So now Happy Jack has a Mike Lull 5-string neck...

[SpondonBassed]

Watch out for the fumes.

[Andyjr1515]

7 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

Watch out for the fumes.

Yes indeed.  Full double cannister respirator jobee. 

[Random Guitarist]

I'll be very interested to see how you apply the finish, the one time I tried doing something with a lot of superglue the brush I used went solid very quickly. I made up a spreading pad with cloth, but that didn't work terribly well either. (I did mmy application outdoors with a respirator)

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

7 hours ago, Random Guitarist said:

I'll be very interested to see how you apply the finish, the one time I tried doing something with a lot of superglue the brush I used went solid very quickly. I made up a spreading pad with cloth, but that didn't work terribly well either. (I did mmy application outdoors with a respirator)

 

 

Over the weekend I'm going to do some experimenting, starting with a bunch of cloth squares.  First trial will be, though, which gloves are best to use.  Last time I tried to be creative with CA I had to cut the fused gloves off my fingers! 

[Random Guitarist]

23 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Over the weekend I'm going to do some experimenting, starting with a bunch of cloth squares.  First trial will be, though, which gloves are best to use.  Last time I tried to be creative with CA I had to cut the fused gloves off my fingers! 

I used proper washing up gloves, and accepted that one set of fingers would end up fused together with brushes and cloths. With the marigolds I was confident the glue would stay on the outside of the glove.

[Si600]

Are you whizzing your boobs off on CA fumes yet @Andyjr1515?

[Andyjr1515]

On 19/08/2022 at 08:42, Si600 said:

Are you whizzing your boobs off on CA fumes yet @Andyjr1515?

Indeed I am!

 

Here was my kit for the trial - a gasses/vapours repirator, heavy duty marigolds and safety over-glasses.  To apply the two coats, I used small squares of cloth cut from an old T-shirt. 

 

 

For the trial wood, I used some paulownia offcut that I planed and sanded on both sides so that I could do a comparison of 'with and without' with the same abuse metered on the surfaces.

 

This was a couple of thumbnail crosses pressed hard into the untreated side:

 

And then turned over and the same treatment on the side that had two thin coats of CA glue applied (around 30 minutes between each coat with no accelerator on this particular trial):

 

Good result!

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

For the hatch, I have the shape of the body recess but not yet the finished depth...but there are a few things that need doing first: 

 

- The hatch will start off quite thick - it will be eventually carved to the same shape as the back.

- But the recess will also be deepened so that the bottom of the hatch just clears the pots and EQ

 

And I find it a lot easier just to make the hatch first and do it by actual measurement than calculate it off measurements and hope for the best!  Well, that's my excuse, anyway.   

 

There is a very helpful piece of offcut that is just the right size that will be used.  I cut that to around 7mm as the initial thickness.

 

First is to make a paper template of the outside edge using the highly sophisticated 'paper and fingernail' technique:

 

Using the cut out template, I cut the blank a mm or so oversize and then work my way round, gently sanding the excess away in a long series of try, mark, sand, re-try, repeat, repeat, repeat.  I usually do this with a sanding block as it is less prone to overdoing it and ending up with a gap, but for this I need square sides and so am using my little disk sander on 'dead slow':

 

After half an hour or so, I have a hatch that is square-sided and close fitting to the shallow recess:

 

What I will do now is, using a measuring rod through the EQ pot drill hole (the EQ pot is the deepest component), chisel the body recess deeper until the hatch has around a 2mm clearance from where the EQ circuit board end will be, once fitted.

 

After that, with the whole hatch then sitting deeper than present... :

 

...I will plane and sand the hatch flush, with the curve matching the back profile.

 

Weight sitting at 2lbs 6 1/8oz inclusive of oversize hatch

 

Once that is done, I will shorten and shape the neck pocket and make a start on the final slimming / shaping.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Andyjr1515

[Happy Jack]

Absolutely gob-smacked by this craftsmanship, Andy.

 

[Andyjr1515]

This small hand router isn't used that often, but when it is it's a godsend.  Perfect for this job!

 

 

So this is decently thick to resist warping that you sometimes get with thin covers, especially when the finish is applied:

 

 

But it's nicely curved and flush 

 

Next job is the neck pocket.

 

Oh - and a helpful 1/8oz sanded away...2lbs 6oz with hatch  

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Just a few more things to check and do, and then I'm probably ready to do the final carve over the next few days.  The mockup probably doesn't look much different to last time, except this time the neck is actually fixed using 4mm S/steel machine-screws:

 

With a neck temporarily fixed in place, I could balance the bass, with all the components excepting only the strings, on the scales:

 

 

6lbs 7 1/4ozs - with the weight of the strings and finish to add, but the extra carve wood removal to come off.  So sub-7lbs is an almost certainty, and we may even get to the original target of 6.5lbs (6lbs 8ozs to you modern metric folk  ).

 

The Centre of Gravity with everything broadly balanced in the right places is just forward of the 17th fret.  I get back my own basses from Matt Marriott on Thursday, so I can check how that compares then, but a bass I have in the cupboard waiting attention has the CofG at just behind the 17th, so fingers crossed!

 

[Happy Jack]

6lbs 7ozs? Absolutely outrageous! 😂😎

[JPJ]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

6lbs 7ozs? Absolutely outrageous! 😂😎

Just wait until Andyjr1515 fills the control cavity with helium, this thing will positively float in thin air!

[Andyjr1515]

And so we're onto the final carve.

 

The paulownia is very interesting wood - some of it is very soft...and some of it is VERY hard.  So the challenge, especially because everything is curved, is not for it to end up as a classroom demonstration of "how erosion created the Grand Canyon".

 

And at this stage, much of it is by feel. It is almost impossible, in the sanded state, to visually see the lumps and bumps...but you can feel them.  So my first step is very focussed scraping with, sometimes, the gooseneck card scraper:

 

...sometimes with a single-edged razor blade:

 

...and a variety of home-made sanding blocks.  The variable curve one is useful as I can sand across the grain and the emery rides on, and sands off, the hard lumps of the peaks rather than digging into the softer troughs that a conventional sanding block, sanded with the grain, will tend to do:

 

 

It will take a while until I can't feel any lumps or bumps any more...but I know, that some will still be there.  What I will probably do - before I give it the CA treatment - is then give it a light gloss colour coat to highlight the remaining hills and hollows, then sand that all off, CA treat it and then, hopefully, move onto the final finishing.

 

[JPJ]

This is the part that most self-builders and kit builders miss and then wonder why the finish isn’t as good as they expected. You can’t rectify hills and hollows in the finish (believe me, I’ve tried) and the only way is to get the wood right first. This takes hours and lots of patience and is probably the most time consuming part of any build. Ever wondered why custom basses cost as much - here’s your answer 😎

[TheGreek]

He's right you know..the finish is in the preparation. 

[Andyjr1515]

3 hours ago, JPJ said:

This is the part that most self-builders and kit builders Andyjr1515 doesn't miss and then but often still wonders why the finish isn’t as good as they  he expected

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Andyjr1515

[Andyjr1515]

Loads more sanding today - and because the weather was OK, was able to do some of it outside which gave me much better light to look for aberrations in the surfaces.  This seemed to be getting there:

 

 

 

With a bit more room to focus the camera, it was also easier to get a proper view of the cross-section shape:

 

Even with oblique light, I got to the stage of not being able to see any lumps and so, what the heck, let's have a drop of CA glue on it  :

 

I'm really liking this method...this is after just two very thin coats:

 

 

Just a couple of small scratches I've missed, so tomorrow I will sand those and also do a general light sand all over and give it another coat and see if it's ready for a primer coat of nitro...

 

 

[3below]

On 25/08/2022 at 12:32, JPJ said:

This is the part that most self-builders and kit builders miss and then wonder why the finish isn’t as good as they expected. You can’t rectify hills and hollows in the finish (believe me, I’ve tried) and the only way is to get the wood right first. This takes hours and lots of patience and is probably the most time consuming part of any build. Ever wondered why custom basses cost as much - here’s your answer 😎

Even when I take time, considerable care and effort then look, feel and think I have 'perfection', the gremlins intervene and create some new defects that require more work.  I admire and envy those who have the skill and determination to get super high quality finishes.  You know who you are

[JPJ]

In my day job, paint perfection is mandatory. This is why we inspect the hell out of each stage (primer, filler, high build epoxy, colour coat, clear coat, clear coat) and believe me, when the thing being painted is >100 metres long, even the smallest defects show up. I’ve just the same techniques painting guitar and bass bodies and still run into difficulties 😂

[Owen]

42 minutes ago, JPJ said:

In my day job, paint perfection is mandatory. This is why we inspect the hell out of each stage (primer, filler, high build epoxy, colour coat, clear coat, clear coat) and believe me, when the thing being painted is >100 metres long, even the smallest defects show up. I’ve just the same techniques painting guitar and bass bodies and still run into difficulties 😂

I give up. What is your day job?

[Happy Jack]

He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.

 

[3below]

55 minutes ago, JPJ said:

In my day job, paint perfection is mandatory. This is why we inspect the hell out of each stage (primer, filler, high build epoxy, colour coat, clear coat, clear coat) and believe me, when the thing being painted is >100 metres long, even the smallest defects show up. I’ve just the same techniques painting guitar and bass bodies and still run into difficulties 😂

 

12 minutes ago, Owen said:

I give up. What is your day job?

 

7 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.

 

I think we should be told, unless it is a matter of national security . Apols on thread derailment, however if I ever build a super extra long plus scale bass, the large body upper horn will show every finishing defect, so we need to know

Edited August 26, 2022 by 3below

[Daz39]

28 minutes ago, 3below said:

 

 

I think we should be told, unless it is a matter of national security . Apols on thread derailment, however if I ever build a super extra long plus scale bass, the large body upper horn will show every finishing defect, so we need to know

I think he paints planes, or ships. 
or submarines, which he gets a bonus for if they paint them while they’re still underwater!

[JPJ]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you.

 

Yup, but what I can say without revealing any names or numbers is that I project manage the build and refit of Superyachts for the slightly rich and not so famous