Andyjr1515

Yes - Stanley blade or single edged razor blade scrapers are a good way of dealing with both necks and fretboards...

Not absolutely certain yet, but there is a fighting chance I will be able to make this now! I should know for certain in the next day or so

Yes - almost instant result. Holding the veneer bond for 10 secs or so of cooling is all it takes to fully grip. If you see my current Dreadnought Acoustic thread, I've just applied one of the pairs of binding in the same way and it worked a treat...and there are a lot of bend stresses with wood binding but it seems to hold as well as glued wet and fully clamped. The pva is dry before ironing so you can come back to it hours or days later and just heat to remelt. Seems to be fully repeatable too...

I think probably yes but have never tried it. Just try a small patch of veneer on an offcut of sanded wood - it's a pretty instant process so you will know straight away. Don't know if the waterproofing of titebond 3 makes a difference...

Yes - clearly the costs depend on specification, but I find on my own builds, even for 'normal' pickups and hardware, the cost of the materials are rarely less than €1000. When I get enquiries for builds I always make it clear that they could get a perfectly decent playing bass in the shops for less than just the neck raw timber costs me... I'm not on my main pc, but even on my phone those builds of yours do look pretty special. You should put one of them forward to the e-zine "No Treble" to be considered for their 'Bass of the Week' feature. They have featured four of mine and like you, I am essentially a hobby builder. If they like mine, I reckon they would love yours!

By the way, I like very much how you designed the hidden through neck. Neat solution and a good demonstration of the accuracy you were able to coax out of your router. Very nicely done

Or just looking at that Dingwall, maybe I meant strap looped round the rear lower bout...

Hi Marco They look beautiful and very nicely made using good woods. All of them. Clearly the acid test is how they feel and how they sound - and price is whatever the market will accept - but my own view is that the price you charged your friend was a decent starting point.

Our bass guitarist has a genuine 60's fake Firebird electric. I've played it a number of times and yes, the rear strap does run in an odd direction - I seem to remember it looping behind or round the rear upper bout. Again, when I'm back I will be able to send photos.

Hi @Christine I'm away from my October at the moment but in brief I usually attach the back button, then put a strap on and hold the front end in various possible places to feel how the balance feels (obviously with all the hardware already in place) Generally you can feel what is going to work and what isn't. For all my own guitars nowadays I put the button at the 3/4 position at the side of the bottom heel but I need to attach a photo to explain why - and that may be a few days away!

Thanks folks. I think it is much more likely that I will used as a threat - Daughter: "If you don't eat your greens, I will ask Granddaddy to play bass at you again. And you KNOW how horrible that is!"

Well - your analogy clearly involves some extra-sensory perception because I am actually typing this from Aberdeen Maternity Hospital where our eldest daughter has just made us grandparents! The three ladies are busy doing lady stuff I have no interest in knowing about which is why I'm in the waiting room catching up on Basschat. How's that for dedication!

John suggested using progressively smaller od top bearings on a guided trimmer bit to be able to creep up on the final size when using a template - a bit like a reverse version of using guide rings Works well!

There are lots of possibilities now I have the table, John! I got a set of bearings as you suggested - brilliant! Never seen those bits before - I'll investigate

Yes - thought the same. However, when you draw out the sweep of the router itself, a wider one becomes a much, much larger jig so maybe they judged better to start with the most common size.

There are some changes I would make...in fact the biggest change is that I'd buy a G&W rig instead of building my own! It came on the market after I'd built mine...

I thought the same when I saw the photo... to the point that I double checked!! But no - it's OK and is flat as a pancake

Lovely.

OK - I think this is the last structural task on the body itself - the binding closure at the tailstock. I used a router guide bush with the same mortise template to rout the groove out for it and then finished off with chisels: Better get that trussrod ordered because finishing the neck is the next task!

And to the next very scary bit. Routing out the neck mortice. First of all I needed to set the neck heel and tenon angle and shape. For the angle, I sorted an offcut block, planed to the exact size of the fretted fretboard, at the heel point and put a straight edge up to the top of the unsaddled bridge to work out the neck angle: Then to do it - yes, you guessed it - another jig! This is one I cobbled together for the last acoustic build and is an old-workmate based simplified version of the fancy and ingenious O'Brien / LMI rig. This allows cutting the neck heel angle, the heel template positioning and clamping and also the body clamping and mortice template routing. First off was to transfer the neck angle to the rough-cut heel. The jig clamps the neck - positioned vertically by a couple of pegs that slot in the truss-rod groove, all of which is on a hinged ply leaf, settable at the above angle: With a couple of stiff bearers, this allowed the heel to be routed at the correct angle: Then a quick check that the angle is right before I start doing stuff that can't be undone: And then the G&W Mortice/Tenon template is positioned and stuck with double-sided tape (I did put screws in, but for the other template!) to tidy it up to dimension and shape: And then onto the body. So I tell you what....let's just suspend this fragile body, clamped between two jaws of a workmate and dangling a foot over the concrete cellar floor... Call me an over cautious wuss, but I put an old towel underneath... Note that, for this template, the fixing screws actually fit And with that routed to around 14mm depth, we have a decently fitting mortice and tenon ready for aligning, edge relieving, flossing and, ultimately, fixing: Still got loads to do but in the meantime, I'd better get on and order a trussrod - going to need it soon

Similar shot to one of the ones above but the more observant will see that the fretboard is now fretted

Useful to know. I'll try mine next time I need to lift one.

Not sure those are fret pullers @Grangur ?

One of my favourite projects, Mick...

Yes - generally for stripping poly I use heatgun and decent decorators scraper: You actually need quite a bit of heat but as said above, also need to avoid burning the wood (quite easy to do). Keeping the heat gun moving helps. A sharp edged scraper allows you to get under the poly as it softens but you need to guard against digging in. Basically, start at the back to start to get the feel for it, don't rush and don't be surprised if, under one removed layer, there is another one underneath (Ibanez's are particularly prone to this).