Andyjr1515

I'd taken a punt and ordered some fretwire based on looking closely at stock photos of various Wals but the timing of @NickA 's post was spot on. I can always use fretwire and so if what I'd ordered wasn't right, there was still time to order the right stuff. And so popped over to Nick's this afternoon and...what I've ordered is actually right! Many thanks to @NickA for stepping in

Pm'd

Fitted and gap-free Anyone know what width of fretwire is generally fitted on Wals?

Decent progress in a couple of hours I found spare this morning. First, I did the razor saw cut down to the neck line to protect the headstock veneer: Then heated the back of the board for 15-20 minutes, easing the razor blade in until I could feel the glue softening enough for me to push the edge of a thin sheet steel (actually an acoustic guitar side bending sheet)into the gap. Moving the iron up around an inch every 10 minutes or so, eased the sheet carefully up the board: Until an hour and a half or so later, it was off: The capping strip is still in place over the rod, but you can see that it does have a couple of carbon rods. Getting the capping strip off took some doing but, eventually: And yes, @Woodinblack is right - for some reason, best known to Maurszczyk, the rod is reverse to most. Fair enough if the user/care guides clearly state that is the case but, if not, isn't that just asking for trouble? And so the set bow, and the subsequent failure of the rod was because it was being inadvertently - but reasonably, in my view - being adjusted the wrong way. I will see if Maurszczyk will sell me a reasonably priced replacement and if not, on either count, then just fit a modern £15-ish 'righty tighty' two way rod. There is no damage to the timber edges of either the neck or the fretboard and so, once the board is reglued, it should be just a case of tidying up the finish at the join itself. Fingers crossed, it should be pretty well unnoticeable to the eye or playing hand.

Yes - glued surfaces really do float about so if there is any danger of that happening then pinning or dowelling can be a effective way of sorting it. If it's just dots, they are mostly down the middle where the truss rod is. The fret width fully covers the holes as long as panel pins or similar are used.

Well, coffee drunk, thinking thunk... Time to remember to re-insert the truss rod and glue on the neck. A couple of panel-pin holes drilled in one of fret slots either end, fretboard carefully positioned and pins tapped in gives me the location points to get the glued board back in the right place and the ability to stop the board floating out of position under clamping: And absolutely...you can never have too many clamps: That'll be left until the morning when I can unclamp it and see that all of the joints are (hopefully) completely gap-free

Wow. That is very special, indeed.

Next job on the neck is thicknessing the back which will form the spine that the profile will be carved up to. After double-checking that there would be enough wood left under the truss rod slot, I temporarily stuck on a 2mm spacer at the nut to give me the 2mm taper of thickness from the nut to the heel: Then set up my home-made router thicknesser jig: And there we have the tapered thickness: And so time for a cup of coffee while I think through the sequence to make sure there's nothing else I need to do before I glue on the fretboard. And while that is gluing this afternoon, it's probably time I got my a**e brain into gear to give @Happy Jack 's new challenge some serious thought, scribbling and sketching

I reckon that the top wood is sitka spruce or similar - a bit like the stuff used for acoustic guitar tops. It's got that kind of tight, straight grain but also quite soft so relatively easy to scratch and dent. Then a combination of light brown and dark brown stains and outside burst and finally finished with something like Osmo 1101. Nicely done though - probably took a few attempts to get the right degree of relicing and staining

Yes - it will be interesting. If the neck really does have that degree of bow and the trussrod was fitted the right way round and now has no tension (but I've learnt to never make assumptions until the board is off) then it is probably cause and effect. A trussrod is designed to counteract the string tension. If it is given the additional job of straightening a very bowed neck as well, then it is likely to fail. If it turns out that, once the board is off and the rod is out, the neck does still have that same degree of bow, then there are a number of things that can usually be done. Plane-ing the top surface flat again would normally be the first thing to consider in those circumstances so that, with the new rod installed but not tensioned, the neck and fretboard should be as near as makes no difference flat.

Many thanks to @Aidan63 for putting my name forward I'm one of many 'Basschatters willing to help other Basschatters' - and there are some very skilled folks amongst them - but Aidan is clearly in cahoots with MrsAndyjr1515 in her objective to keep me down in the cellar for as long as humanly possible. @evan47 did indeed get in touch and we have had a pm dialogue over the last week or so to talk through the issue, the potential remedies and risks. And this morning the neck arrived. And it's a thing of beauty. But it does have serious problems. The obvious one is the one we know - the trussrod has snapped: And that the neck is bowed even without the strings on: In fact, it's bowed a lot! Measured against my levelling beam, a full 2mm at the centre: @evan47 has a bass he can still use and so this will be very much an 'in between other stuff'. I probably won't start the fretboard removal until the weekend, but needed to at least confirm that the board is going to be removable. And so out comes my travel iron - ideal for the job - to do a test to see if the glue will soften with reasonable levels of heat: After about 10 minutes, I pressed a single-edged razor against the fretboard join to see if the glue had softened enough. Success: So we know it is going to be possible to remove the board. But before that, I will need to do something the other end. The veneer that has been used on the headstock matches the body and is beautiful. But it curves up and is bonded to the fretboard. As such, I am going to need to use a razor saw at the front of the nut spacer slot to cut down so that I can release the board without lifting the short piece of fretboard running up to the headstock and glued to its veneer: Once the board is off, we will be able to see what's going on and how best to fix it. With that apparent set-bow, it will need more than just replacing the trussrod.

OK - onto the final knockings, I think @fleabag has asked me if I can replicate a decal that he designed for the last time he threw down the gauntlet. Anyone remember this? I still wake up from time to time in a hot sweat about that challenge of challenges! Anyway, against all odds, I have found the original email to who did the decal for me so, all being well, that will be with me soon. Timing could be spot on because this is now at the 'fully harden before final polish' stage - another way of saying it will go into a cupboard for a couple of weeks. Here it is:

There are some jobs that folks think must take a long time - say, carving a neck - and that are actually very quick. Then there are others.... And so, a happy full afternoon just fitting the trussrod - and, if you remember the slot was already routed! But this has to have a recess for the spoke-wheel chiselled and, as with all truss rods, it is aiming for a good tight fit where no part of the rod is above the top surface that the fretboard will be glued to. Anyway, it's done: The slot in the rosewood will be opened up properly to look like it's meant to be there and to allow full swing of the adjusting rod once the board has been glued on, but it's easier to remove some of the bulk before that happens: Final job before the board gets glued on is routing the neck blank to final thickness, including the taper from nut to heel. All being well, that will be tomorrow's job And also soonish, I need to be ordering the fretwire. The plan is to match, as best as can be done, the material and size/shape of the fretwire used in a Wal. Which means that I have to first find out what those details might be

I've only just started the flattening process on the headstock, but I have done a couple more flattening rounds on the main neck area. Basically, when I flatten the coats(wet sand to take out the ridges down to the bottom of the dips and valleys), I have to be making sure it is only previous varnish levels I'm removing and not wood - with black, even the slightest catch will show as a light mark. And so I apply 3-4 coats, left to fully dry in between each, to start with and only then start the flattening and recoating stages. I reckon the neck length itself is 2-3 flatten-and-recoat stages away from being OK. With the back of the headstock, it's probably still 5 cycles to go :

It's not guaranteed to be...but it is usually the jack socket. If it is on the edge of not OK, then it may well immediately reconnect but the momentary break would have the same effect as if you pulled the lead out with the volumes up - a loud pop.

And heel fit done. It's actually one of the more challenging things. The pocket is a very specific shape, it is tapered and the neck needs to be straight to the body. Getting two of those three right is somewhat of a challenge. Getting all three right takes faith, hope and the charity of the gods. It pays to pray to all denominations, modern and ancient, religious and pagan while measuring and checking everything 100-200 times. Because if all three don't come right first time, there will be a gap. And so, two out of three OK - shape is right and taper is right: And it's straight!!!! Three out of three!!!! Starting to look more like a neck now:

Excellent Thanks for the update

I'd forgotten how much easier it is to cut fret slots in rosewood than ebony! The latter is more like a workout. This was a simple pleasure All 20 done. And yes - sunny in Derbyshire...who'd have thought...

Ahah! You live and learn

Fretboard blank is now radiused. It gets 90% there using the G&W router jig (this is after I'd hoovered up the sahara's worth of dust ) : Then some sanding with a standard radius block to remove the router lines: Note the all important collection of sanding dust! This is going to make a nice fretboard:

Oh - that's a b****r. I wonder what those are designed for then? Great link - didn't realise they did non-standard diameter ones. Thanks

OK - the rosewood is here. Lovely piece of AAA grade from David Dyke: And @funkle and I have decided to go for wheel adjustment trussrod cut into the neck heel itself so that he doesn't have to modify bodies or pickguards if he moves the neck to other bass bodies: And most importantly, @fleabag's neck is at the 'coat and wait to dry' stage; an exciting potential project for @Happy Jack is still at the early 'sketches and thinking' stages - and so there should be nothing stopping me from getting my lazy a*** (***=ndy) off the sofa and back down into the cellar. Which is also an idea that MrsAndyjr1515 fully supports. Next jobs, radiusing the board and cutting the fret slots

Generally, 30ml will easily do a bass

Yes - that is good too (probably technically better but the Quink, for black, is absolutely fine). When it comes to reds, though, I do tend to use calligraphy ink. With the standard fountain pen inks, it depends on the maker, but the purples tend to be the least colour-fast. The good thing is that there are fountain pen fanatics who do very comprehensive colour fastness tests of scores of available ink makes and colours. If it fades on paper, it is likely to fade on timber. The Quink range is actually very limited for colours - their black is good, but I use Diamine for the general colours, mainly because of the vast range of colours. Because the colour and type of timber significantly affects the finished colour, having such a wide range can help get exactly the right colour or mix of colours (and they are easy to mix ).

Well, there are two phrases that come to mind: "Stick with what you know!" But if you do that, you will never progress and "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!" So I'm pleased I tried the Fiebings, and can see why folks would like it for certain jobs...but it's not quite the straightforward spirit stain that I thought it was. There's another element in there and that, for this particular job (or yes maybe, @Fishman , the wood), is what gave me the issues. This is after just the first coat of the Quink. And I know that I can add as many more coats as I like - and it will fully dry. And I know it will take varnish just as well as unstained wood. Result!