Andyjr1515

This is a build of superlative quality. Inspirational.

Looking forward to seeing this!

So why the two cocobolo strips running along the body either side of the neck? Pretty much everything related to this build has had to start with finding a solution to a functional necessity and then working the practicality and aesthetics around that. The bridge (using one of Tom's old Ibanez's as a donor) is wider than the neck and, as such, the two outer screws would have gone into the body wood, rather than the neck wood. The cocobolo strips would mean that the bridge could be fully secured in sound, stable and predictably behaving wood. On the other side, though was another problem: The neck pocket carve - although most of which would be routed away depth-wise - was actually wider than both a neck and the extra cocobolo strip: Here, the area would need to be turned into a 'feature' with a piece of cocobolo carved and set into the space. That could wait, though. I needed to get the neck position firmed up - lengthwise and height-wise - so that I could get it glued in and the whole assembly stabilised as soon as possible... Thanks for your continued interest and patience! Andy

To my relief, the timber held up well to the routing. You can see here JUST how close I would need to get to the top...no choice or there simply wouldn’t be enough thickness for the maple and its much needed strength. The fall-back position here, it it was to finally give up and break its back, was going to have to be a visible neck top and African timber wings (and hopefully not detachable in the style of Paul h!) The rout was finished, the body was still in one piece, the measurements were checked and spot on. I then heard a tiny *click*. Now - those of you who do luthiering – or any type of woodwork – will know that unexpected *click*s are not good. My *click* was accompanied by the African timber-language version of a *sigh*. The kind of *sigh* one might let out when, having worn trousers that were too tight all day for a formal occasion, you finally can loosen the belt in the evening and undo the top button. This was the result of the *click* and the stimulus for the *sigh*: B****r! But after all that thought and effort – and the fact that, against all the odds, the bulk of the top was for the moment was actually holding good – I didn't want to immediately revert to plan B of body and wings. That could always be done later if the situation was not recoverable. There was no time to take photos, because I could not be at all sure that the crack was not going to keep going. It was time for some quick logic and some quick action. The logic was:[list] [*]Visually most of this area will be cut away anyway to fit the fretboard over [*]Strengthwise – once the neck was glued - then there would be nowhere for anything to go and all would be stable [/list] BUT[list] [*]It would be sometime before I could actually glue the neck. This build has no room whatsoever for ‘normal’ tweaks and adjustment of heights and angles – the neck could only be glued once all of the other datum points had been established – neck position, bridge position, neck angle, fretboard height, etc, etc [/list] I had to stitch it together therefore, long enough for all of that to be done (maybe weeks). It had to be something thin also enough not to get in the way of the routed slot. 1/64” ply would have been best, but I didn't have any handy. What I did have was some veneer left over from Bryan’s Thunder Jet bass job! I mixed some quick setting epoxy, popped some into the crack and laid the veneer, cross grain, over the whole area. After all that, was the neck (including some additional cocobolo side strips which I will explain later) going to still fit? Yes Phew! ...and isn't that better than a visible through neck and wings? ...admittedly the neck's a bit chunky, but I'm sure Tom will get used to it...

The Luminlay arrived this afternoon. It's very easy to install. After drilling the 3mm holes, it s a dab of superglue on the end of the luminlay rod and then a firm push to the bottom of the drilled hole: Then a bit of masking tape to protect the neck and a razor saw: A quick sand gives you this for daytime playing: ...and after a 2-3 second blast of the little UV torch per dot, you have this for when it's a bit dark for us old gits: This one's blue, but you can get green also... Just got the tuner holes, final sand, final stain and then satin varnish finish left to do Andy

Nothing to show for it, but I have the amazaque for the main parts of neck here and some inner splices and ebony fingerboard on the way. For the inner splice (I'll use one central one) I've ordered both mahogany and wenge - I'll see what they're like when they arrive and decide which to use. I might also put a couple of strips either side of the neck where it goes through the body - I'll see when I get that far I've got other projects on the go, but should be able to make (slow but) steady progress at the same time (in the absence of a proper workshop, I spend as much time getting stuff out and putting it away as I do acually using it, so I can take advantage when I have got some appropriate equipment out to piggy-back and do bits on this as I go along). When I next get the router out I'll whistle round the template for the finished outline

Lovely - wonderful choices of timbers and immaculately built! Andy

[quote name='paul h' timestamp='1431939596' post='2776298'] Fascinating stuff. Can't wait to see it finished! (Personally I would have planed the back and used it as a top. Just sayin') [/quote] Hi Paul Yes - as outlined above, that was one of the options considered but, as someone once said about our band's playing, "Andy, what I like about watching your band is that you're all always on the very edge of disaster...very exciting!" And I think we were only playing Kum By Ya! I think maybe some of that has rubbed off on my guitar and bass building

It was about this time that I began to notice the cracks...or should I say how many more there were and how quickly they were growing. On closer inspection, they were everywhere, mainly coming radially down from the edges of the darker figuring. The main bulk of the body seemed quite rigid, but I realised that the sooner the neck slot was done and the neck at least in position, the less likely that the body would fall apart during the machining...bearing in mind, to end up with a decent neck depth, the slot would have to be routed to within millimetres of the (wavy) top. So the next challenge was exactly how to clamp it and how to rout it, with both the bottom and top faces being uneven. Luckily, sitting on its face the four or five high spots left it sitting relatively flat. I built a mini sliding rig for my fabulous little Bosch router and mocked up how this might work. The body would be held (vaguely) with double-sided tape, but the clamping would need to be done using packing slivers to fill the various odd shaped voids underneath so that all the clamping force would be vertical rather than distorting the body around its central spine as the body material was removed. This had to be avoided at all costs because it would, at best, create an angled slot (bad) or more likely, at worst, break the back of the body (very bad). It was also a bit distracting because, all this time, Mrs Andyjr1515 was stomping around the house looking for the full length mirror that she was SURE was in the spare bedroom last time she looked. Still, I had much more serious stuff to deal with out on the patio... I couldn't put it off any longer...fingers crossed...

[quote name='scojack' timestamp='1431902754' post='2776128'] Jings you like challenge Andy ! My first thought was cheeseboard.... [/quote]

[quote name='scojack' timestamp='1431903054' post='2776131'] Just lacquering it now, nearly there.. [/quote] Brilliant - can't wait Andy

So it was agreed. Through-neck, slotting the body and laying that over the neck, with everything else possible bolted to the neck. Even here there were some challenges:[list] [*]How deep would the pickup be? Including any wires, the body was possibly going to be only a few mm deeper than the pickup chamber... [*]...which would, of course, cut right through the neck wood, separating the bridge from the neck (the continuity, of which, was the whole point of the through-neck) [*]There would be no room for pots, so it was going to be straight from pickup to jack [*]From professional experience, Tom’s preference was to use a Neutrik jack socket...now where was THAT going to go? [/list] The drawing said, though, that if everything was accurate enough, there would be JUST enough strength left to hold the thing together, providing the African timber was strong enough in the right planes and directions...and more of that later... But, whatever the drawings indicated, everything relied on the neck so a start was made Tom and I had agreed maple / colobolo / maple would provide a nice contrast, with a colobolo fretboard and headplate. I cut a maple blank in two, oriented it for strength and twist resistance and flattened it with sandpaper double-sided taped to a long straight aluminium beam. The cocobolo inner splice was to be joined in the centre of the neck and also scarfe jointed at the headstock end with the maple cut straight-grained. The theory here was to gain a bit of head-break resistance (including a modest volute) without a visible scarfe in the maple. I sanded the cocobolo and did a trial fit of the mating surfaces, including the centre overlapping join of the cocobolo: I was chuffed with this as it is the first time I've tried 100% hand-tools for this job I talked about sanding the cocobolo...here came the next challenge. Cocobolo is an absolute pig to work with! It is very oily and clogs up sandpaper and tools with a glassy waxy residue very, very quickly. More concerning, given the strength fears with this build, is that cocobolo is also difficult to glue . Some internet recommendations include wiping with acetone and then use normal titebond or similar - my test pieces failed gloriously with this method. Alternatively, and with a general concensus of more certainty, was gluing with epoxy!!! The concern with this build was always going to be strength, so epoxy it was. Lots and lots of 'proper' clamps later... (Note to self: I really must build some sort of workshop! ) The cocobolo had already been scarfe-joined before sandwiching, so last task was to simply lop off the excess maple from the top of the headstock area: So now we had the makings of a neck...and no more excuses by Andyjr for procrastination... Thanks for looking Andy

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1431854246' post='2775499'] It's like gripping episodes of an unfolding TV drama! [/quote] You mean (looking at Paul S's post) like The Simpsons...

So the first step was to decide whether this was feasible in the first place. What was perfectly clear was that a bolt-on neck was simply not going to be practical. There was no way of knowing how strong the African wood was...there were already cracks appearing in it...and, in any case, there simply wasn’t enough thickness for the neck itself and anything (however strong) to support it. That lead to basically three options: [list] [*]To flatten the back of the African wood and treat it as a drop-top to a fairly conventional mahogany or similar back. Feasible, it would work, it would look nice, but would end up as a ‘conventional’ drop-top bass. [*]To go for a visible through-neck, splitting the body either side of a laminated neck. Feasible, it would work, but much of the visual appeal of the wood would be lost due to the prominent through neck running the length of the body. [*]To see if it was[b] at all feasible[/b] to slot the back of the body and set in a through neck, leaving the body visually complete from the front (similar to how I will be doing the Bubinga build on my other thread) and retaining the appeal of this particular piece of wood - which was its very slenderness and wavy unevenness. [/list] It was this latter option I decided to explore further to see if it was even possible, given the dimensions. I traced round the shape and measured the thickness along the length of the body. Many rough sketches later, I was able to send Tom this as a concept: I could see lots of challenges ahead but – well – it just might work. Basically, the proposal was build a 'loaded' neck – everything that mattered for strength or functionality bolted to the neck - and slot the African body over it purely as decoration. I can fairly confidently say that you are unlikely to find this approach in any ‘how to design build a guitar or bass’ book – and probably with very good reason! Through exchange of a number of emails and sketches, Tom and I agreed that it would be worth a shot...but we were both well aware that the chances were high of complete failure. So, rather than posting a car crash in slow motion, we decided it would probably be best to keep the project under wraps until we knew what we were dealing with... ...and, boy, there was a lot we were dealing with! Thanks for looking Andy

My goodness, that's a lot of screw holes!

[quote name='wwcringe' timestamp='1431786419' post='2774993'] All I want to add at this point is... What does a ham sandwich sound like?? [/quote] Depends....with mustard it has a little more sustain....

I’ve mentioned a few times in past threads a project that I've been putting time into that was ‘under wraps’. Well – it is time to reveal all! This has been a journey of exploration – design wise and building techniques wise – that I think and hope a number of you may find of interest. Even though the bass is now pretty much complete, I will post this as a standard build thread and not reveal the final bass until the end. It is a bass for Tom, our very own wwcringe. Tom will add to the thread in terms of the background, origins and motivation, but my own involvement came in during a meeting on a Derby station platform last year after Tom had contacted me through BassChat. Tom wanted to meet to talk through ‘one or two thoughts’ he had of a possible build. At Derby station, we had an interesting chat about a number of topics (including violas!) and then he rummaged around in his bag and pulled out this: It was a bass body-shape made for him by some of his contacts in Africa following a conversation during one of his previous visits there. It’s a very pretty piece of wood but there were some immediate and obvious concerns:[list] [*]it was unclear exactly: what the wood was; what its strength was; what the tone might be; how stable it was [*]it was only 1” thick at its thickest ...and wavy...and uneven. The bottom of the neck pocket was less than 7mm thick [*]the carve was skilled, but had been done without knowledge of some of the specific critical dimensions needed in a bass build; [*]oh and yes, the neck pocket was too wide and too shallow to fit a standard neck anyway [*]in fact there wasn't[u] actually[/u] enough depth to fit a neck pocket...or pickups...or electrics...or jack... [/list] So all in all, there wasn't much chance of this being built into a bass at all... and even less chance of it staying in one piece. And even if it could be and did, would it sound like a ham sandwich? So, with all that, Tom asked, was Andy interested in taking it on? Yes - [b]of course[/b] Andy was interested in taking it on!

[quote name='tedmanzie' timestamp='1431721782' post='2774447'] Does the wetndry not leave a black residue on the bare wood? [/quote] Not if you use the proper stuff...

Top tip with tru-oil is to sand wet, using c 1000 grit wet n dry and using the tru-oil rather than water, to create a slurry. Then wipe it off and buff it immediately. When it's dried, repeat a couple of times - you will end with a silky smooth, satin feel neck that is to die for..

Well whatever it sounds like, it looks just right! Are you going to post some clips of the trio when you've honed the tone of this last one?

[quote name='Myke' timestamp='1431554101' post='2772647'] Looking good so far, you don't have many clamps on the body so you must have been pretty confident with the joint! [/quote] Yeah, never worry about clamping...take this headstock plate - almost nothing holding it on: Truth is that yes, the joint is pretty sound, but also, with two huge chunks of immovable wood, all you have to do is squeeze them together VERY tight - sash clamps are ideal. Where there is any flex possible, then you need plenty of clamps - and those being proper screw clamps too:

Sounds exciting to me!

[quote name='Joebethell' timestamp='1431551871' post='2772620'] The grain already looks great once you get your carve on its going to be stunning. [/quote] Thanks, Joe Kirk at www.exotichardwoodsukltd.co.uk picked me out the piece especially, trying to get as good a figuring as the Thumb tribute I did last year...I think he succeeded Andy

[quote name='allighatt0r' timestamp='1431533566' post='2772333'] It's a bit Iceni Zoot shaped, I like your adaptations. As always Andy, I love watching your work! [/quote] Hi, Bryan I see what you mean...at least it means I'm moving away from Thumb territory I'd not come across Iceni Zoot's before - there are some cool basses! Pity they seem to have stolen my design...I'll have to get the lawyers onto how you break the pre-existing issue Happily, mine will look NOTHING like that by the time I've tweaked my original design concept to death... ...in fact, if I get carried away it probably won't even look like a bass Andy

I'm waiting for some bits for the couple of other projects so took advantage of a dry morning to do a bit more on this. In the process, I have found the design limits of my cheap bandsaw (more of which later) First thing was to place the two halves of bubinga together, cut out the body shape out of some A2 paper and try the various permutations and combinations to find the best position for the best figuring, bearing in mind that the top will be curved along the axis which will expose some of the figuring underneath. I firmed up on this as the optimum position: I traced round the template placed in this position on the bubinga in felt-tip: I chose to rough-cut the two halves separately and then glue rather than the other way round mainly because of the size restriction on my bandsaw (the cheapo Clarke one from Machine Mart). This is where my bandsaw almost met it's limitation - especially as I suspect the blade wasn't overly sharp. Bubinga is VERY tough stuff and, due to the curve I will end up with on the body, you have to start off with it at maximum 'highest point to lowest point' thickness of 47mm. It weighs much the same as a breeze block in this condition . Well, my poor old cheapo band saw stalled, threw a blade, broke a blade, made pathetic dying noises, but eventually: In fact, I took this photo just before replacing the broken blade - you can see at the neck join area...so close and yet so far away.... Next was a final check of the mating surfaces and then Titebond and a pair of sash clamps, which is where it will stay overnight... I've also had some thoughts about a possible further design change - but I'll have a think about it before embarrassing myself in front of the forum ('he's going to do WHAT???!??!!') As always, thanks for looking Andy