spacecowboy

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!

I'd know 😉

Awesome! Will be watching with great interest! I'm also using EMGs on my build, active J pu's with VVT! Good luck!

My vote is for no plate... Or a plexi plate so the grain is still visible?

Updates! So In my sheer joy to finish work and start on the build I completely forgot to take photos of the neck routing, I was obviously too concerned with not completely ballsing it up that taking photos wasn't on my mind! I got the truss rod slot routed and got the carbon rods slotted in nicely. No photo's however please believe me it's true! Once the neck was routed I cut the neck angles down to rough size and glued the fingerboard in place. I then took a plane to the sides of the fingerboard to level it up to the neck and planed everything flat to the desired angle. The woods look great together in my opinion, the scarf joint and fingerboard blend nicely and the wenge looks so so nice. I had an idea while planing the fingerboard down that it would be nice to cover the truss rod access with an extension of the fingerboard. Now one thing I have to think about here is I want to use magnets to hold the block in place but I'm not sure how the magnets will effect the strings... I installed two magnets in to the neck and two in to the underside of the cover... I I planed the edges down to match the fingerboard and matched the radius with my router jig and sanded flush... Once the finishes are all matched I think it'll look just how I'd hoped... The magnetic pull through the wenge is very minimal, it can't hold a 6 inch steel rule so I'm wondering now will these effect the strings or will it be ok... If the magnets are going to ruin the strings / intonation and tuning then I can easily replace with screws... but visually it wont be what I want. From a usability point of view I'm worried that if a user was slapping they might accidentally popping the cover off! I cut as much of the neck thickness down as I could leaving the body blends and volute areas alone so I can shape later on, The fingerboard is 6.5mm so 20mm of neck wood, feels nice in my hands before shaping not too chunky at all. Then the headstock wings are glued in place... Next: I've got to glue the wenge headstock cap on and then cut the headstock shape out and drill the tuner holes. I've got to start shaping the neck and start cutting the volute, I'm also thinking about routing the back of the neck flat so I can plan the curve properly, In the prototypes sometimes I blended the curve around too much and I like to have a flat on my necks, they just feel more comfortable in my hands. Thanks!

Yes much quicker than a radius block, don't want to use one of those to shape the fingerboard again! It might be easier to take photos but I'll try in words first, to stop it rolling too far, the base that the router sits on makes contact with the flat sections of the sled first, with a 10mm cutter this contact happens once the router piece has cleared the timber but before it hits the MDF the router can't go too far this way. I didn't do increments or stops as it's easy enough to see where you haven't been and quick to just go back to area's locally if need be. It's worked really well so far... it's not going to do a 7 string however...

Updates! So after some thinking and umming and ahing I decided to start the neck again! I know... I know... I worked on the neck more and started profiling the radius and I just didn't like the way it looked, no wenge at the first 5 frets looked really bad in my eyes so I stopped took stock and started the process again. Ta Da! This is the new neck, with smaller laminations and a much cleaner look, just Ovankol and Wenge this time around and no Zebrano bling. At this stage I've cut the stock to size, planed and thicknessed the timber, glued the laminations and then planed it all down to a roughly correct final size. Lubbly Jubbly! I prepared the scarf joint in the same way as the previous build, bandsawed the angle, and then got it on my router jig and cleaned up the faces. (Image is pre routering FYI ;)) The scarf joint is again glued up and the laminations lined up so they are consistent through the joint. Lovely join between the two pieces so I'm happy with that, with the jigs I've made the scarf joint can be completed in under an hour. I also began to shape the fingerboard and built this 20 degree radius router jig after experiencing nothing but hell with a sanding block. It worked really well and so much quicker... ...The block has now been relegated for final sand and removing the router marks. I have also redesigned the lower horn and worked up a new design for the double cut variant of this bass which I will hopefully make after I have completed this one. Next! I get to make up for my mistakes on the previous truss rod slot I did, and fit the carbon rods, so more router fun there. With the fingerboard radius done I can look to cut the neck angles down and glue the fingerboard on! Progress is still slow as I'm still only able to get on to this after work! Booo! I should have saved some holidays. Thanks again!

That red stain looks brilliant! Are you using a fast drying Tung Oil? Can I ask which brand you're using?

Updates! Back from holiday and back in the garage! The Truss rod and carbon rods arrived so it was time to let loose with the router. I Want to have my truss rod access on the body so routed out this space first, it finishes outside the fret board angle profile marked in white pencil. Maybe the first mistake in the build, the truss rod fits really snuggly in the main channel, but I should have perhaps continued the channel with a 10mm bit so the truss rod end was also supported and not sitting free within the rounded access section, it's easy to locate the hole with the hex key but next time i'll do it differently. After the truss rod I installed the carbon rods. Snug! Scariest bit done. On to the bandsaw to cut the neck to size... which revealed mistake number 2... ...The outer wenge laminates are cut through when the neck is profiled, now this is either going to look really cool or terrible. Next time I'll double check the laminate thicknesses in relation to the neck profiles. Alot of this material is removed in the neck shaping profile so you might not see any of this but for right now... it's a bit of a disappointment. Had time to thin down and drill the bridge. I have ferrules coming for the string holes but can't install them until the bridge is mounted to the bass body. I'll only be able to slot the tree once the bass is being setup so that'll be cut much later on. In my opinion looks really nice on the bass, glad I decided to give it a go. Works well with the body ash too. Finally got the headstock wings glued up to the neck, two nice chunks of wenge to match the body at the bridge end. Next! I need to think about doing the fret board so that'll need cutting to size and then thinning down. Then there will be some CAD modelling to do, once I have the fretboard profiled I need to work out how high my bridge should be and how much of the body I need to cut away, it's currenty 42mm and this will be taken down to accommodate the bridge and the saddles so the action can be set nice and low, but this will all be modeled first before I go cutting. Before that the fretboard will need to be glued to the neck so lots of fun to be had. The neck laminate has bummed me out a little bit... but it could go either way it might finish really nicely.

There is a really interesting section of the Wyn Basses documentary where Mr Wyn drops various block of wood on to the floor of his workshop for you to hear the differences in sound... While interesting, it's severely flawed as an example of identifying unique wood tones, the inconsistency in block thickness and overall size renders the argument in my eyes (ears) invalid as it's not universally like for like, shock horror that the massive block of ebony sounded different to the splinter of bubinga... Regardless, I do believe that denser timbers have unique vibration characteristics and it's this factor that results in a different tone, maple while incredibly hard has a closed grain allowing a smooth and solid surface, Wenge is also very hard but very brittle and prone to splintering, it will never be a solid smooth surface like maple and while yes you can get a smoothish finish with Wenge the grain is still relatively open, undulating and porous and completely different to Maple not just texturally / structurally but audibly. I guess a visual example would be where maple is a pane of glass, Wenge is sandpaper. This again in my opinion must affect the sound heard, but the argument around tone is a multi faceted one, after you've debated the pros and cons of the neck timber you can move on to the neck laminates, body woods, scale length, hardware, strings, pickups and electronics they all add and take away sonic characteristics from each other. As many others have said when you put the bass in to an audio mix the sound of the instrument changes, once you've tweaked your amp and basses eq and the engineer has tweeked your channel on the mixing desk I wonder how much your maple fretboard is influencing what is heard... Perhaps not alot, but definitely a little. I'm also several whisky's down so don't listen to me.

Updates! So while it seems like my new truss rod is being sent by carrier pigeon, I've left the neck for now and moved on to the bridge. For now I have no idea how well this will work, but If i'm designing and making my own bass I'm going to try and make my own bridge. I routed out the saddle shoulders and a slot for the string block? Is that what it's called? I've been referring to it as a choke. Decided against timber saddles so will use these 3D adjustable saddles I have. Think brass / gold would look better... Rounded the sharp edges and cut the string block / choke / tree / thing... out of Ovangkol, spent about an hour sanding it to fit and glued it in place. Aesthetically I love it, so hopefully it works well. Next! Well I'm heading off on holiday today... so I'm going to have a relax! but when I get back hopefully the pigeons have made it here and left me a truss rod and I can finish the neck routing. The bridge needs slimming down the block is currently 30mm thick and will be taken down to 20mm and then drilled, the bridge will be set for string through stringing and I need 5 mounting screws under the bridge saddles to mount this on the bass. Really don't think I'll glue the bridge to the bass in case I need to repair or replace in the future. Thanks again guys!

Exactly that. I'll be putting a 20 degree radius on the fretboard and the Ovangkol will be part of that, then the neck shaping will continue from the back around up to the edge of the fingerboard and I'll knock the edge off with a small fillet 0.5 to 1mm. In CAD it takes about 5 seconds... let's see how long it takes with tools

Updates! Glue up of the scarf joint was all ok so I planed up the top face and checked everything for square. I've marked out a centre line for the truss and then popped some tape on to make sure I can easily locate it when routing. I've ordered a new longer truss rod for this build, the 600mm one I had was a bit too short so I'm swapping that out for a 630mm so that'll be arriving in a couple of days. I cut the Wenge fingerboard timber down to thickness ready for slotting the frets, I had some left over Ovangkol from the neck so my plan here is to prep the finger board and then whittle off 5mm either side and then bind the two edges with the Ovangkol to hide the edges of the frets. Think it will look lovely when it's all cut to size... does make me think I might have to make the nut from Ovangkol too though... we'll see. The block from the end of the fingerboard will be used in some way to make the bridge, I'm going to be designing that in CAD at somepoint today while the missus is getting her hair cut.I want to use the end of the fingerboard block so the grain is consistent from the end of the neck to the start of the bridge. I have this piece to maybe fashion some saddles, No idea if these will work, I do have some adjustable saddles from a 3D bridge to use if this idea fails and I'll just sit those saddles in to the wenge. Next: Fingerboard prepping, fret slots need cutting, board needs cutting to size, binding glued, and then design the bridge... Enjoy your Sunday!

I bought the Zebrano on a whim with some other timbers as I could include it in the postage for free shipping, turns out to be one of the nicest parts of the bass so far! 😂

Those are very kind words from someone who's builds I really admire, your work is consistently fantastic. I've never attempted an instrument before, there's so much to consider and think about all the time the brain is always working, I've definitely got a few questions to throw your way when I get stuck if that's ok? When I come to make the bridge which I'll be making in Wenge too (spot the trend on this bass... it's probably going to end up weighing 10 kilos!) I'd love some feedback, I'm also going to attempt making a Warwick Jan3 style nut from timber too... Thank you.

Thank you very much for the kind words! 🙏

Thank you 💪

Updates! Took the clamps off the neck, planed a reference face and then thicknessed the neck flat. Then it was the first squeeky bum time moment... cutting the scarf joint. I have chosen to do a scarf joint on this bass primarily for joint strength and getting a good grain direction within the headstock area, also means my timber stock is half the size. I made a couple of prototypes with the angle cut from a single block... the short grain edge looked awful and the waste was criminal. To make this task easier and more accurate I've made a simple 13 degree jig that runs up against my fence I can clamp the board square to the jigs face and table and slowly guide the neck through... So far so good... To clean up the joint faces I've made this 13 degree router jig, the timber rather than the router sits on a 13 degree angle plane as I found this easier to work, once I have the timber lined up I can clamp it in place and whittle the cut face down with a palm router. The routing leaves a nice level surface ready for sanding. Cleaned up a treat. Repeat the process for the other side and then check the fit, This surfaces closes up nicely under hand pressure so on to the gluing! It's in there somewhere... The biggest worry with the neck was making sure that once I'd flipped the board over for the scarf joint that the timbers still ran parallel to each other, If i'd have made one side of a laminate thicker than the other side then the mirrored pieces wouldn't line up... apart from the Zebra wood grain on the bottom laminate not running through the rest actually look really good. Joint closed up really nicely with no gaps... phew. Next: I've got another squeeky bum day... routing the cavities for the truss rod and carbon rods (probably not needed but hey ho) truss rod access will be on the body end and not the headstock (I don't like truss rod covers). If time allows I'll mark up the neck's tapering angles and prepare it for cutting... luckily it'll be nice and easy to see the cutting line with the white pencil on the Wenge... Thanks for everyone having a read or peak at the pics.

Yeah I find it's really comfortable in a sat playing position, for me anyway.

I have been through quite a few lower horn designs and when this current design has been rounded off and all blended in it looks nicer than the static CAD drawing, between that and the headstock I think I have about a hundred designs! It might grow on you? I also love the phrase "Angle of Dangle"