Andyjr1515

Great combination...

Wow - those are in great condition.

The area for the neck heel base has now been cut out of the purpleheart so that the neck can seat - in a sort of normal way - to the Sapele back: Once the front edge has been carved to mirror the neck carve, the neck should drop down into the pocket and seat properly: It's probably going to be easier to do this before I glue the purpleheart to the back. Then the walnut will be a similar process. Dunno...but there's half a chance this might work! Can you see, by the way, how the purpleheart is already darkening - and this is just with air exposure (it's been in the cellar so there's been no light) It will end up a completely uniform colour.

The purpleheart laths are glued and trimmed to rough shape. You can see the lath that was on the top of the pile and got to the light! The light and finish application will darken the edges significantly, but you can see the sort of contrast there will be by just dampening it: I've also straightened up the neck against the centre-line and worked out where the heel sits flat on the back wood: This area will be cut out completely before I glue the purpleheart to the back - forward of it will be the more tricky carve job to wrap round the neck and neck/heel transition

Looks good. The trouble with routers is that it is so, so easy to completely wreck things like this. I would generally do the same as you except I would use a microplane rasp to take it 'to the line' and then sand the rasp marks off for the final finish. Nowadays, I always look to see if there is a decent alternative to using a router first. I like your extra steps of putting the strung up bass into varying temperature places - very thorough!

Excellent. One of those rulers is on my list too. I've used the backtooth blades once when they were out of stock of plain backed ones. Quite useful if you do a lot of cuts where, because of size or shape, you need to reverse the wood to back out from where you have just cut half way through so that you can then come in from the other end to finish the cut. It makes the problem of pulling the blade out of its guide bearings less of an issue.

I reckon that joint will hold just fine...

Well, it's all looking pretty sound work so far

Looks an effective metallic. What paint have you used @Sidlanir ?

That's looking really good, @Jimothey Great job!

Great project, @BassTool ! That body certainly was rent asunder!

Indeed But I come from Wolverhampton so I'll still probably call them clamps (not because that's what they're called in W'ton but more like that's what folks from W'ton are like! )

It's actually quite a bit more purple than that in real life! This was in the cellar with flash. Third piece gluing at the moment.

The purpleheart I'm using is the inner neck splice timber from David Dyke. Even though it is narrow, I went for that because I know that it is the colour and consistency that @fleabag is looking for. Wider pieces of purpleheart can sometimes start getting close to the bark transition area which is a totally different colour (very light - a bit like yew). So this morning I levelled the joining edges with the Bailey plane of the pieces I will be using and have started to join them together and will then clamp the resulting sheet to the back. Here are the first two laths being joined together. The vertical clamps and cauls are in place to keep everything flat as the sash clamps do the work on the joint itself:

The only trouble is that in the 8 years since I did this one, I've never seen another piece of walnut veneer the right size with this same pattern! I sold to the bass to a Nepalese Buddhist who played in a heavy metal band and was 'drawn spiritually' to it (really). Admittedly a niche market...

No problem and no problem I was actually mulling over the thought that 'actually, that might not be a bad idea!' Let me have a think...because it really might not be a bad idea...

Hmmm - GSR200 That was my first go at veneering on one of those - this: ...became this: It's where the whole modding malarkey came from ! Ideal basses. Always happy to demo, although, based on the last bash, I'd probably only get it half done and probably with dubious veneer. How bad do you want to make your Ibanez to look?

Daughter and baby grand-daughter fly back Friday so I won't need to be creeping round not making noise as I've had to the past week and a half! Still - grabbed a quick half-hour on the band saw and the back is now cut out: Tomorrow, I should be able to make a start on the purple-heart layer and then get going on the weight-relief chambering/etc - which is done before the top goes on - over the weekend

Cleaned up. The purpleheart (and Sapele to an extent) will deepen significantly in colour but this is broadly how the back is going to look:

And the back blank is now joined with a 6mm strip of purpleheart in the middle. Once the glue is fully cured, I'll tidy it up with a cabinet scraper and cut out the body shape from it.

Well, it took all day (6 hours of waiting for the moment and 6 1/2 minutes actually doing it) but got the opportunity to straighten up the join lines. These are just pushed together: And actually, I can't remember who said it, but been thinking about a join strip. Join the two back halves with a 6mm middle strip of purpleheart? I reckon so! Shouldn't be as much noise involved in doing that, so should be able to cut that purpleheart strip and join it all up tomorrow...

Looks like Axminster do them.... https://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-precision-centre-finding-rule-ax962205 Never seen them before but they look a useful bit of kit

Very nice lamination job

The neck carve is sublime...

That looks top dollar, Jez. Never used buckeye myself but it's tempting having seen this.