Andyjr1515

If it all goes wrong candles might come in useful...

Yes I am but a simple soul

You just know you're going to have to put it back in, Si...

Something about flat bottoms by any chance, Si???

And the top is on and gluing!

I'm expecting (forgive the pun) that...and it is if it's late that the dates will clash! As I say, if only the son-in-law had restrained himself for a week or so, all of this unnecessary inconvenience could have been avoided!

Yes - I think we all do these things our own preferred way. My paranoia on tearout is more to do with my dubious radius rig than the likelihood of square chambers tearing out with normal radiusing approaches. With Neil's bass, using the template system meant that my block chamber bottoms were flat. If I do what I suggest above, I will end up with curved bottoms and will flatten them off with a chisel - ebony blocks won't bend any better than MoP (ie - not at all). For the last couple of builds, I have changed to fully finishing the fretboards - including the fret installation - before gluing to the neck. I found it much, much easier - and it produced a much better result for me - and will now do that as a norm. But many (most?) builders do exactly as you describe above.

That looks great! You have a precision in your work that I aspire to.

And onto final preparatory jobs before gluing the top and back on. I put the soundhole braces in place and double checked that the hidden pre-amp of the Shadow Doubleplay will actually be hidden! Then double checked the basic fit of the top: And the back: Then checked how well the spool clamps would secure during gluing. Now then 'you can't have too many clamps' and this is no where near enough. This is dry fitting: While it is actually giving me a tight fit all the way round the kerfed strip, the wood will tend to move about during the wetting from the glue. So what I will do is cut some shaped plywood cauls to spread the load round the curved and allow me to use some metal clamps to supplement the gentler spool clamps. Also got to add a sliver of veneer on top of the heel and tail blocks to then chamfer in and give it a fit with the radius of the top. And THEN I can glue it Certainly, by the end of the weekend, I am hoping to have a sealed body, ready for the scariest bit of the whole build (as far as I'm concerned) - routing the binding channels and routing the neck mortise! It's a long way to have come with still a huge opportunity to completely wreck it - but that's acoustics for you!

Back braces in place and looking OK. The back of the back, though, isn't so good. If this was for a customer, it would be a scrapper - and therefore scrap of the matched sides! The problem is the massive tearout at the top end! It was bad to start off with and I tried to improve it and made it much worse (that DVD might have to be a boxed set )! For my own use, this will be fine, though. I will fill it with a slurry of sandings and tru-oil and, because of the irregular patterning of the lacewood, it won't be too obvious Next job is trimming the sides to get a good fit for the back to eventually be glued to.

Mmmm - that's what MrsAndyjr1515 said too. I think we were talking about two different things, though

Hi All I haven't committed to get to this yet (LOVED last year's for anyone who is teetering on 'do I, don't I') because our eldest daughter is due to make me a grandad not long before - in Aberdeen! Depending on timing - shockingly, I am told that birth prediction dates take not a blind bit of notice of Bassbash schedules, although I'm a little disappointed that our son-in-law didn't think to check the calendar before he let his eye twinkle - we might be in Scotland. But if I can make it, I will make it Andy

Ah - yes....that was in the thread title (it's my age!) OK. My view, for what it's worth. If I had a set of cut inlays to start with (I didn't on @Len_derby 's build so I routed the chambers first and then cut inlays to fit), I would DEFINITELY use @Christine 's method on Page 5 of her excellent thread: The only difference I would personally make is that I would radius the board first because: I'm comfortable with the additional risk of using my precision router base on a curved surface (but it is an extra risk) My router radius rig can be a bit rough on the wood and I would be bothered about losing corners I would cut the fret slots first also, because the position of the blocks vs the slots is absolutely critical - and I always radius before I slot I would be able to see exactly how deep to rout - critical if the inlay is thin. Otherwise it is too easy to lose the sides of a wide inlay as you sand away the ends with the radius block! Illustrating that last point, on my SG build for Pete note that the trapezoidal inlays at the lower frets turn into blocks at the upper frets: That's not how they started! They are trapezoids where the ends have been sanded away!!! More than happy to cover the template approach in more detail than my Swift Lite thread if you want me to, but actually next time (I've been asked to build another one ), I'm going to actually simply use that template to get the right sizes to scribe and then cut my inlays first, and then I'm going to use @Christine 's approach (ie, scribe round the inlay on the fretboard; route the inside area; cut the border with a sharp chisel), albeit with the above differences in terms of doing it post-radius and slotting. Does that make any sense?

Shukers are wonderful basses. Worked on @Chris Sharman 's a little bit and it was so, so good.

That's my boy! I shall send you an application form for membership of the "Tell Me Again Why Basses Are So Heavy Association" also known by its handy acronym TMAWBASHA. While the annual subs are high, the benefits of being in such an exclusive society simply cannot be estimated. Trust me.

Yes - I'll run through it in a post tomorrow. Is your bass 34"? If so you are very welcome to borrow the template.

For this sort of thing I often use cocktail sticks. There are hardwood ones and bamboo ones - I've had success with both. Cut the very end of the tip off so you have a decent diameter into the bottom of the hole and cut it over length for the hole. Glue with a decent pva, forcing it into the hole with the flat of a screwdriver or similar. When the glue has dried, trim flush with a scalpel, chisel or razor. If you have a sharp pointed punch or bradawl or similar, then press a decent starter depression and then use a small drill (1.5mm or similar). The small ones don't wander as much as the larger drill bits. Then drill out with the larger drill, if you need larger, which will tend to follow the hole you've already drilled in the right place rather than wander off. Hope that makes sense...

For me it would be with pickguard. Oh my, that's SO good!

It's what a lot of folks seem to use and recommend for the job. Not used it myself but have seen impressive results from it.

Looking very good indeed. Great job(s)!

Excellent stuff, @honza992 Can't wait. If it turns out anywhere near the standard of your tele build (and I've seen that one close up, folks ) it will be a giant slayer!

Amazing - a veritable production line!

The bracing for the back is much simpler. The back provides the volume rather than tone and so the braces are just there for strength and to hold the 15' radius of the back - yes...another radius dish! First of all, sorted the radius for the braces to sit nicely in the dish in their respective positions: Then the bit I've always struggled with - carving the parabola shape. Most guides seem to indicate that you glue first and then carve, but I found that much more likely to end in damage. So this time, I decided to carve their shape first. But how? They have a radius bottom and are not easy to hold (which is probably why everyone says carve them afterwards! ). After a few abortive attempts with a dovetail cutter on the router table and an angled jig on the bandsaw, I came up with this: i.e., bung a plane in the vice, wear stout gloves and push/pull the brace wood across the blade. To my great surprise, it worked a treat! So out with the go-bar-deck, this time with the 15 foot radius dish and the braces are being glued as I type!

First of all - 'Yeah! You CAN do that' I agree - given a specific and identical set of woods, dimensions, shape and electical componentry, then there is less scope for building in a little bit of extra sonic excellence on a solid body. Loads of scope in terms of feel and finish, but less so in terms of actual sound. There is, of course, always scope for tailoring those factors to an individuals needs and taste. With acoustics, every piece of wood all has it own physical characteristics. The experts in this field not only choose specific pieces of wood ( which the good mass producers also do) but then are able to tweak things to make that piece of wood do the best that it's physically capable of doing. And the difference that can make is quite large, as you can hear in the back end of the video. Bear in mind that his top was starting where my top has finished. So the guy in that video would be able to absolutely transform the way my own build is going to sound. And conversely, an amateur like me is capable of actually making it sound worse than when it started. The mass producers of acoustics therefore are looking to consistent woods, machined to a high standard to produce predictable and replicatable tones. Having said that, surely it can't be far away that someone directly links a vibration spectrum analiser to a cnc router to mechanise the present realm of the craftsman?

And second attempt. Prior to scraping, mind, so there's still plenty of time for me to c**k it up again