SamIAm

Thanks @Andyjr1515! I am definitely not looking at installing a 'trad' truss rod, I intend a 'dual action using a flat slot' type. Is there any reason that this cannot be installed using a 'back of neck' approach? I'd route a flat slot (deep enough to take the truss rod plus the extra 6-8mm for the skunk stripe insert) and the necessary extra cutouts to accommodate the adjustment nut, pop in the truss rod and then (like gluing on a fingerboard) glue in a skunk stripe. I'm still going back and forth on how I feel about a 'single piece with truss rod (and possibly a pair of carbon fibre rods to maximise stability) inserted from the rear ' vs a 'single piece with fingerboard' vs 'two piece veneer with fingerboard'. Hmmm ... I really like the idea of having some lovely grain showing on the front of the body, but not sure that is the best thing for the fingerboard; this would point me towards having a separate fingerboard that is glued to the front of a slab cut neck/body. Would having a separate fingerboard add structural stability to the neck (and perhaps obviate any need for carbon fibre rods)? S'manth x

We (The band I'm in) had our first recent 'outing' on Sat, we played open air to entertain the folks waiting for the start of the Pride march in Worthing. It was a beautiful day and the crowd seemed to enjoy it (perhaps almost as much as we did!). I became aware of a few things: 1) twiggy is light, wonderfully so! I took Ponty (My shop bought 4 str short scale) along 'just in case' as this was twiggy's first outing ... didn't need him, but I realised how much heavier he is than twiggy ... I've a bad back so it was a blessing. Flo will probably be a bit heavier as I'll be using harder wood, with a similar design to twiggy, tho the 'body' will be a few cm wider and thicker to allow me to house the electronics fully in the wood. 2) My battery powered Roland Micro Bass Cube cannot compete with any noise, I had it cranked up to 11 (with my effects box gain up to pre-distortion levels) and even then the band member at the other end of the lineup could not hear me! I took advantage of the recent Prime Day sale and just received a small inverter and lithium battery so I can use my more powerful Ant + Mighty Mini combo for our next gig (We might even have power there) 3) The 'grab the ball end of the strings' mechanism on my tuners are failing ... the stress is just too much for the Nylon 3D printed parts. As a result I was struggling to keep my D2 in tune; one advantage of a fretless was I could make an allowance for it in my finger positioning but still ... So I set out to replace them; I decided to go for Aluminium replacements ... I bought a small block of stock and after a bit of CADding I fired up Xena. xena.mp4 Even at the mildest of cutting depths, this task is wavering around the upper limits of what she is capable of ... so I decided to finish them off by hand. I must say, it was not a great finishing job I managed, but they work and seem very solid. I've redesigned them to be fully CNC'd next time and sometime over the next week or so I'll pop into the MakerSpace where we have a more robust CNC machine and then they'll look quite nice. S'manth x PS, this is us finishing our set after the march participants departed, you can make out the tones of twiggy! Qukulele.m4v

Thanks @tauzero, the AGC thread is excellent reading! S'manth x

Thank you @3below, both videos were informative (and I've now queued up a list of others by Ben Crowe to also watch). Very cool idea about leveraging the laminate layer for the truss rod ... if I do laminate then I will use that approach. After looking at loads of necks on google I'm becoming less inclined simply because I prefer the visual appearance of a single piece fingerboard. S'manth x

@3below and @Andyjr1515 ... thank you both! I've spoken to Luthier Supplies, how very helpful they were! They said they can produce a custom cut for me if I send in the details. My discussion tho did pose me a couple of ... points ... for consideration, I wonder if anyone has any pointers. My approach of using a single piece of wood for the neck was questioned, it was suggested that it is more common to glue two or more splices. Will this result in a superior (stronger or more stable) neck? I'd prefer to not go to the trouble if it is not significantly better. It was suggested it was more common to use a separate glued on fingerboard, 1) ensuring the strings are sufficiently far from the front of the body to clear the pups was a reason for this as well as 2) hiding the truss rod. In my twiggy prototype, I embedded the pup into the 'body' to provide clearance. 2) I plan to use a rear-installed truss rod with a skunk stripe. I foresee that the 'finishing' of the stripe can be incorporated into my working the rear of the neck to form the profile. Are either of these choices a ... mistake? S'manth x

I've been quite busy hence the long gap since my last update. As well as starting back clinically at work (Bedside critical care nurse) the band I'm in are doing our first performances since covid changed our world ... this has meant loads of practicing (I'm not all that experienced so for me it is simple stuff I need to get right ... and I will be gigging with twiggy so I'm getting used to a 5 string fretless) but also offered me a power challenge! I've taken to using a Helix Stomp with an Ashdown Ant, lovely sound but it ties me to mains power (Or a too costly battery/inverter combo). We are going to "entertain the troops" getting ready for a Pride march next week and we have a b'day party garden gig at the end of July ... for both, the presence of mains power is doubtful. So I did some research and have built, printed a case for and assembled a multi-effects device (I call it effectlåda) that runs off a USB power brick ... measurements so far indicate I should get about 10h out of it on a single charge; my first Amp was a Roland Micro Bass (now glad I didn't sell it!) which can run of batteries also so I'm now good for power, and for our setup it should be plenty loud enough. An added bonus (That I have been trying to implement for a while) is the ability to playback simple drum backing to some of our songs, in fact I can plug in my USB midi keyboard and select from a wide range of synth plugins (FluidSynth soundfont based/DX7/DX10/Etc) ... effectlåda runs patchbox os on a Raspberry pi, this offers a slightly modified version of the Moddevices software (Tho a couple of versions older and not as powerful) ... the audio quality is not quite on a par with my Stomp and the tuners I've found so far for the system are rather crap but the combo of effectlåda and micro bass will do the job nicely for our gigs. Despite all this I've still made some progress with twiggy. I've now put a set of Rotosound tru bass black tape wound strings (60-135) on her and OMG ... they sound glorious! I had a bit of a disaster as my "head" mounting system started to fail; I had to redesign/rebuild it ... I was very fortunate to be able to do this without sacrificing the strings ... phew! Once I've figured out how to capture audio with the effectlåda, I'll post some recordings up. I've also modified the way I mounted the saddles, cutting slots to hold them (used my baby CNC machine, which did a great job). This has had the dual benefit of lowering my saddle action and also much reduced the risk of a saddle slipping out and getting lost. I'm now starting to get concerned about twiggy's neck stability, I might try to install a truss rod but I think I may have made the neck too thin at the head end to give me sufficient depth ... but I am now starting to look at moving onto Flo proper. Given my experience with twiggy I feel that a B0 scale length of 780mm works well for me and whilst twiggy is a couple of inches longer than I had intended for Flo, I will probably use a very similar layout for Flo, but with higher quality wood and most likely off the shelf tuners. I've reconsidered my earlier idea of using a pulley system to take the tuners to the rear (Both shortening the length overall and allowing me to hide the tuners); twiggy is really nice and light but dows not sit easily on my knee and there is nowhere to rest my (R) forearm ... I'm pondering giving Flo a body shape like twiggy's but adding in a fold out stand (Like the Steinberger Spirit) or implement the ability to affix a "body expander", bolting it to the rear of the "body" section of Flo ... this could be wood or even 3D printed. S'manth x

Hi, I am now looking to make a neck for my bass guitar project Flo. I've played with a pine 2x4 and been surprised that the making of the neck (fretless!) was within my limited abilities (Tho it won't win any prizes for look or feel). My goals One piece Thru-Neck design Headless Fretless Scale length of 780mm Asymmetric profile Wood/Cut Would appreciate your views on this. Considering Maple or Wenge. Not sure which (if wither) will be 'better' for the fingerboard. Strengthening/Adjustment I plan to fit a truss rod (from the rear with a) , not sure what length I should use ... I see it is fairly easy to buy a dual action as long as 650mm ... is that suitable or is it too long? Am I correct that a dual action means I can cut a flat (not curved) slot for the rod? Is there much to guide a choice between hex/slotted/disk adjuster? Given an asymmetric profile, Is it worth installing two truss rods? I'd like to avoid any twisting of the neck but am concerned this approach might make the neck too heavy; combined with a small/light body I might get some serious neck dive. Is it worth supplementing the truss rod(s) with carbon fibre rods? Images from https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas/online-resources/learn-about-truss-rod-installation-and-repair/working-with-carbon-fiber-reinforcement-materials/ Finish Ideally oiled ... is this suitable for back & fingerboard? Source I've looked and looked and am finding it difficult to identify somewhere good in the UK to buy the blank for the neck, would love your suggestions, ideally a nice looking bit of wood (Where the supplier either provides photos/choice or has a reputation for not sending out nasty stuff) that is already dried to a condition where I can start working it straight away. Given it will bass-ically (sorry!) be the neck and body of the bass, I am aiming for a blank of 60x100x900mm. There are undoubtedly other things to consider that have not even occurred to me ... I'd love to hear about any tips/suggestions/gotchas. S'manth x

The neck is thin on the treble side and thicker on the bass side and feels pretty good from a playability perspective. As you say I need to either expect a limited neck life or add in some beefiness, the latter seems most likely for sentimental reasons as well as giving me experience of another technique that I can learn from and apply to Flo.

I was very surprised also. I went for Nylon filament (Overture Easy Print Nylon to be exact) as I gather Nylon has the second highest tensile strength of 'conventional' £d filament and I printed the parts on the large side ... touch wood they seem to be holding with no ominous cracking or even creaking! I printed at 0.15mm layer height.

With Twiggy's asymmetric, thin, non reinforced pine neck I suspect that it will not be long before physics start to come into play and I get unwanted twist. I'm toying with routing out a channel to drop in a dual action truss rod, but will that help with any twist I might get? I've been surprised how much I like the feel of the fretless neck, so Flo is likely to have the same. But this time a more considered neck profile, with internal supports and truss rod. If I were to craft Flo from a single piece of wood ... which wood should I go for? Or is it a better design to go for a through body neck made from a different piece/kind of wood? With the equipment I have available at the maker space I've joined I will be able to plane/fit/joint wood and I've the clamps & space to assemble them. If I go this route, what recommendations for neck wood/body wood? I think I will got for a dark fingerboard (either stained wood or 3D printed if it works well on Twiggy) but I love the idea of the natural wood of the body showing with a protective oil (or similar) finish to give her a nice satin sheen. I feel that Twiggy is short enough for me not to have to try out the pulley system I was thinking of, tho it would allow me to hide the tuners on the rear leading to a really minimalistic look from the front. My plan for Flo is that the electronics will live in body cavities, the knobs for such will present on the top edge and be hidden (From the front view at least) by a recess. S'manth x

The Trampa-nator is not on the loose, Zena is safely quiescent on my desk, Twiggy is far from firewood. (I did laugh at the comments tho!) Things have been progressing. I reprinted the ball-end holders for the tuners; they now have an extension that sits against the 'body' to prevent them just spinning. The Nylon filament is well strong enough, but it does tend to 'string' (Hence all the fuzzy bits which I was in too much of a hurry to play and so did not file down). I also mounted some ball races to cut down on the force required to turn them; it's still not great but it's workable. In the first photo you can see I've also printed strap buttons and a case for the electronics (Well apart from the battery lol), there is an active 3 band tone control + volume in there). I've also printed a new style pup holder, the pup was sitting too high in the body forcing a crazy high action ... it's a fair bit better now. I've settled on a 780mm B0 to 740mm G2 and started to shape the neck accordingly. The neck is asymmetric (by choice) and meanders all over reflecting the relaxing just go for it hand crafting (with some one eye closed, tongue poking out, power jigsawing) I've been doing. I was so chilled, I goofed and did not leave enough space at the edge of the fingerboard so whilst my B0 is just about OK, my G2 tends sneak off the edge. With an unfinished pine fingerboard I'm not getting the flatness nor hardness of surface that I think I need, so I'm trying to print a fretboard. I've actually got a 500mm radius on it. I should be in a position to try it out in the next week or so. So ... S'manth, why have you fitted a strap!? Twiggy had her first outing to band practice on Tuesday ... the reception was warm! OMG that's amazing was repeated a few times. We are not in the habit of taking a photo at practice, this was our first time all together, our new lineup, where everyone remembered to bring their "shirt"; some 'photoshopping' to be done before they go on the web site, but you can see Twiggy! To be honest, I need to do a lot more practice with her. The longer scale length than I am used to, the fact she has 5 strings, her being multi-scale and fretless ... all new and different for me, but I'm enjoying the journey! And she sounded pretty good! We've our first "performance" in a couple of weeks (We are playing to entertain (hopefully) the folks who will be taking part in the Worthing Pride march whilst they are getting organised) ... I am hopeful Twiggy will make her first public appearance there Once I've got the fretboard printed and on I'll try to get a recording to share. S'manth x

You're absolutely right, they do spin; something I can sort when I reprint. At present they seem to be holding up, I'm pleasantly surprised! Currently printing knobs to mount on the brass collets.

Progressing with Twiggy. I took her into the makerspace and did some chopping to try to slim down the neck; I'm just going for it! It will probably turn out badly, but I'll be learning loads. Aiming for a C profile with a thickness of 18mm at head to 25mm at body end. I just rasping, shaving, sanding, repeat and feeling/measuring it now and then. I'm finding it amazingly relaxing; total immersion in the process; the smell of sawdust; loving it! Sadly a crack has developed in the bottom section (body as such) of Twiggy; it does not seem to have compromised the structure much (if at all) I'm going to try to glue/clamp it and hope it hangs together for a while. I'm totally prepared to need to set Twiggy aside at some point as having met her intent of providing a platform for me to prototype some stuff, but it would be great if she actually survives and plays ... the sustain I've been getting on trial tune-ups has blown me away and with a lovely grunty growl! The tuners are a nightmare tho, they shift position as I tune and require two hands to stabilise; I can tune up but it is a trial! I got hold of some Nylon filament (Nylon has one of the higher tensile strength ratings of printable material) and am printing some tuner ball catcher bits, something like these. But with a cylindrical cross section rather than the pictured flat one. I've recessed the ball hole slightly at the bottom so under tension it should not pop out of the slot. I'm just going to see by trial and error if they are strong enough to cope with the string tension; I do have a backup plan to add in a couple of thin longitudinal M2 bolts to add strength, the other option is to mill them out of some aluminium rod (But I don't have any to try with at the moment). S'manth x

I suspect that 10mm or less would do; I can take slack up in the string mount at the neck. Design looks good ... but the bits I've got to hand are I can also 3D print stuff ... and (If Xena plays ball) I may be able to mill the 3mm aluminium I've got. (Think like a metre ruler but without markings lol) It's a bit like doing a puzzle, I keep shifting bits around on the table to see if an idea springs forth. S'manth x

Flippant is good and very welcome! Glad you're enjoying it, it is great fun to be doing it. I shall ... tho the next step is getting the tuners "better" and an elegant approach is escaping me at present. S'manth x

That would be The Logical way to play a Song.

I love it! Not something I'd considered (I'd need to write a tuner app). If I did this I could also drive the position of the saddles to autocorrect intonation using a different set of motors. Mad as it seems I was pondering with making the fretboard out of perspex and mounting a number of flexible e-Ink panels underneath, these would be used to display the fret lines & markers. Want single scale? Set config A, want a multiscale ... config B ... it could even allow for Righty/Lefty swapping of multiscale. And with the AutoTune, press one button and the whole thing reconfigures. I could even envisage an approach that would work for fretted basses. Sadly, cost is prohibitive lol S'manth x

Saddles are nearly done. A two part assembly. One holds the fret wire, these are all the same size. The other holds the first bit, these have a uniform receptacle size but the bottom thickness varies. Once I've tuned in my desired bridge action I can reprint some in just a few minutes. S'manth x

Good idea! My whole approach to tuners is giving me a headache! lol S'manth x

And so in the wee hourse of 12th June 2022, Twiggy burst into life! I am now a builder of basses (Well, builder of one bass ... so far) I printed a 0 fret mount The fretwire and 0 fret unit are held in place by friction. You can also see the string clamp unit in place, now with a NeoMag Allen key mount. Tuners all set up Mounting plate printed for the pickup. Mid mounting With the pickup mounted also And with the addition of a pen saddle (I ran out of steam!) I am pleased to present Twiggy We moved to the music room (My living room lol), I plugged her in, tuned her to pitch and ... The B0 string sounds OK and is not too floppy. Given these are a £5 set of random bass strings from Amazon I am happy that a 780mm scale length will work for me. The tuners are stiff but seem to have a reasonable ratio. I shall see what happens overnight, if anything pops or the tuning drops. Definitely need to revisit these (Tho there are a couple of commercial options that would make sense, I particularly like the look of the Nova system ... just need to figure out how to afford them) The action is way too high. I can resolve this by milling out a recess at the head for the string clamp and 0 fret (Given the noise this will make and my tiredness this will wait till tomorrow). Pen-saddle was expedient but will be upgraded tomorrow with 5 separate smaller versions of the 0 fret mount. I might even add a couple of grub screws to allow me to adjust the saddle height; the intonation will be adjusted by moving the saddles up/down the string. I am starting to fall in love with Twiggy so am now pondering how I might shape the back of the neck to something ... well, less like a 2x4! I guess this will have a limited lifespan as there is no stiffening or truss rod fitted (Hmmmm ... I suppose I could mill out a space for these) And I need to add something to house the electrics, gaffer tape is just a stopgap! Once I've modified the string clamp, 0 fret and added the saddles I'll adjust the intonation and try to get a recording of Twiggy in action. Time to sleep now ... perchance to dream gif.mp4 S'manth x

CLS Timber for Studwork and Framing Finished Size 38 x 89mm (4x2 inch) 1.2m Long Perfect for making stud walls Consistent dimensions Kiln Dried for stability Smoothed with rounded corners for ease of handling Imported for better quality Purchased last year to use as a mount for a projector but never used ... until now! Cost me £7 It started as a POC, to allow me to try stuff out, make mistakes without minding and generally learn before embarking on Flo. The problem is that I am starting to fall in love with Twiggy ... I can see me keeping her, maybe even adding an extension at the bottom and playing it in an upright style ... S'manth x

Thanks Andy! The specs quoted for the wire are: A= 2.7mm(.106 inch) B=2.80mm(.110 inch) C=1.05mm(.041 inch) D= 1.80mm(.071 inch) E=0.60mm(.024 inch F=0.95mm(.037 inch) So if I cut a slot that is say 2mm deep to accommodate D, should the slot width be 0.60mm to match E or closer to 0.95mm to match F? (Or something else lol) S'manth x

Thanks @Bassassin. S'manth x

Some more progress on Twiggy. (For clarity, Twiggy is a 2x4 early prototype where I can learn from my mistakes). Fretboard marked (The correct orientation this time!). Cavity cut out for the pickup. xena.mp4 Using Xena I've learned several things. It is possible to CNC a metre long 2x4 on a 3018 ... just not all at once! There are a number of skills I didn't even know existed that I need to learn. It is probably not as fast as a skilled woodworker doing it by hand. The CNC does exactly what it is told unless you tell it to do something impossible (it still tries tho) ... I told it the wrong thing to do a few times so have a cavity that is quite a bit larger than I intended. Starting to think how I'll create the saddles. The fret wires are curved and the "fretboard" is flat so I'mPondering how I will setup the 0 fret. I'm thinking to use the same suggestion by @Andyjr1515as I'm intending for the saddles and embed the 0 fretwire in a 3D printed carrier, I may recess this to avoid having a crazy high action at the head end. In fact I think I need to recess and drop the head string mount for the same reason. Given the flatness of the fretboard is in question and Twiggy will be fretless, what would be a good height to aim for the top of my 0 fret? S'manth x

Oh dear, ever had that D'oh feeling!? I was doing a final scale length measurement and realised I've reversed the strings! I'm going to struggle to play a fretless, let alone if it was a leftie! S'manth