Andyjr1515

Blood and sand, Jez! For a start they look wonderful (mine's the one at the bottom if you are sending them as free gifts to deserving sycophants ) Secondly - we retirees rely on you employed folks to keep us in the manner we once dreamed could have been possible until we all realised that money purchase pension schemes are just charity donations to rich financiers. So it is always a concern if the employed tax-payers start letting their attention drift away from their prime purpose - that is of keeping the state pension provision afloat. So to come to the leading question - when on earth do you have time to work on your proper tax paying job if you have all those beauties on the go and should Phillip Hammond be informed? More specifically, do I need to tighten our family's belts and hide the gin from MrsAndyjr1515? Trust me, she's a very scary woman when she's sober! Ps. My wife's solicitors have served a cease and desist request based on the hurtful comment above. She wishes me to clarify that she is a very scary person whether she has consumed gin or not. I fully concur and apologise for what might have been a seen as a misleading statement.

Finish pretty much done - it'll take maybe a week to fully harden before it can be micro-webbed, but I can finish the fret-levelling, hatch magnets and shielding / electrics installation while I'm doing that. Although I've had issues with the gloss version, the satin version of the Osmo Polyx is really straightforward to apply and gives a nice looking and tough finish.

Beautiful job. They look splendid.

Going to look good

Good copy if that's the actual one...

Is it a Just-a-nut or a copy?

Looks the real deal to me. Some beautiful builds on the FB page with demos and build vids. Very impressive - and I build basses!

Ooooh - fancy! Very striking. You could also stain it...an ebony board would look pretty classy...

Although the Festool is now firmly on my wish list (I have seen previous reviews and it is that halfway house that @Christine mentions that seems to be a pretty powerful USP), nevertheless it isn't in my present means so it's old-fashioned BF&I this time round. Got the sanding pretty much done (prob still got the final, final neck work to do) and THE FINISHING IS STARTED Here it is in its sanded form: Not sure if it really comes off, but the figuring just behind the fretboard end always reminded me of the swift shape, so I tried to emulate it with the fretboard end carve: And then the first tru-oil slurry and wipe coats. Unless I have a colour concern, I generally now use that for my base sealing and grain-filling process, whatever the final finish. In this case the final finish is going to be Osmo Polyx satin, but I'll still start with the tru-oil treatment. In a previous build, I proved to myself that you can slurry with Osmo just as well, but I wanted that touch of added amber hue that tru-oil tends to give: The bridge, by the way, is now flush with the leading edge of the body as planned: Finishing progress shots tend to get a bit boring so I won't post the Polyx progress, suffice to say that I will be wiping it on with micro-fibre cloth. All being well, the next shots - probably next week - should be the fully assembled bass It will still need a week or so for the finish to fully harden before I can pass it across to Neil but I think I'm now fully clear of disaster/BBQ wood potential tasks - I think it's actually going to turn into a playable bass! As always, many thanks for the encouraging feedback and pearls of wisdom along the way

Great endorsement - I'll have a look

Well - I'm out of excuses now...tomorrow is final sanding day and finishing starts at the weekend. The last job was to set the bridge at its final height, and that allows me to see how much leeway I have for the final curve of the top. It's not critical, but I would like the bridge plate to be at least partially sunken into the top and, ideally, flush. It makes no difference to the functionality, but I want to avoid the look of some bridges where they appear to be a bit of an afterthought. I used a Dremel precision router for the flatness and finished the edges with chisels. Like the pickup routs, I did the curved front corners with a 5mm drill, drilled to final depth, before routing the bulk out : That gives me a nice close fit and looks like it is supposed to be there: This done, it lets me pencil the 'flush level'... ...so I can see how deep to sand. The aim will be flush at the leading edge and curving down a touch to expose the bridge plate progressively towards the tailstock. I'm hoping that the weather stays dry tomorrow as it is a lot easier to do the final sand outside - especially when looking for sanding marks, glue overspill and unwanted dints. The Osmo has arrived so, all being well, I should be able to apply the first couple of sealing coats as well before the start of the weekend

Yes - a dot of paua:

And I remembered another reason when I did the plain topped ones. I thought I'd have a go and found a way of changing the long drill without losing the settings. Glued the three piece sandwich last night and did these this afternoon. The problem is, my cheap diamond pipe cutter generates a lot of heat...and titebond softens with heat. What came out of the pipe cutter were 3 seperate pieces and some soft, molten glue!

Here are the plain knobs - they will lighten a touch when the oil has dried. @SpondonBassed - please note that I SOMETIMES take notice of what you say ref the background The comparison is here: Personally, I prefer the plainer ones on the actual bass - my eye is drawn to the top and not the knobs - but, whatever, Neil will be given both sets

I think I would be rightly accused by @Norris of plagiarism

Yes - that's my thought. When you add the pattern of the knobs, I wonder if you lose just a smidgen of the bookmatch pattern effect of the body. The plain poplar alternative is the same wood but without the pattern and is identical to the headstock - it may counter that effect and also visually tie the headstock to the body. The nice thing is that I can do both and present Neil with a simple ' do you prefer this or that' and give him the spares anyway By the way, all in, this is 6lbs 6oz at the moment. Less a bit of final finish sanding and plus a bit of finish oiling, that will be pretty much the finished weight.

Slurry and buff certainly - but possibly using the Osmo for the slurry and buffing. I've done that once before and it worked well. It works pretty much the same but there is no possibility of a colour difference between the neck-neck colour and the thru-neck colour.

Again, don't be fooled - it's not as near done as it looks! But we are on the home straight. I've said before that I have a slightly unconventional way of going about things. Probably much less efficient than many, but it reduces the risk of me knack****g the functionality for style or vice-versa! The top hasn't been finally shaped yet - it's a bit flat-topped and thicker than final target. But making sure that it is going to be straight and intonate OK and just how much to lower the top where the bridge sits are all guestimates until the actual hardware and strings are in place. So that's generally what I do - I string it up and then I can see exactly what leeway I have, or what tweaks I need to make: The bridge area can drop down up to 3mm safely and the curvature from the centre line to the 'f' hole can increase a touch. The spacing (adjustable on this bridge) will be tweaked a touch to get the G just a little closer to the fretboard edge at the 24th. While it's strung up (these are temporary strings) I will also finish shape and sand the neck - being able to play it and really feel how the curvature of the profile works at all parts of the neck as I fine tune the shape makes a huge difference to judging when it's right. Last this is that I can see whether those knobs enhance or distract - I'm doing a second set to be able to do a live A/B comparison where the tops are the plainer poplar (same as the headstock plate). @Len_derby will have both sets and will be able to swop them around as often as he wants I'm hoping to do that extra sanding over the next few days and start the finishing process at the weekend - Osmo Polyx Satin is on its way as I type

Excellent! Like the decal - LOVE the overall colour scheme

Hi Could do it either way but my press drill is a small Proxxon one and the spindle depth travel is limited. With the central hole being 9.5mm, it is a long drill but the pipe drill is short. The extra thickness of pre assembling would mean I would need to loosen the coarse height adjustment clamps between the twist drill use and pipe drill and then risk losing the concentricity of the OD and spindle.

And they're done, barring another couple of coats of finish:

I agree with @Norris here. In my earlier days, and in total ignorance of there being such things as Forstner bits, I used spade cutters once or twice for this job - highly dodgy to be honest, with lots of potential for unwanted problems

In terms of making the control knobs, I used the same method as my first attempts with Jane's lightweight electric. For the backs, with my press drill locked in position, I drilled a hole for the 6mm grub-screw collet to fit into from some ash offcut with rosewood veneer glued on the back : Then a forstner to create the rebate for the pot nut and washer: Then my panel-hole cutter: Leaving me with a back, with all drill cuts concentric: Then glued the poplar burl tops and cut the assembly to height, ready for insertion of collet, drilling of side grubscrew access hole, installing of position dot and final shaping, which are the next jobs on the list:

Neat routing, b******d bearing or not!