Andyjr1515

To be honest, I would probably only use it for an acoustic top and that is simply to avoid the slight discoloration on the spruce of my favoured prep method which is slurry and wiping tru oil. For an acoustic, figuring features look fine (bearsfoot, etc) but shade differences tend to detract, certainly in my own view. The egg white does seem to reduce this kind of shading (although I'm sure other products do) but is very wet when applied and that can cause other issues because of that.

I use a flat spokeshave to take the bulk off but then quite quickly move to micro-planes (pictured) and the humble cabinet scraper. I have done a neck entirely with a cabinet scraper in the past but you do tend to get sore fingers doing that! The two handled thing I think @TheGreek refers to is a pullshave. No good actually for necks, but great for carving out the concave backs of the Swift Lite builds and such like :

I can even imagine what @eude was thinking. I'll bet he was thinking : "OK clever clogs Andyjr1515. So you can build 6 string electrics and you can build dreadnought acoustics but they are - well - NOT BASSES! And, yes, admittedly you've made a bass or two and you've modded a few. BUT I BET YOU CAN'T SORT THIS ONE!!! Oh, and before you say you can, did you know it's a VI? Bet you've never done one of THOSE!" I'll let @eude fill in the background but the challenge is to take this body: And put a shortscale neck on it and a Warwick two-part bridge. "Oh...and did I mention the b****y big hole through the body?" "Oh - and the neck pocket might not be the right size for a VI neck but I'm sure a clever clogs like you will be able to sort THOSE trifling details!" So what could I do but accept the challenge! Besides, I've only got my reputation to lose. @eude has this rather nice bass carve to lose

Tried to finish this off. Almost but not quite. First popped the magnets onto the truss-rod cover: ...and hey presto: Then installed the Shadow Doubleplay electrics. It comprises a blendable under-saddle piezo: and a mini magnetic pickup at the end of the fretboard: I suspect that this is intended for a flatter fingerboard radius (prob 12" - I've build closer to an electric neck with 10" rad and locking tuners. Makes it easier for me to transfer from my electric to the acoustic) so I sunk it into the top to make sure it didn't foul the top and bottom E strings: As it turns out, I've overdone this and will, at some stage, take it off and pop a shim underneath. I then installed the preamp / blend unit that sits inside the soundhole (I'll photo it in the 'finished' shots) and the rear strap pin / jack socket. Before I put the strings back on, I cleaned up and oiled the fretboard. The frets - well, at the moment there is absolutely no buzz anywhere so I haven't even polished them! When I get a moment, I'll at least do that but there is no need for levelling and crowning By the way, before you go thinking I know what I'm doing, that is a first... And - other than the low nano-mag pickup being a bit quieter than the piezo - we have electric amplification. Lastly, now the strings are on, I do my usual 'sit it like a cello and scrape the neck to the final shape by feel, spinning it round and playing it then re-scraping until it feels like I want it. This is followed by a quick tru-oil slurry and buff and it's good to go within an hour. Am I the only one that does this? No matter how well you fit a neck to the profile templates, I don't think you can really tell if it's right until you play it. So that's what I do. And the most subtle tweaks can make all the difference! Remaining jobs: - Replace the nut with a slightly wider one (plays fine with the present one but it isn't quite wide enough - Raise the nano-mag pickup (ditto) - Side dots! It's a big b****r and there is no way you can see the top of the fretboard when you are playing it - Final polish in about a week's time - Take the arty farty photos

In that I struggle to reach the 1st fret on a 34" bass.... But that looks superb. What a refreshingly innovative build. Like @Jabba_the_gut says, can't wait to see video of it!

There's a lot going on in this post! Very precise stuff going on in the neck routing. I confess that my approach is much more haphazard than that The body shaping has transformed it. Looks great On earlier threads for the pickguard, I'm still not entirely sure how you got the flush mdf template reduced to the final size. I'll have to read it again. Also, how did you manage to route the actual pickguard without it melting? Like you mention, there's a lot of work involved with pickguards...

Oh yes. Much better Looks great

I'll do some as soon as the frets have been done and the set up completed. Hopefully sometime next week

Not quite as finished as it looks, but the only way of seeing if the bridge is in the right place is to string it up! And so that's what I've just done. And I'm very pleased with how it looks. And more to the point - even though not even the frets have been levelled and the saddle or nut aren't yet height adjusted - it sounds fantastic! I'm thrilled and surprised in equal measure! Oh, and yes - against all odds - the bridge is in the right place So still to do is: - Levelling/crowning frets - Cleaning up fretboard - Installing electrics - Setting up saddle and nut - Strap button on heel - Fine tuning neck profile and final slurry and buff - Final polish once varnish is fully cured But it's sufficiently there for me to start work on the next two projects - one full build and one major mod - and those are both basses. More about those in a couple of new threads soon

In between all the other stuff on the day's agenda, I managed to steal enough snatches of time to get all of the bridge stuff sorted up to and including gluing! A bit picture heavy, but this is how I went about it - First was to use the Stewmac fret calculator to determine the exact distances from the nut to the middle of the saddle slot for the top and bottom E. The masking tape will be used to prevent glue squeeze-out going onto the finished top, but is also useful for ensuring that the position doesn't inadvertently slip: Next is to score round the bridge with a scalpel into the finish: Then to scrape away the carefully applied finish from within the score line!: Then I double checked the position and drilled through the peg holes for the top and bottom E. The two pegs will be used in the initial clamping to prevent the bridge 'floating' out of position on the wet glue: Then I put more masking tape around the back (should have done this first and just scalpeled though it round the bridge!) and got out my bridge clamp and home-made bridge sides clamp: Then added the glue, and at first just used the metal clamp, positioning the bridge with a couple of string pegs through the bridge and into the two peg holes drilled in the top. Once I was sure the bridge was secure, I removed the two pegs and popped the home-made clamp to press the bridge sides firmly down: Then carefully wiped off the squeeze-out before removing the masking tape. This will be left clamped overnight to fully dry: The bridge is still accurately within the scraped area, but I won't know if everything is stuck where it should be until the morning! Here's hoping

Thanks! It's a bit of an evolution from a number of the builds I've done over the years. It's actually identical to Jane's Swift Lite: I like it because it lets the strings be perfectly straight through the nut but isn't quite as cut off as, say, a Seagull acoustic (which is very triangular and a bit 'cut short')

OK - last shots before the potential of me wrecking it and it becoming BBQ fuel. This is one of the more - er - exciting bits of building acoustics. The fact that pretty much the most critical and difficult bit comes at the very end! Fitting the bridge. Here we are before I potentially wreck it: The neck is fitted - and I'm pleased with the fit. The tuners are some leftovers of a gold/black mixed set I used for one of my electric builds - that one was black knobs on gold bodies, so the leftovers are gold knobs on black bodies. The neck profile will be tweaked once the strings are on it - because then I can shape and play and reshape the neck to get it just right for my playing style. Then it's just the fret-levelling and final setup. But first I have to fit the bridge. And it has to be right. The only thing you have to play with is the saddle insert height and the 1/2mm or so either side of centre of the saddle top for intonation. So that bridge HAS to be glued in the right place. If it isn't, the guitar will be, at best, lack-lustre and, at worst, pretty much unplayable. This weekend is a bit higgledy piggledy for family reasons, but in any bits of spare time I will be re-looking on the various websites about the best way of positioning and fixing, finding my bridge clamp and then checking, re-checking, re-re-checking EVERYTHING before attempting the scrape (the area that the bridge will be glued to needs to have the varnish scraped off first) and finally the fix. It's only a guitar, but this is the bit of the whole thing that most scares the c**p out of me!

Have a great day, all

Yup - will do Have a great day tomorrow! Very sorry to be missing it.

With my varnish method - which is a bit of a compromise due to lack of facilities, knowledge and skills - I get to the point where I have to say 'OK - Stop there...that's close enough'. The reason is that, too often, if I 'just give it one last coat' it invariably makes things a lot worse rather than making what is basically OK into something a bit closer to perfect. And for this - especially as it is a bitsa build for my own use - I've got to the 'OK - Stop there...that's close enough!' Having no spray facilities or equipment, I basically wipe or brush the finishes. Anyway, here is the body prior to fully hardening and final polishing: It doesn't bear very close examination but, for the overall look, it looks OK at the cursory level. The next bit is probably only of interest to those who commented about their own trails and tribulations of finishing I promised I would run through some of the finishing trials and tribulations. I'll split that into 4 aspects: top vs back&sides; prep vs finish coat. AS ALWAYS, THIS IS JUST HOW I DO IT, NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE! Preparation (post finish-sanding): Back and sides: I use tru-oil slurry and wipe to seal and grain-fill all in one go. Works a treat, even filling the horrendous tear-out I had at the back. Couple of sessions morning, left to dry between each, then sand the following day and it's usually ready to take the gloss. Top: Tru-oil would do the job used just like for the back and sides above, but for spruce and maple it does tend to give a reddish hue and so, certainly for an acoustic top, I don't use that method. Last acoustic, I used an old classical guitar method of egg white. Yes - standard egg white, brushed on, left to dry, sanded off. Maybe repeat, but basically then ready to varnish. Didn't do that this time...and wish I had. What I did try was Chestnut Melamine. Very stinky. Tough and no discolouration beyond the darkening of the dampened spruce. But I couldn't sand it down without it becoming a little patchy (probably not enough coats) so basically sanded it off the surface and used that which has soaked in just as a sanding sealer. NEXT TIME - I'm going to use egg white again. In retrospect, it did the job perfectly well. Finish Varnish: Here, my big restriction is that I do not have the facilities to spray and therefore I am restricted to wipe-on or brush-on finish techniques. Those of you who have followed previous threads will know that my preferred finish for a full-gloss is good old Ronseal Hardglaze Polyurethane Varnish. I used to do this exclusively wipe-on but since Ronseal did a formulation change to lower the volatiles, I've found that thinning the varnish anywhere near what I would do for wipe-on gives major problems and that less thinning and using an artist's fan brush is the best alternative: Method is simple: I thin the varnish down with about 5% white spirits (this is WAY different to my wipe-on with the original Ronseal formula which could take up to 50% thinning!) I brush it on - not stopping and ensuring each strip is merged into the previous one (that will already be stiffening), laying off gently with the brush at each strip to even out any ripples or air bubbles After drying, I use micro-web (1800 to 4000 ish) used wet and then recoat once totally dry and cleaned with a good quality tack cloth (I use a microfibre cloth designed for cleaning windows) Now - the trouble is with the new Ronseal formulation is that for subsequent coats, the varnish has more adhesion to itself than it does to the previous dried coat of varnish. This means that it parts, like the Red Sea parted for Moses, leaving what looks like deep brush marks! (I have a photo somewhere I'll try to find). The answer is, of course, to sand and give it a key. But then the 'final' coat shows the dull patches of the sanded substrate (even with 2000+ grit). So you do another coat without sanding. Then it creeps again. Etc Etc Etc And then every now and again, it is almost OK. And that's where I STOP. Which is where I started this post I keep meaning to contact Ronseal - they MUST have other people that have the same issue! And it is 2018. To echo @honza992 's earlier comment - can it really be THAT difficult to make gloss varnish that can be applied successfully and works? But why, I hear you ask, does Andyjr1515 use old fashioned Ronseal polyurethane gloss rather than a modern water-based varnish anyway? Well - this is Ronseal Hardglaze: And this is the exact same wood, prepared in the exact same way...but finished with one of the better water-based gloss varnishes, Osmo Polyx Gloss: It's nice enough - but it ain't the same!

For the neck, apply a coat of tru oil and let it fully dry to seal it. Then use 400 wet n dry with tru oil as the wet to lightly slurry an oil/sanding dust mix. Wipe off when still wet. Let it dry. Repeat the truoil slurry but this time wipe it off and then, preferably with a different cloth, buff up vigorously. Let dry overnight. You should have a satin, silky smooth finish that still feels like wood but keeps the dirt and sweat out. If sometime in the future you want to spruce it up, just repeat that very last step. I use this for ALL of my necks - even the stained ones

You could put small side dots on the line like an unlined bass rather than the in between position like the top dots?

Oh... that's a bummer! Mind you, good save from the look of it I can't remember what the issue was, but I do remember the result of a similar oversight - which resulted in defretting AND having to take the fretboard off too. It made me feel sick when I realised the error I'd made - the trauma of which has wiped the memory of actually what I'd done wrong

Haven't forgotten about the finishing debrief, but just a quick update of ongoing progress. The finish has maybe 2 coats more to do. There's a lot of waiting around, though, when the varnish is dry enough to touch and handle but not dry enough to take the next coat. So in that time I've started on some of the other jobs. The bridge goes on last (you have to scrape away the finish that you've just spent weeks putting on!) but needs to be shaped to match the spheroidal shape of the top. This is where the old 'engineers blue' approach comes in - except you use blackboard chalk. I put a wide strip of easy peel masking tape where the bridge will go and gave it a liberal coating of chalk. Then placed the bridge on top and moved it around a couple of mm. Hey presto - the high spots: Then all you do is scrape where the chalk is and repeat (multiple times). Here it is after the first scraping: So same m.o. - now scrape these areas away. After about 8 iterations, I am getting there: So I know now that most of the area is making good contact. Just a final bit of tidying up and it will be ready to fit as soon as the final coats of finish have been applied. The colour won't change much now - it will just get glossier. Here's where we are at in overall look so far: So - all being well - a few more days of finish coats and drying and then I can move towards final steps

Yes - I agree. They work a treat, too.

That looks a very good coverage for a first coat of such a strong colour! If I tried to do that, I would have runs all over the place!

Both of these look outstandingly good. I generally struggle with the look of headless designs but this looks just right. Beautiful basses, both of them. The finish on the headless has brought out the beauty of the wood nicely. I'll be interested how the EMG system performs. It is very neat as a preamp system if it does, indeed, sound OK.

I'll bet you all thought I'd gone to that great gig venue in the sky!! I'm in the middle of the finishing process for the body so there's not a huge amount to see at the moment. I still try various things in terms of acoustic guitar finishes - some work and some don't. When this is done, I'll run through what I have used and also the other things I've used in the past. This is how it's looking at the moment with probably 3-4 coats more to do: It's only when the finish is done and set that the neck and bridge can be fitted...all a bit back to front in many ways, but I reckon the whole thing will be finished by the end of next week

Somehow missed this! It's looking good

I agree with @SpondonBassed (there's a first time for everything!) - it all makes sense now. That is a great look