spacecowboy

Updates! It feels like years ago since I started building the bass... yet here I am completely surprised that it's almost finished. With the last coat of oil fully cured after a 24 hour soak it was time to get detailing. This is an area I enjoy, you'll notice above in the pic I have Autosol, Maguires Ultimate Black and G3 scratch remover polish all from my car detailing kit... figured they'd help me out cleaning up the hardware which has been on and off various redwood builds while I try and work out what I'm doing... the pickup casings on the EMGs had little scratches and looked like they'd been in and out a few basses... now they look brand new. I have all these polishing head attachments for my drill so I set about giving the oil finish a quick buff before slapping on the Warwick Wax... I absolutely love this stuff, I've used it on all my Warwicks, always give's an awesome look, smell and feel to the wood. I installed the Schaller... Installed the tuners... Then buffed the frets with this little polishing rubber from Thomann works a treat with little effort. Next! Some tech genius will help me suss out my electronics and I'll get them installed, I managed to buy non adhesive copper tape so I have a roll of adhesive copper tape coming tomorrow so I can shield all my cavities. Almost done. Don't know what I'm going to do with myself...

Updates! If you're of a technical mind you can help me out massively by checking out this thread here which has questions about my electronics...

Hi guys, I'm currently making my own bass and I'm up to the electronics... I need just a little advice hopefully from some pro's who know exactly what they're looking at... First question is, my EMG Jazz Pickups are Active... but am I right in thinking that this loom here is a passive circuit? This is the stock output jack in the kit... But I want to use this Barrel jack, which I believe has Mono and Stereo wiring options... The sleeves from the solderless kit do fit on to the pins, however is this enough of a connection? The EMG instructions advise to solder these connectors to the pins on the barrel jack... now do I remove the sleeves and trim back to the wire to solder to the pins or solder the sleeves to the pins? Next query is... which wire goes where? Could someone guide me in a B to A, B to C style guide? I don't have any drawings or info for the jack, but can clearly see the pins are different. Thank you all in advance. B

Also! Mrs Cowboy wanted to contribute to the build so a coat of oil on the back of the bass was done by her... the best coat obviously ... wasn't around to "help" with the sanding though...

Updates! Really excited at this point! Got the final coat of tung oil on the bass this afternoon so got to leave this coat on for a final 24 hours before I put some wax on the bass and polish it up tomorrow. This is the 4th coat pre-excess wipeoff but it looked so tasty I had to take a photo while it was "glossy". This was after the first oil coat which I applied with 1500grit sandpaper dried so nice and matt and created a great surface to wire wool and re oil. Next! Wax and polish on the wood tomorrow and then I'll polish the frets, time depending I might get the hardware on the bass and get it strung up but might call it a day after lining the cavities with copper tape. Not going to lie, measured up some timber ready for my next build too... what have I got myself in to!

Looking really good mate! Can't wait to see that neck shaped!

Phwooooar that Wenge! Beautiful grain!

Thank you Rich. Yeah I'd prototyped a couple of wooden bridges but I never felt confident that they would be strong enough on this build. It's something I'm definitely going to come back to though on a future build! I love how they can look.

Thank you Jabba, Yeah I'm going to use the supplied active EMG VVT setup with the pickups. One addition I do want to make on this bass is to perhaps add the BTS circuit which allows individual bass and treble controls, master tone and blendable pickup volume, so I'd need to add an extra knob but that's a system I loved on my Stage II streamer bass, thinking about it again it might be the perfect time to order one... Have just seen that I can get the Bass / Treble controls on a stacked knob too... that might just seal the deal.

Thank you Andy, your help and advice so far has been great, looking forward to getting the bass to the finish line.

Thank you Haz, that's very very kind. I absolutely love the Schaller bridges, I had one on an old Streamer bass and it was my favourite bridge to adjust, I've coupled that bridge with a Warwick Jan 3 too so adjustments are lightning quick on this bass. Well... for my day job I'm an industrial designer, I design mass manufactured consumer goods, at uni my degree was in furniture design and I worked as a furniture designer for 5 years before switching out to industrial design which I've done for 10 or so years. An instrument is easily the hardest thing I've ever designed and made, hands down, there are so many details and skills required at every stage, you've got to learn on the job as you go and the job lists never end!

Updates! Slow progress but progress no less! Firstly I've got the frets installed, this was a steep learning curve, I actually uninstalled the first set of frets I installed and reinstalled a second set as I wasn't happy with the end product, the second set however I'm happy with. I've levelled them and filed them flush to the fingerboard, now I just need to crown them and take all the sharps off. I got the pickup cavity routes done, and thankfully the pickups fit lovely. I also had the awful job of drilling from the control cavity in to the pickup cavity, luckily nothing went wrong. The bridge position was also triple measured and drill holes complete. Got the tuners installed, I wanted to string the bass to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes and again thankfully everything was ok there too. I quickly half screwed the bridge in place and strung the E and D strings on to the bass, everything seemed great, not going to lie had a little 15 minute play with the strings on, and the neck feels really nice. Next! Loads and loads and loads of final sanding, frets need dressing and prepared for final polish which will be done after the oiling of the timber. I think I'm on the final stretch of the build and can focus on the finish knowing there's no more machining to do! Just got to be patient and enjoy the sanding process.

Absolutely wonderful mate, looks so good in those photos!

So with that said... my favourite basses I've owned where my '88 Stage II and my number 126 early Streamer, I loved their finishes... am I wasting my time putting a tung oil finish on my recent bass build and should I try this melted wax malarky?

Absolutely brilliant Andy. Stunning build.

Thank you Haz, definitely agree with that, what I'm finding is that half my mind is already on the next one...

Updates! The long sanding journey begins, I got my basic shape with my shinto and then cleaned the surfaces up with the orbital sander and worked around the edges of the front and back of the bass. Once the 60 / 80 grit rough sanding was done I went around the bass to smooth some areas out ready for hand sanding. I cleaned the dust off the bass with some white spirit and took the opportunity to take some photos while the white spirit was still wet. Lot's of hand sanding to follow and I'll tackle that during my evenings this week but I'm very very happy with how this is turning out. B

Honestly... I have no idea, I'll use the generic "stability" answer :). With a seven laminate neck of Wenge and Ovangkol, truss rod and 2 carbon fibre rods and a Wenge fingerboard it is definitely overkill, but the neck and board have been as straight as an arrow throughout the build so if they're doing anything they're helping with that.

Updates! I think ...finally... I've done all my gluing and sawing. Now hopefully it's the detail work, nights and nights of sanding loom. I got the lower body wing glued to the neck, I cut the neck end and blended the body shapes and neck together. I did some light sanding around all the edges just to knock the sharps off, I don't know how curvy I'll go on the body but I'll do it with my orbital sander and feel it as I go. I cut out my cavity cover from Ash, this will be held in with magnets so I can snap it in place and pop it off easily. To help get it on and off I've carved in this little finger groove. After a quick brush down I was able to get the basses first on the sofa shot... it's turning out really nicely. Next! Lots and lots and lots of sanding, I've got a boat load of paper from 60 up to 3000 so... let's work through the grades! Then frets... and then the dreaded pickup route... two jobs i'm definitely putting off!!

Updates! It's starting to look like a bass!! I've got the top body wing glued on and I've started giving the edge some shaping to soften it off, I love the wenge in the middle and I want that to be seen from the front on the curve. I cut the slots for the frets, that was an awfully stressful experience, I really didn't want to mess that up. Got the side fretboard inlays in place. I've got the lower body section cut and ready to sand and shape before gluing to the body. Got the blend between the neck and the upper body wing sorted, very happy with that. Still loads to do... but I'm really buzzing about the build, it's looking like a bass finally! Next! I need to work on the control cavity and get the cut out neater, I have my EMG circuit and pickups ready to be installed and I've tested the electronics in the space and there's plenty of room to move, I've drilled the barrel jack hole and the pickup cable holes in the lower body section prior to gluing, so, just need to neaten up the lower body wing and then glue it to the rest of the bass. I need to do the fretwork on the bass... another I don't want to mess that up job, and then there is a tonne of sanding to do! Really enjoying the build to date, thanks again for everyone giving this a read. B

Clever! I really like that!

Lovely lovely Wenge!

Been browsing top woods for quite a while and decided to do some photoshops to see what would work. For this bass I have chosen a piece of Spalted Sycamore Maple for my top. The photoshop below shows what it will look like on the bass. Look's like a bargain for £40! Thanks!

Updates! Slow week, been so busy with work, but have found time to start the neck carving and adding of the volute! Didn't expose the truss rod or eat up the fingerboard edge so success! I will have to do more work on shaping the neck once I'm sure about how the body wings blend in to the bass. The upper horn travels up to the 12th fret meaning I have to leave that area flat for the join, the lower wing starts at the end of the fingerboard approx. 10mm after the 24th fret meaning I could round the lower section of the neck all the way down, means the neck is slightly asymmetrical after the 7th fret, feels very comfortable though. The headstock veneer has been glued in place and the headstock cut to shape. I drilled out the tuning peg holes and sanded the shape to my design. So far the woods look brilliant. I spent a couple of nights designing a new bridge and tested it out on the bass, however I didn't want to commit and in the end I've order a Schaller bridge from Thomann so all I need to do now is wait for that before I can do some fine tuning to the nut and bridge heights and make the cuts to accommodate those. Next! I should have all the hardware for the bass once my Thomann order arrives so I'll take some snaps of all of that to show you what's going on and in the bass. I need to give this whole neck and headstock a lot of sanding with my orbital sander probably go in with a relatively high grit so I don't remove too much material or lose my shape, I used a cabinet scraper to get my final profiles so that's removed alot of the marks already. I need to start thinking about my final body wing laminates, I don't want the swamp ash at the front of the bass as the contrast is too much so I need a top wood ordering, at the moment my heel thickness is at 35mm, so I'm thinking of a sandwich of 20mm Swamp Ash, 10mm of Wenge core, 5mm top wood. Then the slightly hard bit of preparing the sweeping blends on the back of the bass joining up the upper and lower wings through the neck heel. Thanks!

Hope he get's plenty of years out of the bass mate! Looking great!