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Pair of Semi Hollow 4 strings - Fretted and Fretless


Jabba_the_gut

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  • 1 month later...
58 minutes ago, Frank Blank said:

Excellent…

*dons fez, cleans glasses, settles into deep armchair, lights pipe*

You'll need a decent supply of Condor and a big book Frank...

 

 

 

.... for a month or so 🤭

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This project is to make two semi hollow basses, on fretted and one fretless. One of the basses will use the body of a semi hollow bass I made a while back with a new neck. The second bass will be a copy of the first. When I built the first bass I had bought two pieces of walnut at the same time so I should be able to make these look very similar.

The reason for making a new neck for the first bass is to change the scale length from 30" to 32". Both necks will also be made with angled headstocks to do away with string trees.

Both basses will be maple bodies with an American walnut top, have birdseye maple necks, ebony fretboard (with an extended thumb rest), Luminlay side dots, Shadow piezo pickup, East preamp and a satin finish.

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4 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

Oh lord, so exciting...

*dons fez again, cleans glasses, settles into deep armchair, re-lights pipe*

I was always partial to Borkum Riff back when I smoked a pipe.

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On 11/07/2021 at 16:22, ezbass said:

I was always partial to Borkum Riff back when I smoked a pipe.

 

On 12/07/2021 at 14:02, durhamboy said:

OK, all ready. Erinmore flake used to be my choice back in the day. 

 

Let's just agree, we all like a rough shag.

Edited by Frank Blank
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I have a small pile of veneers that my dad gave me a while ago and in it was a couple of pieces of walnut that look a very similar colour to the walnut tops. A right stroke of luck I say!!

XIzsx0k.jpg

After a little bit of carving on the back of the neck, the veneers could be glued on. The curve just makes a nice little volute when the neck is carved.

NwK7cAg.jpg

I glued the front veneers first as they are flat, then once the glue was set enough so they wouldn't slide at all, I glued on the rear ones and clamped it all together. And as said before in this forum, you can't have enough clamps. I forgot to take a picture but I probably used 10 G clamps to hold on a headstock veneer. Overkill? Maybe, but it'll be flat and it won't move!!!

Vz3ZtdG.jpg

To get the veneer to sit tightly onto the curve at the back of the neck I use a flat block with a curve at one end to match. On this I have some foam rubber about 4mm thick so when clamped to the neck it pushes the veneer nicely onto the curve.

Sanded the front lip flat and marked the centre lines ready for routing the truss rod channel and carbon rod channels.

Right, off to sand some coving to earn some brownie points.

Cheers

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4 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

just do something imperfect, just once, please ?

Ok, just for you...

I stuck the router bit through the neck of my 5 string short scale build so I've got to build a new neck. On this one, I took a little bit too much off the body thickness so had to buy a new body blank (it was about 1.5mm thinner than the body I have already made but I want it to be the same). And I manage to remove a couple of mm of finger nail and a little bit of skin with a scalpel when I was cutting veneers.

Surely that's enough!!!

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Joking apart though, the great thing with making mistakes is learning. With the 5 string neck I made a hole in, I had an opportunity to try a couple of different techniques to rectify the fault which is something I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. So I learnt something useful from it. The neck might be okay with the fix but I decided to make a new one anyway. What I will probably do is make two necks (fretted and fretless) for the bass- I haven’t tried a 27” fretless so another opportunity!!
 


 

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8 hours ago, Jabba_the_gut said:

Joking apart though, the great thing with making mistakes is learning. With the 5 string neck I made a hole in, I had an opportunity to try a couple of different techniques to rectify the fault which is something I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. So I learnt something useful from it. The neck might be okay with the fix but I decided to make a new one anyway. What I will probably do is make two necks (fretted and fretless) for the bass- I haven’t tried a 27” fretless so another opportunity!!
 


 

Exactly this! :) 

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