honza992

Into the grunt work. I re-did the frets. Cursing as I went 🙄. Though to be fair, all went smoothly. I then filed them level with the edge of the neck, then added the bevel, taking it down slightly into the binding so there isn't too sharp an edge. I then did the neck taper, going from 20mm at the first to 22mm at the 12th. Slim, but not too slim. It's then on to the neck carve. I use the facet method, which makes for a lovely photo! Oh, and the body needs sanding. Lots and lots of sanding. But is at least looking more or less bass shaped.

Sounds strange, but in some ways I think making the pickguard is the most difficult thing about building an electric. Unlike wood, plastic is completely unforgiving, and there's something about it that means you really have to be accurate for it to look good. It has to follow exactly the curve of the body, fit exactly round the neck pocket and have exact placement of the pickups and control plate. I've finally got a process that I'm pretty happy with, but it's taken me a long time to develop it, and it still takes a long time to do. Of course, if you're doing a standard size P or J bass then you can simply pick one off the shelf, or use a pre-made template like I've got in the first photo. Everything I do is custom size, so no such luxury for me. First up I do a drawing on some baking parchment (one of the most useful things in the 'shop). I use this to rough cut some 12mm mdf to size. Next I rout the pickup hole into it. At this point the rest of the pickguard template is just rough cut. Having got the pickup rout done, I mount the pickups and make sure that I'm happy with their positioning. Then without moving anything, I use a guided bit running along the edge of the body itself to do the lower horn (where the pickguard runs parallel with the body). At the same time I also rout the neck pocket, using the pocket itself as a guide. This means that the fit of the pickguard is perfect. I then use a guided router bit with different size bearings to rebate into the pickguard template along the lower horn. This results in a template that is smaller than the lower horn, but runs parallel to it. Finally, I cut out the 'V' shape where the pickguard meets the control plate. And that's it! Several hours work. My last insurance policy is that I don't drill the holes for the control plate till after finishing and I'm fitting the plastic pickguard itself. The positioning of the control plate has a couple of mm wiggle room, so if the thickness of the finish, or who knows what else has moved everthing by a mm or so, I can absorb that by moving the control plate slightly, and everthing still fits together perfectly. I told you it was the hardest bit of making a guitar!

Sometimes I really despair. Last week when I was lying on my (2 yr old) daughters floor as she held my finger to go to sleep, I specifically remember thinking to myself, Honza don't forget to check that the fret slots are deep enough before you glue the binding and start fretting. Well...I didn't, and they weren't. Even more annoyingly (and for the first time ever, what was I thinking) I started fretting from the nut end rather than the heel end. Which meant the first dozen or so went in perfectly before they started bottoming out. So to cut a long story short I had to take them all out.... Pulled 'em out with this... There was virtually no tearout, apart from one small chip near the end. I used a feeler guage and some baking paper as a dam to stop the CA medium glue getting into the fret slot. Ended up being virtually invisible. Then I deepened the slots using this teeny tiny saw. All in all it went pretty smoothly, but I wasn't expecting to have to do a re-fret quite so soon🙄. I'm going to have a whiteboard surgically attached to my forehead so when I have these thoughts in the middle of the night, I don't immediately forget them in the excitement and impatience of building.... I've re-sanded the fretboard and it looks pretty good. I just need to put on a few layers of finish then I can re-fret. But can someone please remind me to remember the things I have forgotten. Thanks.

Can't wait for the finishing de-brief 😀 It's amazing that man-on-the-moon is almost half a century old, but there's still no recognized method of sealing, protecting and enhancing the grain of a piece of wood.... Andy, you're doing great work.

Guitar build.co.uk can do whatever you need. Edit: Ah, sorry do you mean you want a guitar shaped lump of wood? Or a finished guitar minus neck, knobs and control plate? If the first then guitarbuild are good, if the latter then ebay or gumtree is your friend. Buy a cheap bass body and most sellers will throw in the neck for free😉 😆

The body is now nearly finished. The arm/belly contours are done. I filled in the old pickup rout, and re-did it for a reverse P. I spent ages cutting out paper control plates of different shapes (including the Sandberg style suggested by @songofthewind , which look great) but just couldn't get anything I was happy with. Because of it's location (nearer the bridge) there wasn't much contour to it, which meant it just ended up mostly looking like a not-very-happy penis. And I'm not sure that's exactly the look I was after 😕. So in the end I simply decided to re-shape the body so that it followed the shape of the control plate, rather than the other way round. I think it's ended up looking pretty good. I also did drilled the holes for the pickup and bridge ground wires. Because the bass is going to be painted, the easiest way to do the bridge ground was just to drill through the side of the bass. I don't have a bit anywhere long enough to drill all the way through from the bridge pocket. One thing I forgot is that those long bits drop, so by the time it came out into the control cavity it was worryingly near the bottom. Luckily there were a few mm to spare, and I may fill the bottom with a bit of epoxy just to make sure it remains strong enough. Tomorrow, fretting and doing the roundovers on the body.....

Oh my oh my oh my. That's some lovely shiny shimmering lovelyness right there! (And I'm leaving my MOP as is. Actually I designed it that way from the beginning.....😁)

I think I agree with @Jimothey I use a router with a guided bit, which more or less does exactly what a CNC does. If you think about it, that bearing is a primitive CNC! It reproduces a shape with only minimal intervention from me. I think the difference in mechanisation at this point is one of degrees. I don't use CNC because I build for the (non financial) reward it gives me. So I'm not sure using CNC would help that much. I think the key is customisation and developing a customer experience that goes beyond simply walking into a shop and picking something off the shelf. A custom builder has the opportunity to work with the client to build something that is designed for them, but also something where they have helped chose the wood, the binding, the finish etc etc . That's my goal anyway. But there's no way I would ever be able to do that to pay a mortgage.....Not when competing with CNC.

I think everyone here builds without CNC. Though admittedly not commercially. I don't think it's possible to earn a living making guitars without using CNC.

I'd like to take a look, though I'm a builder more than a player, and by the looks of it your skills are already up there. But I would give an honest opinion re build, fit, finish etc. I'm in Nottingham.

Ho...ly....cow... Your sanding is amazing. Really outstanding. Awe-inspiring. Curves...light and dark woods....that's hard to get clean lines. But you get it looking like it has been forged in bass heaven. No stray sanding dust, beautiful sparkly clean lines.....You are literally killing me😲 Any tips for us mere mortals?

More of an issue is this.... All the blocks are white, apart from the one at the fifth fret (block 3) which is blue. What the...?!%@%! I didn't notice before because they were only rough sanded, but once glued in and starting to sand it was obvious that it didn't match at all. This is the first time I've used MOP and as a natural material I'm sure there is some variation in hue, but that is ....well, a bit much. Very disappointing. I guess I have two options: 1. Grab my router, and zap that little bugger. Hope I can get it out relatively neatly and re-rout the channel. Get the retailer to send me one that is the correct colour, re-glue, re-radius and put it all down to experience. 2. Relax. It is at least at fret 5, so I can pretend that it's a design feature. And no one will notice apart from me anyway. Anyone with any opinions? (Oh and also I'll email the supplier and ask whether that blue is in fact within the accepted range of 'white'....🙄)

A quick update on the neck. The blocks are in, glued and the neck radiused. It's.....ok. Not great, but for a first effort it's acceptable (the fill around the blocks is a bit too obvious for my liking), but I learned loads and next time it will be one hell of a lot better. A quick shot hiding the imperfections... Next time I will do the gluing a little bit better, because I think the way I did it this time contributed to a slightly sloppy job. This time I used epoxy and sanding dust to glue the blocks in, and in my head I had imagined the epoxy oozing up around the block, filling the gaps around it at the same time as gluing. And that is what happened, at least to begin with. What happened next though, was that the expoxy then sank down again, I think as the blocks rose up a little bit. So next time I will divide the gluing and the filling into two completely seperate stages. First I will glue the blocks in with a small amount of medium CA glue, using only enough to cover the bottom of the channel but no more. Then, once dry I'll use either epoxy or medium CA glue with sanding dust to do the gap fill. Oh, and the other thing I need to work on is my chisel technique, both use and sharpening☹️ But all in all, ok for a first effort.

Here's a couple of mine..... (Edit: Mods, am I alowed to post my own? If not, please delete!😁)

Wow, that's an incredibly kind officer and a gentlemen. You're but a mere hop skip and jump away. I may very well be getting back to you....Thanks again.

So, I'm guessing you don't all love the idea then😋 I guess part of my issue (apart from being lazy🙄) is that I have no metal working tools at all - files, drill bits, countersinks, saws etc etc. I'm reluctant to spend yet more money on tools.....no, hold on, who am I kidding. I'm reluctant to spend money on clothes, or the bus....I'm joyful to spend money on tools 😀......though on my tool wish list, metal working tools come below woodworking..... I'll have another think....

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is...no, clearly not, what were you thinking you complete numpty.... ....but is there any reason why brass can't be routed? Make a template for the plate from 12mm mdf, sandwich 2mm brass stock with another piece of 12mm mdf then trim it on my router table with the speed as low as possible. Just, you know, a thought😋

Thanks Jez, I'd be really interested in the chrome plating idea. Doing my own plate would be the ideal solution. How difficult is brass to cut and shape?

I'm a great one for never following my own advice. Part of which is ALWAYS have all hardware to hand for doing layout before starting to cut. Paticularly if you're doing non-standard scale lengths (which I normally do🙄) because that throws everything out. So anyway, there was a delay on receiving the control plate, but it's only a control plate, right, no need to delay building....? Wrong. Goddam it. It hadn't occured to me that a 33" scale and more ergonomic design means that everything is shifted by about 2 inches in comparison to a normal fender 34 inch. So if the control plate is in the right position, nicely parallel with the side of the bass, it's completely mis-aligned with the pickups.... Or if I align it right with the pickups, it's completely misaligned with the side of the body. And that's the sort of thing that would give me sleepless nights.... Ho hum. I think the best solution (other than following my own advice) is to fill in the Precision pickup rout, and re-rout it a centimetre or two nearer the nut. That will just allow enough space for whole pickup to be underneath the pickguard. Though obviously means the tone will be slightly affected. The other option that occured to me, was to reverse the two halves of the P. Fender themselves do it with the Mark Hoppus jazz... The thinking is that the bass strings are a big tighter sounding (being a bit close the bridge) and the top two strings are a bit warmer. Or at least I think that's the idea. Anyone tried out a reverse P? Maybe I'll do that, edit the thread title, hope no one notices and pretend that was my intention all along😏. Any opinions?

Today I glued in the MOP blocks. I used West Systems Epoxy which is great, but is a pain if you are only using small quantities, as I normally do. So I've started using medicine syringes to meausre out very small quantities, taken direct from the can. No waste, no scales, no hassle. I use a children's Nurofen syringe for the Resin (half a syringe is 2.5ml) and a Vitabotics one (0.5ml). It really works great, and a vast improvement over the pumps that West Systems sell that only measure out large quantities and leak all over the place. And cost twenty quid... I started off with some rosewood sanding dust (400 grit) but on my test piece I found that it was a bit light. So I added some black powder, in this case Behlen's black furniture powder. It's been sitting on a shelf for years and I've never used it. No idea why I bought it, but this seemed like the ideal time to bring it out. Anyway, I added maybe 20% black to end up with this... Then I syringed on 2.5ml of resin onto the top of the sawdust, mixed it well then added 0.5ml or 205 hardener. Mixed it well for a minute or two, then glued on the blocks... Following @Christine's advice, I just held them in using finger pressure, no clamps or anything. Tomorrow I'll sand, and judgement will follow😲

He he 🤣the neatness of the work (and the camera in this instance slightly exaggerates) is inversely proportional to the utter, complete, all encompassing, overpowering and overwhelming mess and chaos in the workshop 😧 I need to have more visitors, cos it's the only time I tidy!

A bit more progress on the neck. Lots, and lots, and lots of tape.... Then on to sanding the radius.... Man I love rosewood. It's just so beautiful to work with. I know the CITES restrictions are for our own good, but every time I think about it I feel genuine sadness. 😢

Wow, that's a work of art! I use an equivalent which is a 3mm slot routed in some mdf. Keeps the nut nicely at 90 degrees when sanding. Works surprisingly well😎

Mock-up time. I'm usng what (I think) is standard 60s pickup placement for the bridge - 8% of scale length away from the bridge. The P will be what is standard for a precision, 16%. Tomorrow I'll get the templates done and start routing😁

Next up, pickups. Guess what's in this beautiful box? Pickups! Yay😁 They're a matched '62 set from House of Tone. Now, I don't like to complain. I chose them because I wanted to use British made artisan pickups. I'm sure they're going to sound great. But if you were a boutique pickup maker wouldn't you spend an hour or two making a template so a nice and neat pickup hole can be routed? Pickups are all slightly different sizes. And the generic templates are rubbish (and I've got plenty of them). Clearly, you must have a drawing in CAD for the moulds to have been made......I don't know....maybe I just expect too much, but I'd happily pay a fiver for a template to save me the couple of hours it'll take to make my own. Anyway I guess the important thing is how they sound.......