honza992

Phew, the headstock binding is done.  It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy.  I also routed the truss rod access cover.  Still a bit of tidying up to do, but I think it's time (finally) to glue on the fretboard.....

5 hours ago, Christine said:

If it were me I would build up the binding first, making a former for the bent bits.

Start at the top, cut the mitre on one first, a small disc sander is ideal for making tiny adjustments as you can keep the angles perfect. Once you have the mitre on one side of the top binding do the other in the same way until the insides of both mitres meets with the outside corners of the routing, glue that in place with something like a slow drying superglue (or thin fast drying if you hold it in place and let capillary action take it in).

Then do the two sides, getting the mitres with the top perfect first, then do the bottom ones, glue those before fiddling with the curved bits

Thats great, thanks Christine.  I'll have another go tomorrow. 

@Christine would you be able to give me some advice on binding the headstock?  My first attempt was ok, but I'm hoping I can do better so I routed it off for another go.  

Here it is...

The binding is rocklite ebano with an extra 0.5mm strip of maple veneer on the inside.  On the body I glued them at the same time using titebond. It was fine, if very fiddly.  

What would be your advice about how to bind it and in what order would you glue the pieces on?  Would you try and do it all in one go, or glue some first and let it dry so that one half of each mitre joint has got something solid to push up against, if that makes sense.   Would you do mitre joints for all of them, or butt joints at the end of the curves?

Also, would you try and glue in the maple veneer seperate first?

Thanks so much. 

6 hours ago, Si600 said:

Are you binding the inside faces of those headstock slots...?

Believe me, I've thought of it!    But I think I've decided to leave them unbound so the white/black/white in the scarf joint is reflected in the headstock slots.....though it was a bit of a battle with my natural inclination to bind everything in sight.   Mrs Honza is a bit bored of it......🙄

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I keep looking at those feature lines on the neck and scarf...in fact, everywhere!  This is going to be absolutely splendid.

Unfortunately I've just glued binding on to the headstock so some of those lines will get covered up😮

Luckily I'm adding in 3 new sets of lines with the binding😀

Wow, double binding the body, neck and headstock, is taking ages!  I'm still only about a third of the way through, so to take a break from trying to get titebond sodden tape off my thumbs, I routed the headstock slots......hmmmmm......

Cutting them was slightly precarious:

But I think they look lush:

Thanks all for some really great advice, have a look at these lovely shavings😁

1 hour ago, Rexel Matador said:

This is roughly the body shape I'm thinking of. I suspect that not having a long upper horn will screw up the balance and create neck dive though. Would putting the strap button on the heal mitigate it, do you think?

Make sure you mark out the position of the bridge, and get it as near to the end of the bass as possible, that will help with neck dive.  Once you've done that have a look and see which fret the front strap button is level with.   Most basses have the strap button line up with fret 12 or 13.  Personally I aim for fret 11 as I'm pretty sensitive to neck dive.  The other critical thing is using light weight tuners.  Ultralites can't be beat my opinion, and the non-USA ones are cheaper and are still great. 

@Andyjr1515 is yer man for funky strap button locations, but yes it will make a difference. 

I'm also just wondering whether the neck pocket is just a tad on the small side?  Of course if you can move the bridge closer to the end of the bass, that will also make the neck pocket bigger.....

11 hours ago, Henrythe8 said:

I just *love* this shellac finish. Would you mind giving some details, please ? How is it applied, how many layers, how did you buff it to that shine ? 

THANKS ! 

Agreed, some more details would be great. Coincidentally my current build will also be shellac, I just hadn't quite worked out how to do it! Looks great though, top job.

1 minute ago, TheGreek said:

I'm in a similar situation (not that I have Christine living nearby) - I have great ideas for building basses but only very basic woodworking skills, no space and no tools.. Hence I've delegated three builds to @Andyjr1515....who, as we all know, makes very beautifully instruments.

Poor excuse really as there is a Luthiers course available (on Saturdays) in Hertford - about 8 miles away. Cost is £300 for 10x 3 hour sessions - plenty of time, I'm told to get a bass finished. Very reasonable too, and I'd gain skills which would help me maintain my own equipment and will save me money in the long run. No brainer really.

So why haven't I taken advantage??? I blame the likes of @Andyjr1515 and @Jabba_the_gut who make it all look so blooody easy - turning out magnificent instruments with seemingly little effort - it really can't be as easy as they make it look, surely. 

The fear of failure is a powerful thing, even when there is support available to make sure that mistakes aren't made and that you produce something you'll be happy with.....I'd probably enjoy the challenge.

Thing is, this is what I preach to clients all day, every day - step outside your comfort zone, give yourself a challenge, do something to test yourself....

You know what??? I really should sign up for these classes.

My advice is don't.  The £300 you spend now will be dwarfed by the obscene sums your new addiction will cost you. You'll have no time to watch sh_te on TV, your mind will buzz with future builds, you'll gaze furtively at the Axminster website, and (even more dangerously workshopheaven.com), you'll lose friends who will tire of talk of 'fret radius', and 'double action truss rods', you'll find that rather than having time to fill you'll have no time at all, as your guitar building obession slowly takes over your life.....😀🤣

5 minutes ago, owen said:

I think I have misled you slightly. I will not actually be doing the hardcore woodwork myself. I have a local woodworker online for the tricky routing etc. Christine has said she is happy to offer advice and perhaps do things which are way way way beyond me.

Go on, you know you want to do it yourself.....just one, it can't do any harm....go on.....😀

It's brilliant that you are finally taking the plunge, though guitar building is a hard but addictive task master. With that's n mind my advice is not to build the guitar of your dreams, but to build something that is relatively straightforward and something that you will actually finish. My first was a bolt on Precision and even that was unbelievably hard. If, like me, you have no background in making anything then I honestly recommend you start simple. Leave the curved this, and the widdly that for build 3 or 4. A flat body, bolt on, single pickup, oil finished bass will still throw up a million seemingly unfathomable problems. But you will finish it, and for build number 1 I think that's the important thing.

But lots of help here whatever you choose to do...Good luck

26 minutes ago, Christine said:

Here you are

The plain cabinet scraper is a vastly under rated tool, properly sharpened and prepared it can remove wood from the most difficult grain imaginable or it can smooth out a freshly sprayed or brushed lacquer in readiness for the next coat with absolute finesse.

Sharpening it is usually a problem, I'm not sure why, it's not really that difficult but it does need a little care to get right but it's not a long or difficult job. You'll need, a sharp engineers file, a set of sharpening stones, I use Japanese water stones 1000 grit (coarse) and a 6000 frit (fine),a vice,  a wooden guide block about 150mm long 75mm high and 40mm thick planed exactly square and a simple burnisher  (a good quality screwdriver will do for this).

The first thing you need to do is file the 2 working edges square so clamp your scraper in the vice alongside the wooden guide block so the top edge of the scraper is a hair above the wood. Now using the wooden block as a guide file the edge of the scraper flat without damaging the guide block unduly. You have now removed the remains of the last sharpening in readiness for the new one.

Now to hone the working edges: on the coarse stone which must be perfectly flat by the way hold the working edge of the scraper against it so the scraper is vertical using your guide block as a guide to keep it exactly square and flat. When the edge shows no more marks left from the file move on to the fine stone. Do the same again, then put the scraper flat on the stone and hone both of the faces. Go back to the guide block and do the edge again, then the sides. What you are aiming for is a perfectly square edge with a near mirror finish all round. Your scraper is now sharp but still useless.

Finally we need to raise the burr that does the work. Put the scraper in the vice so the edge is about 40mm above it. Take your burnisher, hold it horizontally, with firm pressure run it backwards and forwards about 10 times, this will harden the edge. After that continue but one side at a time carry on burnishing but ever so slightly tilt the burnisher down on the side you are working on, bit by bit until you get to about 5 degrees, with luck you should have a good burr, test it with your thumb. If it's there do the same again on the other edge before turning the scraper over and doing the other side. You should have 4 working burrs that will or at least should be capable of producing a near perfect finish.

That's about it really, it does take a couple of goes to learn how hard to press to get your burr how you like it. With time and experience you can skip using the guide block but I wouldn't recommend it for a good while and then only if you sharpen very regularly, it's very hard to keep that edge perfectly square while honing otherwise.

Thanks so much Christine, that's brilliant.  I'll have a go.  

I've routed the binding channels, and got a couple of options.  The first is black with a cream line inside, the second adds a couple of very thin white lines round the edge.  They don't quite match in colour, but I'm not sure how much that matters.  Anyone have an opinion?  

You may be wondering why I've covered the top (and back) in tape......The walnut veneer is 0.6mm thick which means there is very very (very) little margin for error in terms of how much sanding I can do.  So when I'm routing (or actually pretty much all the time) I put the tape there just to provide the veneer with a tiny bit of protection.  

I like the idea of using a cabinet scraper.  But for the life of me I just can't get one sharp.  I've looked at a million videos, have what I think is the right sheet metal, and even have one of these:

But can I get it to too lovely wispy shavings?  No, all I get is dust.  Would anyone be able to talk me through, using very very simple words, how you sharpen a cabinet scraper. 

And it would be great to widen the discussion a bit further to see how and when you use it.  And any useful tips etc. 

Thanks!

1 hour ago, SpondonBassed said:

Dowels or biscuits.

@honza992 might describe the technique he uses with brad pins...

In my opinion dowels or biscuits aren't needed from a strength point of view, glue should hold fine.  To use a 1.2mm  brad nail you just hammer it in 5  mm or so, then clip it off so there's 1-2mm sticking out.  Put all the bits in position and push them together and the brad will leave an indentation on the corresponding piece of wood.  You can then drill out that indentation with a 1.2mm drill bit so that the pieces can all be pushed together fully.  If it's important that there's no movement when you glue I would be inclined to do it in two halves.  And maybe even glue the veneer onto the wings first, then glue each wing in turn.  Otherwise that's a lot of glue that's going to be sloshing around and a lot of different pieces of wood to try to align.  As for dowels, I've never used them in this way so I'm not sure how you would get the dowel on one side exactly lined up with the hole on the other side...

While building the topic of 'finishing' looms large, as it were, in the back of my mind. 

Some of you may know that I'm an active member of Extinction Rebellion.  I've already stopped buying exotic wood, and I'm trying to review all of my building processes to see if I can make them more environmentally friendly.  

With that in mind I've decided my finishing from now on will be with shellac.  Or at least the top coat will be shellac.  Grainfill will be Epoxy.....which I know isn't ideal, but it uses I tiny amount and reduces the amount of finish that is required.  Or at least that is my plan for now.  Like all my plans, it's likely to have a very limited shelf life.....

22 minutes ago, Christine said:

Something I learnt to do years ago with aliphatic glues like titebond, similar to using hide glues where you can rub the glued surfaces together until they get a grip of each other (with hide glue you can leave it like that) just make sure when you get that gripping that the pieces are in the right position then put a clamp on the bit that's stuck first, it wont move anywhere, once that first one is on you can put on the others as needed.

Might come in handy sometime, it saves me a lot of grief when I'm glueing slippery bits

Ah, thanks for that.  I've always wondered how people glue with titebond without it slithering around like Torvil and Dean. I'll try it next time, cheers!

Edit: Oh and is that just for titebond, or Epoxy as well?  When I'm dong veneers, that's turned into my glue of choice, titebond introduces too much water and warping for my liking....

I spent ages trying to work out how to get a neat 'join' where the fretboard, nut and headstock veneer meet. It's the sort of thing that drives me mad if it's not perfect. In the end I decided to sand the headstock 'veneer' (3mm of ebano and w/b/w veneers) like this, setting up the platform in front of the sanding disc at the same angle as the headstock, about 13 degrees. 

That meant when the headstock and nut meet, they're both vertical:

I then glued the headstock veneer on, using my normal brad nail technique to stop it slipping around. 

I've started using these spring clamps more and more after I saw a B&G video that showed them using 20 of them to glue on a fretboard.  They seem to provide plently of pressure but are really quick and easy to use.  I'll be doing the same....

Just now, Christine said:

That was a difficult rout, it's turned out very well

Thanks Christine.  I have no skill with hand planes but can rout virtually anything!  Though part of me wishes it was the other way round🙄

Right, the body is routed to shape and a bit of tidying up around the lower horn and I have this:

The neck heel will have more wood glued on to make it thicker, but just to check my neck angle is correct, I put a 6mm mdf shim in the neck pocket then used a straight edge to check height at the bridge....

My plan said 7.8mm, so 8mm is pretty much spot on. 

Continuing with the nect pocket, first up I clamp the neck down into its approximate position, then put two straight edges in place down the side of the neck. I then move the neck around until the straight edges are the same distance from the centre line. I then clamp the neck down firmly. 

I then put the template over the top of the neck and glue it down using the superglue/masking tape trick which holds really, really secure.  The neck can then be removed and the pocket routed....

And the final pocket. 

A couple of things.  First off I would put two layers of masking tape around the inside of the template to make the routed neck pocket a tiny bit smaller.  This time I used only one layer and it wasn't quite enough.  The pocket is tight enough for epoxy glue, but I wouldn't want to use hot hide glue which needs a pretty tight fit, as I understand it.  Second, I wasn't able to rout quite as deeply as I would like.  It's not an issue because I'm using a neck which is pretty long, much longer than a standard LP joint, so there's plenty of surface to glue, but aesthetically I would have liked it a bit deeper.  I'll have a rethink for next time.....

Oh and I know it still looks pretty awful at the moment.  Scruffy as hell.  Next step is to rout the body to shape, which should hopefully improve it's appearance no end😀

Andy, silly question, but where is the peak of the volute level with? The nut?

Bit of progress on the neck pocket.  First up, hogging....

I make my pocket templates individually for each guitar I do.  It doesn't take that long but does need a router table.  Basically I clamp the neck on to a piece of 12mm MDF, then stick down 3 straight edges using double sided tape, pushing them up against the neck to get the shape.  If you haven't got 3 straight edges then 3 pieces of MDF cut straight work just as well.  Once they are stuck down the I use a guided bit in the router table to cut the template to shape.  The advantage of this technique is that you are using the neck itself to shape the template.  

Once that;s done I then cut two piece of MDF on the radial arm saw at an angle of 2 degrees.  These will provide the angle needed to cut the neck pocket.  So the template is finished:

Thanks Christine, that makes sense. I'll give it a go😁