Andyjr1515

If you want to see the lines clearly, then it probably does want to be either white plastic as @Manton Customs suggests or a very light veneer such as maple. Standard veneer is generally 0.6mm and should either slot in straight away or after a very light sanding. How I personally do it is: - Cut the pieces oversize, with the grain parallel to the slot - When the glue is fully set, trim down, still leaving a little oversize, with a single edge razor or very sharp scalpel / modelling knife, starting at the middle and cutting towards each edge so that any grain splits lead the blade away from the fretboard. - Sand flush along the direction of the slot with fine paper c 240 grit using a sanding block - Once the inserts are flush, then sand along the length of the fretboard with the same grade to remove any crossgrain sanding marks before progressing down the grades of paper fineness, again using a sanding block and always along the length of the fretboard

If the pickups have the normal high-density foam under them, two things can happen: - the foam can lose its spring - the foam can stick a bit to the bottom of the chamber or pickup or sometimes the chamber is a touch tight Either way, take all the screws out, then rock the cover back and forwards or side to side. Then do the same while trying to lift. It should gradually ease free. I've also used the windscreen sucker off my old sat nav holder in the past...

Beautiful bass. Top drawer!

Hi Ewan Great - all present and correct I like all of those clips very much. The wedding quintet is sublime...

Hi Ewan. Not working for me either. Looking forward to hearing it

Again - one of @TheGreek 's suggestions. He has good taste, that guy

Definitely enough for another body A couple more bits of progress prior to the temporary halt. I found a reasonably matching piece of offcut to veneer the neck end: And then found a reasonable stain for the maple neck to coordinate with the natural body wood. When the anniversary shenanigans are done, I'll re-sand and get this a bit less blotchy but I think the colour tone is about right:

I fully copper shield/ shield cables all of my basses and guitars and NOTHING can stop the buzz from our kitchen dimmer switch for a number of them (despite the dimmer being downstairs and I play upstairs and across the landing!). Anything with a pre-amp seems particularly susceptible. I've come across a couple of venues which do have weird buzz sources, but most of the time even the susceptible ones don't seem to suffer. Maybe it's possible that commercial-property dimmers are a different spec to household ones? Oh - and I've found fluorescent lights can be a devil, too - although, happily, most venues don't like the ambience of their stark white light

You beat me to it!

I'm not certain...but would have thought it's Alder

That's an amazing looking piece of timber!

OK - body finished. I'll wax it once the tru-oil is fully hard, but this is now silky smooth: The neck is going to have to wait a week - some family stuff coming up this next week, linked to 40th wedding anniversary - and after 40 years, I know that when MrsAndyjr1515 says, "And all THAT STUFF OF YOURS has got to be cleared away too!" my answer has to be simply, "Yes, Dear."

Having different sounds could be more complicated, but you can certainly make a cigar-box stomp easily enough. Basically a hollow wooden box (wedge shaped for ease of use) fitted with one of those acoustic guitar button mics that stick to the back of an acoustic guitar soundboard makes for a very authentic sounding drum beat. I'm sure with a bit of electronic wizardy you could have a second one with a different tone... Andy

I've started the first sealing coats of tru-oil. Nowadays, I do a basic slurry-and-buff whatever the final finish. I find it an excellent grain-fill and preparatory surface. Having said that, this may well have the full silky slurry-and-buff treatment in any case as a final finish to preserve the feel of real wood - I'll see what Mick's preference is. The finish will smooth out, but this will basically be the final colour there or thereabouts: There's some nice figuring on the back. Again, the dark lines at the top of the main bout and across the upper horn aren't joins - they're natural stains in the grain itself.

That's lovely. Top class.

I can read minds

The other reason dampening the edge is a good thing to do is that it softens the PVA ever so slightly and the fine edge of sandpaper I use to remove it tends to grab and roll off the PVA rather than dig unwanted grooves in the wood. Here we are with most of the PVA sanded off. Takes a bit of patience... : The very, very edge is, of course the veneer and tissue backing feathering down to nothing...where nothing is actually PVA on top of body wood - so actually you can't completely eliminate this. But if I get it right, it should look like a very thin light demarcation line (which I think it's starting to do)

A couple of hints and tips for anyone considering stripping down and veneering: First is that all finishes darken the wood to some extent - some (and I'm talking 'clear' finishes) even additionally tint the wood against the freshly sanded. So how do you tell what colour it's going to end up before you commit before putting varnish or oil all over your masterpiece? Well I just wet it with a damp cloth. This will pretty much be the colour it's going to be with completely clear varnish or oil. You can see the difference on @TheGreek 's Nanyo body. I've just given this a single wipe of a wet but well squeezed out cloth: Some stains may change the colour...but all stains and tints are going to further darken the wood. So the trick to get particular colours and shades is knowing what parts of the colour spectrum to add to this base colour to change it. So, for example, if I wanted to make this classic amber, I would NOT use amber stain - that would turn the wood dark orange - I would probably, instead, add pure yellow. The added challenge is that it wholly depends on the wood. A maple neck, for example, doesn't darken nearly as much and has a naturally yellow tinge when clear finish is applied. So the golden rule is always do trials where it doesn't matter. So back to my earlier comment that the body wood may not need stain to meet Mick's desired look, this is the edge just dampened with water and is representative of a clear finish being applied: The other hint and tip also uses the wipe of a damp cloth... It is essential when veneering this particular way that any stray PVA or overlap is removed before you start staining or finishing. The PVA - invisible when dry - shows white when you apply the finish. So how do you find any missed bits? Same technique - just wipe with a damp cloth. Here's some of the bits still to sand off: Back to the project My own view is that the unstained tone of the body wood compliments the top nicely and is probably a similar depth of colour to some of Mick's examples above. But, as Mick says, we'll be kicking that around offline. The neck, however, will be a different matter and will definitely need staining...and for which I might have just the thing

Sublime....

What I will do, for starters, is dampen the body so everyone can see how dark and what shade the body will start at. The body will darken considerably when any finish is applied, although the neck - being white maple - will certainly need staining to match as that doesn't darken nearly as much....

So, using some already glued offcut from the body: ...I gave the headstock a coating of PVA, let it dry, then ironed it on. And THIS is why I love this hobby!

Ah - but there's the rub. Anyone who has seen my threads knows that while-ever it isn't finished, there's always the chance that I might still get it horribly, horribly wrong!

So now we have the veneer covering the largest area that it physically can (basically, veneer generally can't do compound curves so it covers the flat areas and just round the edges a couple of mm), it is then time to make it look a little less like veneer-just-stuck-on. Mick and I bounced a few ideas off each other and came with cutting away the veneer and blending it into the body a bit like this: So this morning, out came the sanding block The nice thing about having such a defined grain, is that - even though this is only 0.6mm thick - the grain STILL follows the curves at the edges, adding the illusion of depth and giving the illusion that it is a solid top skin rather than a veneer: Next job is the prepare the headstock for the same veneer

I'm pretty sure the veneer will stay that colour. On the other hand, Mick and I still have to decide whether the underlying wood at the edges and back would look best stained or left natural and there are still some options of how much to cut in the veneer into the body wood and where. Whatever, I have a good feeling about how this will look when its finished.

With the glue now touch dry, I can begin the veneering itself: The advantage of the glue being dry is that you can spend as much time as you like positioning it because it barely grabs. Then with a hot (dry) iron (as I said above I happen to use an old heat-shrink iron, but a standard ironing iron works fine), I start in the middle and progressively radiate outwards, making sure the veneer gets hot and applying firm pressure, but moving it in circles so I don't scorch the veneer in one spot: Once the main flat areas are stuck flat (this only takes a few minutes) I start applying firm pressure round the outside of the body shape, starting to seal what will become the edges: To allow the veneer to bend round the edge better, I then remove some of the bulk excess with scissors, keeping an eye on the grain direction to avoid a grain-following split heading towards the body: I then work round the edges with the iron again, peening the veneer over the curve by a mm or two. The glue, once cool grabs in seconds - but it is fully repeatable. Just heat up an area and the glue will remelt and then grab again as soon as you lift the iron and let it cool for a few seconds. If it's a tight curve and a stiff veneer, you can hold the area down firmly with a cloth (to prevent burning yourself) while it cools and grabs. Once all of the flat areas are glued and the edges defined and secure, you can start trimming just past the flat surfaces. I find the easiest way to do this is use a disposable Stanley knife (Swann Morton do them too) and use the body itself as my blade guide, holding the blade at about 45 degrees to vertical: I use a sawing motion. If you are careful, you follow the outline without the risk of cutting into it. BUT - always, always, think of where the grain is going and make sure any split will go away from the body and not towards it. In the above example, I will stop around here and then cut the bottom overhang in the other direction - the grain then naturally pulls the blade (and any split) towards the left and not to the right and into the body. For the chambers, I get my template out and cut a small hole in the middle so I can see where the chamber edges are. Again, I use the chamber sides themselves as the blade guide, this time with the blade vertical: So eventually, you have trimmed it just round the edge of the flat areas, but with no unglued overhang of veneer: Then simply sand with a sanding block along the line of the join. There will be a bit of tidying up to do to sort the edges properly and make sure there is no PVA line or - in the case of the tissue backed veneer, fuzziness - at the edges...and I also need to know from Mick how 'sharp' or 'blunt' he wants the tips of the veneer at the ends of the two horns...but this is broadly done