Andyjr1515

Started to knock the sharp corners off to match the vibe of the original carve. The light is starting to go but made a decent start with spokeshave and cabinet scrapers:

Going to continue with the body carve on this to get those edges properly rounded. I always find it helpful to see exactly where the fretboard is going to lie so I planed it to finished taper first and then band-saw cut the plan-view shape of the neck to the same taper. Or, in other words, any excuse for a mock-up Always plenty of room for me to completely f**k it up, but it's looking nice so far The carbon rods are on order, as are the set screws and inserts for the neck fixing and the luminlay for the side markers, so - other than popping the wings on for the headstock - will set the neck aside for a few days until those have arrived and so will concentrate on the body shaping.

OK - we have a securely and tightly fitted top, the back overlap has been trimmed and the carve has started Here it is rough-carved. Quite a bit more bulk to come off it to get a smooth curve that roughly matches the back but it's a start: You wouldn't think that the walnut demarcation is just 0.6mm thick! This is what I first saw on Jez's ( @Jabba_the_gut ) lovely builds at one of the bassbashes. Up to then I was generally using thicker 2mm constructional veneers, but to just add that look of completeness the standard veneers work great! This will shift a little bit onto the back burner while I finish the carve (I find it best to do a bit, walk away, come back, re-assess and do a bit more) and make some more progress on @eude 's beauty

I think it depends on how stable the temperatures are and how much is left in the bottle. Older opened product is definitely stiffer than out of a new bottle - which can catch you out if you are trying to spread it on a large area.

Yes - push-pull pots are particularly deep. You could always use micro-switches, but the blend is more of a challenge...

To be honest, I've never heard anyone knock titebond, other than it has a finite shelf life, especially once opened. I would be surprised if its not the product by most used by guitar builders. Needs to be the original one, though...some of the variants aren't as suitable.

Unless it's a particularly oily wood (such as cocobolo), I use titebond. For very oily woods I use Z-poxy

Anyway, quickly before the tone of the whole thread deteriorates rapidly, all checked and 'you can never have too many clamps when you are gluing a top on'

Could have been worse. If I'd invented it rather than nicked it, I suppose it would be an AR'sole… or is that me for nicking it

Getting quite close to being able to close the top on this. I've cut the cable routes to the control chamber and lined the main void with veneer: The reason for the latter is that the chamber is actually quite shallow, because the back is so heavily carved, and the dark veneer gives the illusion of a much more substantial void through the 'f'hole :

@TheGreek 's Psilos bass had custom coils made by Martin Herrick that Mick arranged. There are some installation shots on the front page of their website https://www.herrickpickups.com/ I seem to remember they weren't much more expensive than standard pickups and work absolutely great. Certainly worth dropping Martin a mail....

And one lined fretboard

Nice carve

One of the things that @eude and I have been discussing is the colour of the fretline markers. We've gone for redwood veneer which should compliment nicely with the top. Here is a sample I did on our cherry cupboard at home, which will be a similar colour tone to the finished katalox: Should look pretty classy. I'm aiming to have all the fretlines installed tomorrow.

Before the top can be put on, the weight relief and control chambers and also the cable run slots have to be carved. I have a bit of tidying up to do and also the cable run slots but the bulk is done using forstner bits to hog out and then a bearing guided router to deepen the chambers: The chamber gets progressively deeper the closer it is to the edge - always having to remember that the back has that significant carve! Before closing up with gluing the top, the cable runs will be cut, a bit of chambering of the top and the main chamber here will be dark veneer lined to make it look deeper than it actually is when viewed through the 'f' hole.

Bit of tidying up to do, but I think this is pretty close to plan. You can tell by the artificial light that it's taken all day : You can see the angle here by looking where the upper cutaway angles where it joins the neck Here's the back - again, pending a bit of tidying up of the joints:

And some!

Next step is to tweak the width of the neck pocket, ensuring that it is central and that the centre line of the neck matches the centre line of the body (which happily, and to my great surprise, it does!): The next step is going to be to rout a slot, at the 2 degree angle, to allow the neck to drop down until the top of the neck is flush with the top of the body , the neck is sitting at 2 degrees downwards and that the join at the heel is tight against the bottom cutaway of the body. Might have to go and have a cup of tea before I tackle THAT little lot....

Still rock-hopping a little because now I've worked out how I will do the body carve, but before I actually do it, I need to get the basic neck fit in place. And to do that I need to know what neck angle I'm going for. So I have tapered the fretboard to within a couple of mm of finish size, flipped it round so that the narrow end (nut end) fits in the neck pocket enough to pivot on the top of the body and put a straight edge flat on the board in a straight line to the bridge slots (with all bridge adjustment flat to the floor). Then the angle the fretboard is at, is the angle the neck needs to be fit to, which is just a touch over 2 degrees: And now I just need to work out how to machine the various cuts and fits at the end of the neck to incorporate that angle with an exact fit on all planes. Hmmmm... I may be some time!

Yes - i think the ziricote is the icing on the cake. That fretboard looks utterly splendid!

Yes - usually it is that the bottom of the saddle isn't completely flat on the piezo, or that it is sticking slightly in the slot and therefore the full string pressure isn't being transfered to the piezo. It is probable that you've sanded a slight curve in the bottom of the saddle and so now the two bass strings are not fully seating on the piezo. Take the saddle out, sellotape a thin strip of fine sandpaper to a worktop and hold the saddle against something square like a matchbox or similar to sand along the sandpaper in a straight line parallel to the sanpaper, taking care not to sand a curve at either end. It won't need much. Check the flatness on the worktop and the squareness visually, looking end on down the length from either end. Finally check that the saddle slides to the bottom of the slot and that the piezo extends for the whole length of the slot and that there is nothing in the slot stopping the saddle sitting flat. Hope this helps

As with @eude 's project, family commitments will halt progress on this for a few days but did get to finish off the rear carve. This is how it's looking: The top will be curved broadly parallel to this shape. I'll leave the neck until later because that will change from concave to convex as it approaches the heel. I'm hoping that my 'S' grain for the two wings and differing grain patterns works once the contrasting control chamber cover is there. It's something you can't do on the neck because you can get differential movement of the wood but, structurally, the wings will be fine. We'll see if I'm right or not about the visuals once the whole thing is finished

Rock hopping a little bit on this. Carbon rods and truss rod are on order and I've got a few days of family commitment coming up (I know.... ) so thought I'd just start a fill in job - working out the best way to carve the body. Although I have one of these: ...I'm not letting that anywhere near the body. Too possible to wreck it! But the katalox is tough stuff and the ash is, well, ash. I tried a concave spokeshave, scrapers, micro-planes, Shinto rasp and sanding. And concluded that it needed all of those! Full curve not yet achieved but I think that combination is probably the way based on how it's going so far: So no more progress likely until well into next week but then I have a fairly clear stretch

There's the old saying of if it looks right, it probably is right. This looks very right

That's lovely