Andyjr1515

Neck-wise, the fretboard's got to come off. Another 24 hours with major clamping and trussrod adjusted to help, still a back bow of 1.5mm with the trussrod still in tension. Just to make sure I hadn't had an aberration and originally put the rod in the wrong way up, I loosened it back to the mid point. The back bow was back to 2mm either end - exactly the same as before the clamping. I'm also bothered that the trussrod has now been under a lot of strain for a long time so the best course of action is to take the fretboard off, take the rod out, and see what the underlying neck is doing, fix, replace with new rod and re-glue the fretboard. All being well, the board will be off later this morning.

Oh, that's a shame. But we've all done it I've said in the past that it's not so much that we make less mistakes the more we build, as much as that we get better at fixing them! Repair sounds a good option

Why do you think I've scraped that paint off under the bridge

Oh - I can assure you I've missed more than that Think Hollywood film sets...

Great news on all counts

Knobs on order, straplock ferrules on order, battery sorted, neck still clamped...well, may as well start the final flattening and buffing of the nitro. The flattening is with progressive grades of wet and dry emery and micro-mesh from 800 grit up to 6000 used wet: After that, it's a rigorous workout of Meguiers Ultimate Compound applied with a bobbly (like a facecloth) micro fibre and polished off with a clean lint-free cloth. It's not perfect, and it's not finished, but there are fewer areas for me to have to be judicious with when it comes to camera angles

Yes - managed to track down a bit of packing foam sliver of blue polymer-matrix designed to act as a frequency-neutral sonic substrate to the battery power source. And it doesn't pop the magnet-held hatch off either! Everything stays in place just as it ought to - think Harmony Hair Spray without the hair..., er, or the spray

Low-tech is never a problem with an Andyjr1515 build Foam rubber is on the top of my list but I need to make sure it will stay in the chamber or it will pop the magnet-held hatch off

While the neck continues to be clamped (after a day, I'm not sure there has been much change - I think I'll be taking the fretboard off over the weekend...), still a few things to be sorted on the body. The built-in battery compartment works well - just need to sort a simple method of stopping it rattling round in its chamber:

The control hatch will be attached with neodymium magnets - 4mm in the body lugs and 3mm on the hatch. Folks tend to spend a lot of time measuring and remeasuring and sorting all sorts of ways of marking which way round each magnet goes. I find that far too much like hard work and so I use...magnetism! First I drill an accurate 4mm hole in the lug to a depth of just deeper than two magnets. I pop a drop of CA glue in the bottom and use a cocktail stick to press a 4mm magnet fully home: I then make a thin ziggy-zaggy packer with some emery paper offcuts: I pop the packer into the hole and drop a 3mm magnet on the top. Because it's magnetic, it orientates itself. I make sure it's level, in line with the 4mm chamber and slightly proud: Finally, I pop a drop of CA glue on the upper face and then place the hatch into the recess and hold it down for a few minutes. I lift the hatch and, all being well, the magnet is stuck on. Three done, three to go: Finally, I wick a teeny drop of thin CA around the hatch magnet for additional security, winkle out the ziggy-zaggy packer and move onto the next one. No measuring, no orientation problems, all 6 magnets in exactly the right place More of a challenge is the thing that I was expecting to be the most straightforward. I noticed when I strung up the bass to check the bridge position that the trussrod had to be adjusted quite a bit to forward bow for the strings not to rattle. When I took the neck off again, I loosened the truss rod to its neutral point and popped the levelling beam on it. To my surprise, there was 2mm of back bow in the neck when the truss rod was fully released - more than the strings would straighten and hence the need to put forward bow on the truss rod when the strings were fitted. I checked with @Happy Jack whether he had found that he had suffered any buzz or rod issues when he was playing it, but the answer was negative. But he does play a lot of basses in a lot of venues, so it is possible - as a number of bass and guitar owners have found this year - that it took on a set during the hot weather and hadn't been played since. If so, as the first port of call, it may well be able to be straightened simply by applying pressure in the opposite direction for a few days and get the maple to remember where it used to be! Then the strings should be able to take over their normal job of trying to get the neck to add a bow, and the truss rod resisting to end up straight. That's in train - this will sit on my spare table for the next few days and see if it sorts it: The clamp has been tightened to put a couple of mm forward bow on the neck - with the truss rod adjusted to be applying no force. It will sit like this for a few days and then I will release the clamps and re-centre the truss rod. All being well, the back bow will have gone. If, however, it simply springs back to the 2mm of back bow, then Plan B has to come into play...which is removal of the fretboard, flattening of the neck and then reglue of the fretboard. Not the end of the world but fingers crossed that it won't need that extra work Other than that, I think it's pretty close. I have some Dunlop flush straplock ferrules on their way, just about to order the knobs, I'll be buffing up the finish in this coming week and, all being well ref the neck, assembling it for final hook up and set up...

When it's fully dry after your final buff-up, do yourself a mockup and give yourself a bit of 'air bass' playing time. It'll tell you which option it wants you to pick. Either will look great (that really is a nice piece of ash) so it's more about how you feel playing it. And no-one else can decide that

Yes - spot on. You're doing a good job on it. So, for folks who were looking for silky smooth satin, it would take just one more wet 'n dry with a small amount of tru-oil and, say, 800 grit and then immediate vigorous buffing to dry it off and create the final sheen. It's then left overnight to harden and buffed again...and that's it! For the Ronseal Hardglaze gloss treatment, it's similar, except that, after buffing, you then leave it for 3-4 days minimum to fully dry before beginning the Ronseal wipe treatment covered above

Yes - that's looking good

Cup of tea with three bags of sugar...

3.12kg according to t'internet

Bit of a shocker weight-wise, though...with all the coats of epoxy and nitro and now with most of the actual hardware and bits in place or at hand, it's crept up to a predicted playing weight of 6lbs 14oz! Must be those Elites - great value, but clearly weigh a tonne! Time for the helium...

I don't see why not as long as you don't have the truss rod access that end

Why, thank you!

Today was bridge fixing and testing the longer-term security of the neck fixings. First job was using my long steel rule both to position the bridge for length and also to ensure that it is lined up left/right to give similar clearance between the G and B strings and their relevant fretboard edges: The bridge has three screw holes. I used a 4mm s/steel bolt and insert for the centre hole and two 3mm bolts/inserts for the two outer ones. That fitted, a trial fitting with the strings: Don't get too excited - there's still quite a lot to do. The neck angle has to be tweaked to ensure that the saddles have the right kind of action range for the final set up but at this stage, I will leave it at playing tension overnight and see if the tension on the neck bolts 'relaxes' at all. The reason it might is that I have no idea just how resilient paulownia is to crushing - if the ferrules crush the wood in the heel, then the neck bolts will loosen a touch and I may need to insert some hardwood plugs. But it if holds full playing tension, then there will be no need for that. Strings-wise, @Happy Jack suggested we took a punt on a set of Elites Bass flatwounds. Very affordable and my first impressions are that they are pretty good! I'm not sure that the B string got the memo that it was going to be in an extra-long set... I am hoping/expecting that there is enough full width string underneath for me to be able to just take the silks back a cm: The string retainer won't be put into use until I've finished messing about and strung it up for real. So next job, assuming I don't have to add the heel hardwood plugs, is fettling the fretboard (I'll do a quick levelling to take out any irregularities/string marks/etc) so that is ready for determining the final neck angle tweak and setup. Then there are the strap buttons/locks and knobs to sort. Then wire it all up Then polish it ready for going home to Jack's

It's looking very good, @carlsim. I reckon by the time you've finished you will be pretty close to the above Ref the tinted nitro lacquer - if you're going to try that, test it on some scrap first. Of all of the fussy, shallow and petulant finishes that don't like mixing with finishes not of their social standing, nitro is the worst by a country mile!

If you've followed my build threads, I often mention that I do an initial finish coat quite often as a 'reveal' coat. The finish soaks into scratches, etc showing them even when they were invisible previously. I would treat that first coat as a reveal coat. When you do the finish sanding, go with the grain and progress carefully down to the finer grades so that each grade is removing the scratches left by the previous one. Gives you a chance to get rid of the missed primer too...

I'm probably (ie I am sure I am) over generalising. But certainly, the ones that Tonetech sold a few years ago, Tak Rag, (maybe they've changed the product, but the packaging looks the same on today's web site), left visible tacky residue bits on the surface of a number of guitars and basses in my early days. I stopped using tack rags and the problems stopped. And work-wise, I used to run a number of aluminium extrusion manufacturing and powder coating plants. In the coating plants, we used 'industry standard' tack cloths as part of the process immediately prior to the racks going into the paint booths. Paint quality rejects were high and I organised a full study of what was going wrong where. It was the tack rags. They tried a few alternatives but ended up - to everyone's surprise - switching to decorators pasting brushes. Rejects were reduced by 75%. I'm sure that there are other factors in both cases but, for my guitar and bass finishing, dust buggies - which were the bane of my finish jobs - pretty much disappeared as soon as I moved to using the glass-grade micro fibre cloths and away from the variety of tack cloth types that I'd previously tried.

As @JGTay also says, tackcloths do exactly what they say...they leave tack all over the surface. It sounds like madness, I know. And it is madness.

OK - wiping on poly. I've covered this is the past but it's worth covering again to also highlight some of the tweaks I tend to do now, especially as Ronseal have changed their formulation for their old-fashioned Hardglaze Polyurethane Varnish to reduce the volatiles a touch, and that has changed some of the things I tend to do. Generally, as said above, I basically prepare the timber for varnishing with the Tru-oil Slurry and Wipe or Slurry and Buff methods. The good thing about the Ronseal Hardglaze is that it's not reactive with what is on the wood in the first place - nitro, for example, will bubble and craze at the drop of a hat and I HATE working with fussy finishes!! It's easy to use but, like all of these sorts of things, it's the little tips and tricks that make the difference. So here are the tips and tricks I've picked up along the way * So once the Tru-oil has properly dried (1 week minimum, preferably 2) I get out the Ronseal Hardglaze and White Spirits. *It is important to thin the varnish for wipe on or similar methods. The idea is to put on multiple THIN coats. I used to thin with up to 50% white spirits. I find, with the new formulation, 20% - 30% is the highest that I usually go to. I start at 20% and see how I get on. *Nowadays, I use one of two methods - the artists fan brush seen above, which I usually get from Hobby Craft: or - A pad made from strips of old T shirt, or the excellent Halfords Non-lint Polishing Cloths pictured, wrapped inside some more cloth with a rubber band like French Polishers, etc, use: * I am scrupulous about dust control. The 'Glass' microfibre cloth in the first pic is what I use to wipe the surface just before a coat of varnish. EVERY time. * I place the guitar or bass body on a box or similar so I can access the upper surface and sides and turn the whole thing round by moving the box, not touching the bass body. A shoe box is ideal! : * I varnish back and sides first, then when dry, top and sides * Either using the brush, wiped of excess each time, or the cloth pad, squeezed of the major excess, I brush or wipe in full length strips before recharging the brush or pad to do the next strip. The direction is always along the grain and with a slight overlap. *I gently run my finger round the bottom edge to wipe off any drips that might be forming: * I let it dry, then turn it over and do the other main face and sides. * Thinning the varnish will make it dry faster. I tend to manage one side first thing in the morning and flip it over and do the other side in the evening. After less than a week, the top and back will have had at least 5 coats each and the sides 10 coats * If the coats are thin enough, there shouldn't be an accumulation of ripples. But if there are - or loads of dust buggies - then every 3 coats or so once dry, I lightly sand wet (with water this time) with 2000 grit emery or similar using a cork sanding block. I make sure that all of the slurry is wiped off and the surface is completely dry before applying the next coat. * After 5 or 6 coats, it's time for the final 'flattening' (the above wet and dry treatment) which is to get the surface flaw-free, and then I do a couple of wiped coats to get the gloss. NOTE - it is the last couple of coats that gives you the gloss. With polyurethane varnish of this type you DO NOT BUFF. If you do, the buffing will scrub off that glossy layer and expose the sanded layers beneath. * If the final coats don't look right, I simply flatten with the wet and dry again and do the last couple of gloss coats again. I stop when I get a coat that looks OK. * I then leave it for at least 2 weeks (preferably 3) and give it a final polish with Meguiers Ultimate Compound from Halfords. The bass I will be bringing to the Southwest Bass Bash was done with the above method (this one using the wipe method rather than the fan brush): From memory, this had around 10 wipe coats each side and probably 3 final 'flatten then wipe the last couple of gloss coats' attempts.

Ready for the hatch magnets, I used a plug-cutter in some maple offcut: Then got the bandsaw to work: And next, readying it up for popping a couple of line-up strings on, the tuners back on and the neck temporarily fitted. This is also a good test to see how well the paulownia stands up to the crush of the fixing screws. There is a fallback if they aren't able to hold the tension - drill out and insert some hardwood plugs - but I don't want to do that unless I have to. I can hear it already: 'Were you standing on the cupboard??????!!!!!' : While these shots probably belie the progress - there is still a fair bit to do - I think we're getting to the final straights... Next job is positioning and fixing the bridge.