Andyjr1515

I think what impressed me when I finished the build off for @eude - it being the first 6 string bass I'd ever actually held in my hands in real life - was just how natural it felt and easy it was to play. I was genuinely surprised.

I know this is an old thread, but I did promise to post the link when Matt finally got round to doing a proper video playing his dreadnought. And here it is. As always with these things, best through headphones Assuming you do like it, remember to 'Like' it - pro & semi-pro musicians need all the help we can give them in these unusual times Thanks for looking

I think today is my last one on Tom's African bass until I get the hardware that he has ordered from the US (and which, I suspect, may be some time coming) so tomorrow I will be gathering together the timbers. The plan is to maximise the number of pieces of timber I already have lying around and other stuff I already have at hand. The guitar will be a through neck with the same basic construction as Pete's red one: I'll make it thinner than Pete's which will make the neck heel even more unobtrusive than this one. The control chamber cover will be matching Sapele in a recess for flush fitting with magnets. Matt will be making his own humbuckers for it and I'll be using as much hardware out of my 'bits box' as I can.

How's the Rascal Mk II doing? Hopefully you're getting plenty of practice in with the lockdown

The spec @eude gave me for his 6 string bass save was, IIRC, flat. Any input, @eude ?

Well, for a mere king's ransom, Mike...

With Tom's African Bass Mk2 getting pretty close, it's time to start thinking about the next full build. And I'm a bit excited about this one. But first, the sack-cloth and ashes stuff. "I solemnly swear that I will try to concentrate on the true and original instrument, that is called Bass (hallowed be its name), and I confess that I am a weak and miserable sinner to even contemplate drifting to the dark side but... "...but, heck! This is going to be FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!" Does anyone remember this SG-influenced neck-through build I did a few years back for one of our band members, Pete? : And those with REALLY long memories, anyone remember this own-design I built for myself in Yew? Well, both guitars are still in use. Pete & I are still playing (or were until the recent lockdown!) - him lead and me vocals & sax. And at one of the places we regularly play, another player - Matt - has started making pickups. And for his first attempt at humbuckers I offered the Yew guitar above as the test bed. So Matt has been playing it for the past few weeks. Matt has drooled over Pete's SG for some time. But he was also a bit bowled over by how good Yew can look once it's been carved and varnished. So the new project is an SG-style guitar made for Matt....made with a Yew top. And I just happen to have a book-matched set that has been languishing in my shed for years : And I'm excited because - although you have to be very careful routing and sanding Yew because it is pretty poisonous - I found it a nice wood to work with...and this is going to look FABULOUS And, let's face it, it's not like I'm going anywhere else over the next few weeks...

My normal warning - I will always describe what I do but for you never to assume this is how it's supposed to be done The refinishing of the body has started. I will be doing a variation of the Tru-oil slurry and buff, but using the thinner version of the Osmo ranges, their 1101. Other than the full gloss - which personally I don't like - many of the Osmo products are a guitar/bass builder's godsend. Low odour, wipeable, great finish. There are apparently some issues with thicker coats (it's a hardwax so can sometimes remain dintable with your thumbnail) but applied thinly, I personally find it an excellent finish. So, other than some kitchen roll to wipe-down, this is my finishing kit: For the initial coats, I put a generous amount of the Osmo on with a brush and use (proper woodworkers cover your eyes), yes, 120 grit as the wet in a wet 'n dry sanding approach. For a softer wood I would probably use 240 grit, but this particular wood is very hard. The slurry of finish mixed with wood dust effectively fills any pores and small voids (but remember that I am not trying here to end up with a fully sealed, flat, flawless finish). I finish by sanding the slurry along the grain to remove any swirl marks. And then I wipe it all off, again (in this case) wiping along the grain. If I was looking for a smoother finish, I would wipe off across the grain to leave the maximum amount of slurry filling the grain lines. After the first coat, it looks like this: I will leave this a full day before the second coat. This first one will have soaked into the surface and pores of the wood and I want it to have chance to fully dry before I add another coat. Tomorrow, I will repeat the process, but slurrying with a finer grade (probably around 240 but maybe as far as 400 - I'll see how the wood responds) and again wiping off the excess but leaving it to soak in. Friday, I will decide whether to slurry and buff, or just apply a couple of very thin coats with the fan-brush. And for the enquiring minds amongst you, why is handle of the fan brush (Hobby Craft Artists section) cut short? Because I've decanted a cm or so of Osmo into a jam jar to use and can pop the brush in there after each coat and close the lid so it doesn't need to be cleaned or dried before its next use (because trust me, that's where many of the dust buggies come from). While this is drying, it seems to be an ideal time to do the final sanding of the neck!

Continues to be a crackingly good build!

I've spent quite a bit of time getting the neck pocket right. Quite tricky as the wood is of uneven thickness either side of the pocket and is wavy! As such, getting a router to produce a nice flat surface at the right angle was a bit of a challenge! In the end, I finished it all off by the time honoured method of using school chalk to identify the high spots as mechanics do on metal joints with Engineers Blue. The added challenge is the brittleness of the wood - if the chisels aren't razor sharp, any cut will ding off a chip, particularly on the edges. The result of this was a couple of chips at the edges of the fretboard end where it partially sinks into the top. With things like this, it is a case of either hide it or flaunt it! So I opted to flaunt it. I tried a number of options with some black grained veneer cut out with scissors from straight infill: To an angled infill, with the grain matching that of the headstock (it will be wenge and so will match both the headstock and the pickup rings). To an angled infill, with the grain direction matching the pickup rings: Difficult to see on these shots, but in real life this last one looked the best. So sharpened the chisels again, honed them, tested them with the 'remove the hair off the back of your arm' test and cut the shallow chamber for the 2mm wenge to fit into. Cut some matching wenge and glued it in: So the body is now ready to start finishing. And while I'm doing that, I'll do the final tweaks on the neck profile and sort the trussrod cover (a smallish one in matching wenge) and then it's just a case of waiting for the hardware from Tom's supplier

I use a rectangular cabinet scraper, @Pea Turgh. I'm sure there are better ways, but at least it helps maintain the sharp edges...

What I like about these kind of projects is that there is a 'how to best do this' moment around every corner. I'm now onto tidying up the small reshape around the end of the neck pocket and taking off the original finish ready to refinish after I've done the various plug fills, etc. And here's the thing. One of the absolute charms of the body is that it is NOT even. So, interestingly, the approach has to be "DON'T use a sanding block" So yes - any transit scratches or maker errors (that they themselves, if they had spotted them, would have sorted) can come off, but anything that is a result of the carving method itself should ideally be left in place You can see an example here on the top horn: Those dints - which normally would be sanded smooth - should ideally be left there. So I will sand the old varnish away in the dips with fine sandpaper over my finger, but not use a block which would flatten the dips. The two exceptions are the area where the bridge elements will be going and the bottom of the neck pocket at the back... ...which needs to be flat for a full seating of the neck plate. But those dips and digs you can see towards the tailstock, will be cleaned up but left as dips and digs. This afternoon, I will cut a plug to close the hole drilled to get the cable runs sorted. Originally, I was going to use a fretboard dot, but I had to widen the hole a touch to allow the two 4-core pickup cables to run through from the rear pickup chamber to the jack chamber. Besides, I think a colour-compatible wood plug would look better

But before we do. MrsAndyjr1515 sitting bolt upright in bed at 1.30am one quiet, winters night, "What was that noise??" Me the following day. "I'd better go and fix that shelf" MrsAndyjr1515. "Please don't."

Trust me, you really, really don't want to see any shelves or cupboards I've tried to make...trapezoid would be a decent description. Nowadays, when I say helpfully to MrsAndyjr1515 that I could put up the shelf she needs, she replies, "Please don't."

Yes, agreed. The bigger sin, of course, is using metal inserts in wood. It's actually a very hard wood and has cut a defined thread but it's why I will be giving it a proper 'stress test'. If it fails that, I can move up to a size where they make threaded wood inserts. The wood inserts I use have allen key sockets to use to fit them, although the bar and nuts approach is still sometimes a decent alternative way of inserting as it is a lot easier to keep them completely square using that method.

Yes - I have some for a larger size screw but not for these diddlies.

One of the smaller jobs is to secure the jack housing. I'm using these teeny 2.5mm inserts and machine screws. The inserts are fine threaded but the recess should be taking the bulk of the strain. If there is any issue when I try it out with a jack it is no problem to fit larger screws and wider-threaded inserts. For added security, they are screwed into a cyano-gelled hole: And fitted:

Fascinating video @itu Still beats me how they do that at 0.4mm thick! Based on how quickly my 2" handplane blades go blunt...

Just 3. I think that makes them 0.4mm each which, I suppose, is not so different to standard veneer at 0.6mm. But it beats me how they slice those too! Especially the figured ones.

And cleaned up, here's how it's looking. Really starting to look like a bass: The pickup rings will end up the same shade as the headstock. I might use the magical Osmo Polyx Raw so that they both stay the shade the unfinished rings look above rather than the darker effect that a standard finish gives on the headstock. Both should then retain that slight reddish tinge of the fretboard rather than the slightly blacker look of standard finished wenge. So next jobs are going to be sanding and finishing. I can also do the fretwork, fit the Dunlop inset straplock fittings and other similar small jobs but then it's a bit of a waiting game until Tom's US order from Hipshot comes through for the bridge blocks and the tuners.

In the diary

A quintet of swifts cut out of my last bit of MoP… Two for the 12th fret: Glued in with epoxy mixed with fretboard sanding dust: And three for the headstock:

1/64" plywood - one of the marvels of the 20th/21st century world. I have no idea how they make it and when it was first developed (I suspect a long, long time ago - early 20th century?) but I've used this for decades. And now it finds good use in guitar and bass building: Ideal to provide stability to my brittle wenge: The headstock board is also cut ready to glue to the headstock, although I might add a couple of swifts before I prepare the headstock and glue it. Tom's special cutout will be filed once it's glued and once I have hold of the tuners he's ordered to position them properly. Once done, it should look pretty similar to the Mk 1 version below:

Beautiful stuff.

scrumpymike has just done the same for the SW Bash, @jebroad The way it's all going, I think there's an inevitability TBH. Have you outlaid any cash yet you wouldn't be able to recoup? If so, I and I'm sure others would be happy to chip in.