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Fireman - this could be the start of something.. umm..


Woodinblack

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I have fallen into one of those traps, where you see people making guitars and think, 'well, how hard can it be'. Luckily I am not stupid enough to actually believe that and assume it is harder than the talent I have, but regardless, I have decided to give it a try.

So I am going to build what I want, and what I can't get, which is the shape of an Ibanez Fireman, which is an Ibanez iceman turned upside down, with a bit of a cutaway for the high frets. Also a narrow string spacing, 10mm at the sharp end and 15mm at the blunt end.  No-one makes any of this (the Ibanez fireman is a Paul Gilbert signature guitar with no bass option), so my only option is doing it myself.

Obviously I have to build the body myself as there aren't any (actually there are some on eBay but a lot of money and the wrong pickups), but I am not building a neck as that sounds like the step that I haven't got near yet, so I bought a neck off eBay with a paddle headstock so I can cut it like an iceman (for some reason the fireman has the iceman headstock, i.e., upside down), and luckily Ibanez did make a 5 string iceman so I know how they did that. And I have an iceman so I can measure it!

Here is the neck

P1050976.thumb.jpg.3f0b49536d357a20586bfb1f0659117a.jpg

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Not the highest quality but it is straight and does have a truss rod, so that is a start. 

I have a cad program too, so I have drawn out the shape I want:

IMG_0865.jpg.e4665ae0d6cc6e273428d85206f596cf.jpg

And cut it out on plywood as a template to see how it works out sidewise. The only slight problem there is I don't know about the neck join, because turning the iceman upside down you have to cut a shape out to get the high fret access, but obviously the iceman has the cutaway on what is now the top side, whereas I need it at the bottom. Wing it I guess.

I also have 2 matched bits of poplar of the right size coming from eBay, and a router from basschat.

Tools wise I have a drill, jigsaw, workbench, sander, files, chisels and a few other bits and pieces.

And no talent at woodworking that has ever surfaced.

So, because I am one for starting something and not finishing, I thought I would put it on basschat so that a) you get to laugh at my incompetence, b) people can suggest when I am doing something really stupid and c) I can be hassled into doing something.

So what could possible go wrong?.....

 

 

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That would be the fireman, but I thought that set neck was a ledge that I was a long way below, so mine will be bolt on. The iceman is offset to allow access, but that is the other side.  That picture is handy though, I hadn't noticed that the inside of the lower edge was so bezelled, I assumed it was the same as the top. Cheers!

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In the covers I play (or have played), I think that fret 22 (rhcp) is the top, although I like using all of them just because they are there! I think with my skills, even if there were any firemen, mine would be a one off! :biggrin:

I must admit I was quite impressed with Paul Gilberts idea. Most guitarists who get a signature model end up with like a strat in a different colour (or a prs that looks like a strat), his really was a signature!

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15 minutes ago, T-Bay said:

+1 but a word of warning, it can get addictive. My first is nearing completion and I am already thinking about doing another.

I would imagine that depends on how well it goes. If I do find out that I am useless at it that will probably put the end to that. If not.. well, I have a bit of space left!

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1 hour ago, T-Bay said:

+1 but a word of warning, it can get addictive. My first is nearing completion and I am already thinking about doing another.

+1 I only started building my first one last October and now I’m working on my 3rd and 4th and starting planning my 5th (If I had the money I think I’d be on about my 10th by now) 

 

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I would imagine that depends on how well it goes. If I do find out that I am useless at it that will probably put the end to that. If not.. well, I have a bit of space left!

That’s half the fun of it each one you do (hopefully) gets better as your experience grows, also all mine are seriously on a budget I think my most expensive one to date is about £90 except my next one (Pine Streamer style) I think is going to a bit more than that once I’ve bought everything

Enjoy doing the build and then sit back and bask in the glow of your finished custom bass.....:D

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I have the day of this week, I have been fairly ill, but not ill enough to be off work, just ill enough to not sleep because I am coughing too much, and as it is nice now and it won't be for long, I thought I would take the day off. Because I just decided I didn't have anything I needed to do, so I sat in the garden and decided to shape the headstock.

Found out loads of things.

A router is way to agressive for doing these things unless you have a routing table, that I haven't. 

Cutting towards the end of the wood can cause the wood to come apart in an unpleasant way

A dremel is much better than it seems

I only possess 2 chisels and 2 files (I have a load of little rat tail files, but not really useful here), which is news to me, I though it was a lot more. They seem to have gone. Of the 4, one chisel is a little blunt, one has obviously been used to open cans and brute force things, so it useless. Both files are good, but one is too small to be useful in this case.

Ultimately, however good your power tools, if you don't have a whole workshop, the end bits you need to do by hand.

 

So off out to get some new chisels, a slightly roundy wood file and maybe some kind of hand planey thing.

I have decided after a brief moment of indecision, that I will post the pictures however bad it goes, because when I have looked on here before everyone is way better than me, so I am here as a beacon of how not to do it, or what happens when you don't know how to do it :D

Nice day for it though!

 

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Cool.

The best tool kits are those that are built on a piece by piece basis.  You needn't buy a whole set of sockets for example.  Your money is best spent on a good ratchet driver and just the extension and sockets specific to the job you want to do at the time.  Then on assessment of the next job, buy the socket sizes appropriate to the new challenge.

I had a head start as an apprentice aircraft mechanic.  The company subsidised tool purchases and we had a Snap-On van on the premises every Wednesday.  In addition we were entitled to serious discount at one of Dublin's top tool retail outlets.

Some of my peers were a bit completist about it and would trundle around with enormous red cabs stocked with beautifully blingy spanners.  I just had a couple of luggable boxes stocked on the as-needed basis I just described and I was jolly glad of it when I was subbing around the South East of England.  Two modest boxes of choice Snap-On goodness strapped to the pillion of my fully faired CX500 was all I needed to coin it in.

In one of the other facets of the multiverse I do the same with a Hohner B2A and a Hi-Watt combo strapped to the pillion instead while I'm still young enough to enjoy it.

Edited by SpondonBassed
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OK, my journey seems to be going somewhere. I now seem to be the type of person who is genuinely excited be woken up early on a saturday morning by the postman delivering this:

IMG_4645.thumb.jpg.a2921ceb47f9ad18dcc8234da7b4c927.jpg

(you will never know how many times I rephrased 'wood', 'morning' and 'postman'!).

So yay, now all I have to do is glue it together and start cutting (after first making sure to make a pickup cable hole. I bought some pickups yesterday too, turns out musicman style OLP 5 strings have a 15.2mm pickup spacing, which is ideal, so I got some of those. Still wondering about a narrow bridge but it is looking like individual monorail style.

 

So glue - what glue do I use? I see people just glueing these things together and then carrying on. Is there really nothing else that holds the wood together than glue? I read a book on the net that said about having dowels as well, but I have never seen anyone do that.

 

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Rikki_Sixx said:

I’m excited to see how this goes now that you’ve got wood (wahey!). Mind if I ask where you ordered from? I’m always after places to order as it seems to vary so much place to place!

Just off ebay, company called Sherwingroup. We have a wood yard near us, where there are some beautiful pieces of wood for a bit more money, but I thought I would start as cheap as possible before butchering something expensive, so this was much cheaper, and although they didn't have the length I wanted, I contacted them to ask and they said to order from ebay and they would make sure it was long enough as I didn't need it as wide anyway.

Its tulipwood, which is apparently known for not having much of a grain, but this one does actually look ok

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