fretted board ready for fitting at the appropriate time

Stunning!

For the same reason, I am actually contemplating a variation on that theme

After the quadruple checking, I marked up the neck pocket to start the initial hog-out and rout. The first step serves a second purpose - what are the properties of this unknown wood species? The last African Bass gave some challenges - and this is the same species, albeit a different cut. I hogged out with one of my best Forstner bits - a Fisch Wave Cutter. Quite expensive but stupendous bits if you want to minimise cutting issues. The wood was, as I expected, very hard - the hardest wood I think I have dealt with (yes - harder than ebony in my experience) and quite brittle. It doesn't matter because in both cases these are going to be cut away, but pinged some bits despite some very careful and steady cutting: But that answered me a question. Based on the grain pattern in this area, as you see below radiating from the centre of a knot, I might have to rethink the best way to attach the neck: I used a chisel to straighten the sides and then a teeny bearing flush bit to rout down to the planned depth: And then had a look and a think. My concern is that, to do the original plan means I need to cut the pocket even shorter to square it up for the neck heel to butt up against: That's a lot of useful length to lose when the pocket base is quite thin and potentially very brittle - especially if I'm going to cut a biscuit slot in it as well! So I've decided to leave the body heel where it is and use a cut-away neck plate (like this one I did recently on @scrumpymike 's Rascal): With that decided, I could cut the neck blank. There is no heel as such, the whole blank up to the volute is cut at 15mm which will give me a maximum neck thickness of around 22mm. And it will look something like this:

I agree, if that Warmoth diagram actually is a 206, it isn't very clear how it works. Do you actually have the bridge? If so, it should be straightforward to see how it works. As @Dan Dare says, there will be: - the 4 intonation adjustment screws at the back, screwed into the backs of the saddles. - The pair of small grub screws at the top of each saddle to adjust the height - there is also a single locking screw at ghe top of each saddle to lock it down on the plate once the height and intonation has been adjusted. What isn't clear on the diagram is how the string spacing is adjusted. But it should be clear when you look at the bridge. It is probably that loosening the clamp screw allows the saddle to move side to side but a bit of a play with it should reveal how it actually works.

Nice save

Trussrod slot cut and headstock plate area flattened. The angle of cutaway at the nut makes it look like the headstock is going to be at an angle to the fretboard - but that is just an optical illusion - it is parallel to the top of the neck. The headstock plate itself will be 1.5mm wenge constructional veneer as will be the pickup rings. Last thing before bandsawing the neck outline shape is to cut the body joint. Quadruple checking before I do that!!!

Tom has some Hipshot tuners and their new screw-adjust single saddles on order. In the meantime, I've started on the neck and fretboard. After lots of checking, and double checking and triple checking, the fretboard has been tapered and the neck blank cut to length and headstock angle cut: Next job - while all of the straight sides are still there, it to route the truss-rod slot and then I can start cutting the neck profiles and heel cutouts

This probably illustrates it more clearly? : The fret positions for each string is fixed mathematically, appropriate to each scale - in this example, the G at 31", the E at 33" and the other two strings at their respective intermediate scales. But where the E scale and the G scale start and end is up to the builder. They could both start at the same place at the nut (top example) and the whole 2" difference will be seen at the saddles Or the G could start 1" inset at the nut, (like the middle example), which will mean that the saddle will be 1" inset too Or the saddles could start in the same place at the saddles (like the bottom example) and so the whole 2" difference taken at the nut Or multiple combinations in between or beyond! In the case of Pete's Piccolo, I decided to have the nut almost perpendicular and take the bulk of the offset at the saddles: And so the slant of the lower frets was pretty modest but it gets steeper the further up the scale you went. In this case, the perpendicular fret was probably the 2nd fret. But it was only a 1" difference between the E scale and the G scale so the angle at the upper frets and saddles were still acceptable. The E saddle is pretty much 1" further to the back than the G saddle, representing the two scale lengths. Doing it like this, most of the frets are angled in the same direction. In Tom's case, I have a 2" scale difference so if I had made the nut perpendicular, then the upper frets and saddles would be very angled indeed. So I decided to position the G string nut such that I would have the same angle at the nut as at the bridge, albeit in opposite directions. To do this, I positioned the G string nut 1" towards the tailstock compared with the nut position for the E. The bridge saddles line isn't marked here, but it will be the same angle as the nut, albeit in the opposite direction, with the G saddle being 1" offset towards the headstock compared with the E saddle. So here there is an angle change and - where the change happens is the mid point, which is at the 12th fret in both cases: For someone who likes building necks and fretboards there could be many a happy hour making all the variations to see which felt best to the player or which gave advantages or disadvantages relating to pickup positioning. Happily, that someone won't be me

Looking good. Really interested how that bridge performs. I forget, are you replacing the black one fitted or will the new ones be on a second build?

It's the 'usual' arrangement where the fan is equal between the nut and the bridge - same angle but mirrored. On that basis, where the angle changes from +ve to -ve will be in the middle of the scale, ie the 12th fret. But it doesn't need to be. You can start a more acute or less acute angle at the nut and adjust the angle at the bridge accordingly.

Great info, @Stub Mandrel

Hi, John I found that after around a year of playing, the backs of the necks on my own guitars and basses would sometimes start to feel slightly rough to the thumb in the heavily used areas . Only needed a brief rubbing with micro-web to return to its silky smoothness but I talked to a few folks who use the same slurry and buff technique but with a decent quality Danish Oil (like the Liberon you use) and they find that it tends to resist this 'feature' a touch better. So far, I think it probably does, but I think it does depend on the Danish Oil being used. The other time I would use it is with very light woods where I find that the Danish doesn't tint the wood quite as much as Tru-oil. But it's fine - tuning...Tru-oil remains my choice for most other tasks

Going thinner, as long as it's not crazy thin, won't affect either the tone or the structural integrity in my view.

I finally invested in a router table last year so mine will be a little more straightforward this time round. Up until then I did it much the same as you. Like a lot of things, after a few goes, you start to get a feel of where and hold the router and how to keep the guide firm against the neck side. Like all things to do with routers, I cut no more than 2mm depth at a time.