JBoman Posted July 17, 2020 Author Share Posted July 17, 2020 On 16/07/2020 at 14:45, Fishman said: another neck plate supplier if you need it: https://tlcguitargoods.com/en/neck-plate-bass-6-hole-music-man-style-stainless-steel.html Order placed. YOLO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishman Posted July 18, 2020 Share Posted July 18, 2020 On 16/07/2020 at 13:57, SpondonBassed said: Didn't they sell a full set of screws with it then? no screws Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 FedEx came today, wo-hoo! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted July 29, 2020 Author Share Posted July 29, 2020 Nice work from the people at Status. Looking closer though reveals some roughness on the frets. Probably fine as they are, but I think I will give these a nice polish eventually. Also, the fingerboard material gives off some black dust or something, so a bit of cleaning is needed. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HazBeen Posted July 29, 2020 Share Posted July 29, 2020 On 17/07/2020 at 19:52, JBoman said: Order placed. YOLO. TLC is a great company, Alex is so attentive and takes pride in providing customer service. I am sure it will be a pleasant experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 (edited) 19 hours ago, HazBeen said: TLC is a great company, Alex is so attentive and takes pride in providing customer service. I am sure it will be a pleasant experience. It was highly recommend. Measurements are spot on. Now, you would think that positioning is a bit further back than it should be. And you would be right. I moved the whole neck pocket a bit to compensate for the inaccuracies in the body template. Doing the neck pocket routing with the template as-is would have caused some problems with the positioning of the bridge and the pickup. Speaking of measurements... I was hoping that the neck could be also used on my SUB, as a spare or just for the hell of it. Turns out that it does not fit. Neck pocket on the SUB is around 62-63mm, Status neck is just a hair above 64mm. Edited July 30, 2020 by JBoman 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted July 31, 2020 Author Share Posted July 31, 2020 Man, making screw holes to carbon is SLOOOOooooW But take your time and size the hole carefully, otherwise you end up with cracked laquer. 1. Make a pilot hole. 2. Remember to countersunk. I did these all the way through the finish, so that I got some black dust. 3. Size up, if you don't have all possible drill sizes, use a round file. Rinse, repeat. DO. NOT. RUSH. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted July 31, 2020 Share Posted July 31, 2020 Just thought after reading the thread, if the dimensions of the body out, isn't the scale length of where the bridge will be, be out also... then I saw that there were no bridge holes yet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted July 31, 2020 Author Share Posted July 31, 2020 2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said: Just thought after reading the thread, if the dimensions of the body out, isn't the scale length of where the bridge will be, be out also... then I saw that there were no bridge holes yet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tegs07 Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 (edited) Hi Really nice work. I did a similar project, natural finish with Tru-Oil using slurry method. This link may be useful for sourcing a bridge https://www.twojah.com/parts-and-accessories/bridges/musicman-sterling-bridge-4-string Indonesian based - I ordered a G&L one for my project. Postage is expensive at around $40 - Didn't know if site looked legit but came through and the guy (Eben) is really helpful. Good luck with the finish ... Oh and when it comes to contouring the body .. Shinto Saw Rasp ... amazing bit of kit. Edited August 1, 2020 by tegs07 more info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songofthewind Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 Plus one on the Shinto rasp. I just got one, and gingerly tried it out on a piece of scrap. Wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 3, 2020 Author Share Posted August 3, 2020 (edited) Body is already contoured, but thanks for the tip. I did the belly cut and the arm contour using a belt sander, finished off with scrapers. Fine tuning the neck angle. Finding the bridge position. This pic also reveals the "special feature": 2 pickup locations. I plan to make a second pickguard later for the second position. Most of the parts I had already waiting there, so it was just a matter of getting the neck and "integrating" everything. At this point, I could finally get some idea of the sound, acoustically at least. It's LOUD, like a proper P bass-kind of loud. So output will not be a problem The sound is also very piercing and seems to have all kinds of frequencies represented. So, it will be just a matter of EQ-ing to get what you want. Oh, about the finishing. At this stage, it already has 2 layers of wax on it. I went for wax since I really liked the look & feel of it on some test pieces. It's also a super easy way to finish. I still plan to take it apart once more, lightly sand and rub one final coat to get rid of some marks. Maybe one testament for the finish: everybody who comes to the shop wants to touch and feel the wood going like "ooh! aah" The only issue really is the weight. This is not your bass to haul around in a gigbag. It's not been on the scale yet, and I'm afraid to put in on our small kitchen scale I have been entertaining the idea of finding a lighter block of wood, tweak a few things and make an even better body with all the experience I got from this one. Let's see.... Edited August 3, 2020 by JBoman 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songofthewind Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 Looks really good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itu Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 2 hours ago, JBoman said: I have been entertaining the idea of finding a lighter block of wood, tweak a few things and make an even better body with all the experience I got from this one. Let's see.... Will the next body be done from two parts? Top can hide a lot of what is underneath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishman Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 (edited) no Status logo on headstock or is it hidden in a reflection or whatever? Edited August 3, 2020 by Fishman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 4, 2020 Author Share Posted August 4, 2020 8 hours ago, Fishman said: no Status logo on headstock or is it hidden in a reflection or whatever? No logo. It seems they have changed the design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 4, 2020 Author Share Posted August 4, 2020 20 hours ago, itu said: Will the next body be done from two parts? Top can hide a lot of what is underneath. I prefer simplicity, so probably not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 11, 2021 Author Share Posted August 11, 2021 On 03/08/2020 at 12:06, itu said: Will the next body be done from two parts? Top can hide a lot of what is underneath. Well, I actually entertained myself to the point of traiding that body and also getting rid of the Status. There we're small things that I found irritating about the neck profile. So, I went back to the drawing board. Like, literally. I opened a CAD program and started thinking: what do I really WANT? Hmmm.... If only I could take a P-bass and a Stingray and make some kind of chimera of these... hmmmm.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 11, 2021 Author Share Posted August 11, 2021 So this happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
durhamboy Posted August 11, 2021 Share Posted August 11, 2021 Are you going to add a p pickup along with the Music Man? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 11, 2021 Author Share Posted August 11, 2021 2 minutes ago, durhamboy said: Are you going to add a p pickup along with the Music Man? No. P-bass influence is more in the body and neck shape. From MM, we get the pickup and 21 frets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 12, 2021 Author Share Posted August 12, 2021 (edited) So, here we are. One fine piece of maple shaped and dimensioned. As you probably are aware, there are many steps involved here. But I personally think the most involved and meticulous was to come up a way to plane the surfaces to be as parallel as possible. For this, I came up with this kind of an routing "swimlane". If you get some dimensionally accurate plywood, etc this is is doable. How did I hold down the wood on the surface? Masking tape on both surfaces and superglue in between Also, I was working on top of a table saw surface, to keep everything as flat and straight as possible. Tuner holes are not in final size, I'll wait for the tuners to arrive before drilling the final holes. Good to be a bit paranoid. Oh, and the templates... laser cut Found a local business that takes AI files and can cut 6mm plywood. @itu protip: https://www.lasercutstudio.com/ Edited August 12, 2021 by JBoman 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 14, 2021 Author Share Posted August 14, 2021 Truss rod cavity routed. Still needs a bit chisel work. And a hole through the heel, this will be a MM style "spinwheel" rod (or whatsitcalled....) Also it seems that I get to keep those indexing holes. They are precisely in the centerline, below the nut and the last fret. So I can use those to position the fretboard. Nice. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 17, 2021 Author Share Posted August 17, 2021 Trying to center something vertically in a drill press, not easy But I got it, one hole in the heel. Scribbled the final dimension, so I don't forget to pick the correct drill bit. The routed cavity was also not enough, I only had one router bit for this job and the rod has extra width and depth at the heel --> dremel time. The rod also had a slight upwards lip towards the heel, digging deeper to the wood did not help. So I just hacked off some metal with a belt sander to make it level with the maple. Ugly, but functional. And after the fingerboard, only we will know it's there. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBoman Posted August 20, 2021 Author Share Posted August 20, 2021 (edited) So, while I sort out some things about ordering the fretboard I turn my focus to the body. Finding hardwoods, or "noble woods" as they are called over here is really hard. Finland is such a small market that availability is always an issue. Especially when you want to physically inspect the wood before buying. There is just one place in Helsinki that keeps these kinds of wood in stock ( @itu knows...) so I went there. I knew it was not going to be cheap, but eh.. at least I save in shipping. And I get to pick and choose. Initially I had some kind of a light colored wood in mind, but I'm not picky. In the basement of this special place there were interesting planks from all around the world, even zebrano. Man that's a wild looking wood. But heavy. So as previously posted, I really wanted to nail down an optimal weight for this instrument. Not too heavy, but still "substantial", you know what I mean In my cad model, I could calculate a rough volume for the body, therefore I was able to aim for a certain density for the wood. Which turned out to be around 580kg/m3 for a ~2kg body when cut and contoured. That together with the neck and all the hardware should land me on around 3,5-4kg for the finished instrument. So I rummaged through in the basemend and tried to get a feel of the weight of various planks. I finally ended up with 2 pieces of something called "Bibolo". It has many names: Dibetou (France, Belgium) African walnut (UK) Lovoa wood (USA) Noce africano (Italy) The shop did not have a scale for me to weigh the wood, but having felt so many instruments and pieces of wood I was confident that we might have a potential winner. So I left with a lighter wallet and some wood wrapped in plastic, trying to manage a rainy day in Helsinki... This wood does not have a strong grain pattern, so it's kind of boring looking. But let's see what we come up with.... I measured one of the pieces and put it on a kitchen scale and got 583kg/m3 0,0037821185107499m3 583kg/m3 2,2kg I'm happy. Edited August 20, 2021 by JBoman 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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