Andyjr1515

Hmmm...but there might be a Plan C I've started the removal. Using single-bladed razor blades as scrapers - and then a proper cabinet scraper - to remove the goop of the main part of the neck allowed me to start sanding without the paper clogging up within seconds. After an hour of sanding, I'm down to 'largely wood' where the black is from the first coat of Fiebings that was properly absorbed into the freshly sanded wood. But to get to fully clean wood will need a fair bit of wood removal. Which is fine - except for the heel where I don't want to lose any of the width. And that got me thinking. Long-term followers of my threads will know that my favourite stain is permanent fountain pen ink. Well, that was discounted on this project because it is generally not thought to be the 'blacker than black' that @fleabag is after. But...well, at least for the heel, worth a try? So here's what Quink does: Looks pretty black to me! And it's fully dry. And it has fully absorbed into the timber even though there is the residual Fiebings there. And I KNOW that polyurethane has no adverse reaction at all to it. For the sake of an afternoon lost if I'm wrong, I'm up for trying it all over...

And.... (drumroll) ...actually, the drummer can go and get a cup of tea. Actually, the drummer can probably go for a short away-break We've found the fatal flaw with Fiebings. When I did the sanding for the extra coats, I did wonder. I was expecting black and dusty on the sandpaper. Instead, it was black and lacquery blobs gumming up the paper almost immediately. More like a coating than a stain. And sure enough - I think that it is, used like this, much more of a coating than a stain. And add polyurethane varnish, it fully softens. And two days later it is still the consistency of warm tar - black and sticky and no sign whatsoever of curing. And for a neck - even if it started to harden - that's no good. It was worth a try, because that was blacker than any 'normal' black stain. But not suitable for this job. So we are back to Plan A, which is that @fleabag will get it sprayed. So, just got to get three coats of warm tar off** and we're away! **Hmmm... better tell the drummer to make his short away-break not that short...

Lovely!

@funkle and I have been PM'ing and come to a mutual conclusion - we're not going to use the Wal fretboard after all! On its own, the heel end being a bit narrower than a standard 'Fenderish' neck pocket isn't a big issue. But when we added up the other factors, it clearly wasn't going to be the best route: - I calipered it and actually it is 4mm narrower. Under a pickguard that is not a problem...but the donor body @funkle is using is probably temporary. And the body he will probably move to won't have a pickguard. - Added to that, the width at the nut of the Wal board is wider than @funkle's ideal. Oh - and at 4mm slimmer at the heel end, it would need to be a narrow-spaced bridge. - And the fretless board, of course is going to need to be fretted anyway. - And..and..and......and so it became quite clear, quite quickly that, actually, a new rosewood board was a better option. So there will be a short delay while I get hold of a blank - but then we'll get steaming ahead again!

Very much so. It's a common problem which is why they sell the specific washers that fit

Yes - you should find that it unscrews completely. You then pop one or two washers over the threaded end and screw it back on.

Those look right to me. Odd description but it is the small outside diameter that is key - much smaller than a standard M5 washer.

I think it has the type of truss rod with a brass nut? There are a number of things that may have happened, but it maybe that the nut has bottomed on the thread of the rod. If so, Fender sell spacer washers (the inside and outside dia's are a bit unusual which is why standard washers are no good. It says something, though, that Fender sell them...) that you pop under the nut to give it a few more turns before bottoming. Worth a try...

That is looking splendid, @benh Great job

I've just exchanged pm's with @bass_dinger about the process and potential issues with trussrods and how I might be able to help. It might be of general interest, so I've copied and pasted some of that here below and with a few extra points for a more general answer to the topic Making and modding guitars and basses is my hobby and over the years I've managed to rescue a number of necks and seized, ineffective or broken truss rods. Depending on what type of rod it is and what specifically is the problem determines the options open to try. A 'traditional' one-way rod with removeable nut, for instance, that has run out of adjustment, can often be sorted with a spacer-washer added to allow the rod to bend a little further. Sometimes that's enough (although it is a symptom or something else that has moved, dried, warped that resulted it in bottoming on the trussrod thread in the first place). In the case of a modern two-way rod with a welded adjuster, though, it is quite often the case that the fretboard needs to be removed, the rod replaced and the fretboard reglued. To remove the fretboard involves heating it up to soften the glue and progressively ease a thin steel sheet under the board gently easing the board away from the neck. There are risks. Sometimes, depending on the way the fretboard has been made, the fretboard breaks. Also, it depends on the glue used. Some makers (not Washburn IMHO) use epoxy and those boards have to be planed off and a new fretboard made. Both of these possibilities, however, are rare and the neck can generally still be saved by cutting and fitting a new fretboard. And, it sometimes turns out that the truss rod problem is the effect rather than the cause and that the neck itself has an irresolvable issue. But again, that is pretty rare. Often, once the fretboard has been removed, then the root cause can be fixed - a set bend can often be planed flat; a split in the wood can often be secured; a broken rod can usually be replaced Removal of the fretboard sounds scary! Well - there are risks as mentioned, but generally it is relatively straightforward. This is a Gillett Contour where Gillett Guitars asked me if I could remove a fretted fretboard and make them a replacement fretless fretboard for a customer - it's the same process. Here I am ironing off the fretted fretboard - takes around an hour taking it nice and steady, heating a fret's worth at a time and walking the thin steel sheet up progressively. Celluloid dots will generally need to be replaced but MoP or clay dots generally are 'untroubled' : Here it is off. In the case of a trussrod replacement, the rod cap would now be taken off, truss rod replaced, cap replaced and then the fretboard reglued. In the event that the neck has a set curve in it, I would plane it back flat at this stage: And then the fretboard re-glued (in this case it was the ebony fretless board I'd made for it): It then depends on the neck finish, but with luck, there is very little impact on the neck itself - masking the neck when the board is glued back on, it is usually just a case of carefully scraping off the glue squeeze-out flush and wiping along fretboard edge with a cloth moistened with the an appropriate finish (gloss, matt or oil)

Probably. These things are usually fixable although there are risks to the fretboard. But, all going well, it should be around a tenth of the cost you've been quoted. I'll pm you in the morning.

M4 is plenty. Remember that the 'standard' woodscrews have only a 3mm core and the stainless steel machine screws (I use A2) are much stronger per mm than woodscrews. I saw an Auster light aircraft tubular mainframe once. I reckon that the holes in the engine lugs were around 5mm...and just four of those held the engine on!

A bit more progress on the neck. The spoked-wheel trussrod should be with me early next week. I know the dimensions and so it was out with the router table again to add the trussrod slot (end-of-heel access): Next, using a larger bit, taking around 5mm off the top of the headstock for a 'Fenderish' zero-angle-with-string-trees arrangement. Safety first on this kind of task, keeping hands WELL away from that bit (Tip: Before you take ANY action, ask yourself, "What could go wrong?" and "If it did go wrong, would I be in the wrong place?" While you can't always prevent stuff going wrong, nevertheless you can usually make sure no part of you or anyone else is going to be in the wrong place if it does... ) Next, onto the bandsaw: And why have I left the excess at the heel? Well - @funkle and I will be discussing the dimensions of the pocket on the body he is planning to use - and if it is a standard Fender dimension pocket, that is larger than the Wal. So there will be the choice of modifying the pocket or having the heel of the neck wider than the fretboard. Either way, a generous excess at this stage is probably prudent - it's easy to take stuff off, but it's more difficult to put it back

And so fully dried overnight and then this morning a decent sanding of 240 up to 500 grit to sort the risen grain and another coat. This needs to full dry, but may well be the last coat needed: Very close to being finished!

They say there are no certainties in life But I'm certain about that one.

Well...I don't think @fleabag and I are going to need the cunning plan for the staining. That's what I call black! One coat only so far... Mind you, I might need a cunning plan to find the luminlay dots again for @fleabag to wave his magic wand at!

Next task is levelling and re-crowning/polishing the frets. Basically, the neck is adjusted to as straight as possible and then a sanding beam is used to take any unevenness out. You stop once the emery is just skimming all frets in all places and then move onto using a rocker to check for any high spots. That done, I use emery and progressively finer micro-web wrapped round my crowning file to re-crown, get rid of the scratches and polish: 10 done, 12 to go. I'll finish those later this afternoon to give the pain from my f*****g (****** = lippin) arthritis a chance to ease off. And then...I think it's the last job, the staining

Normal (although, admittedly, Andyjr1515 and normal in the same paragraph is clearly an oxymoron ) On a particularly wide bridge/narrow nut neck, I would tend to taper the runs but you then have to consider whether a passing string is going to foul one of the other set of windings. It sort of depends.

Drilling the tuner holes - more detail than most normal folks need or want but for anyone setting out on this crazy pastime... @fleabag had given me the basic layout of the 2-a-side tuner arrangement he was after, needing 14mm holes drilling in the four positions. It's always useful to have actual tuners to hand rather than just rely on drawings and, while I don't have the actual tuners that he will be using, I have a fairly representative set in my bits box. This method below assumes that the builder is working within a given shape. Note though that, generally, a builder would sort where the tuners need to be and then design the shape of the headstock to fit within that layout. In this case @fleabag has given me the shape he would like, but actually that's fine because it is relatively generic and therefore will still 'work'. And so - the plan is to have straight string runs. So the first thing is to take a template of the headstock and draw a centre line along the centre of the fretboard to the end of the headstock. Then, with the nut or spacer, it is to draw where the inside of each string will meet its respective tuner peg: So in this pic, for the two bass strings, the line is from the left hand side of each slot and for the treble strings it is the right hand side of the slot. If you draw from the middle of the nut slot, then the tuner peg will end up with half a strings-width offset. For electric guitars and also a bass G string, that would be unnoticeable, but for the thicker strings of a bass, it matters. Next is to decide where the tuners are going to be positioned along the length. Here, what matters is: - are the tuners going to be close enough to the edge of the headstock to allow the tuners to turn? - are they going to be too close to the edge of the headstock and leave the body of the tuner hanging in mid air? - are they far enough from each other to avoid clashing with the one next to them, both at the tuner knob wings or at the back, body to body? This is an arrangement that would fit @fleabag's general concept and still meets the above criteria: So now, with a pair of compasses set to the radius of the tuner peg size of @fleabag's tuners, I can draw where the centre point of the tuners will need to be: This might make it easier to envisage what I meant at the beginning. Note that the inside edge of each string is now going to be contact with the correct side of its tuner peg so, however thick the string is, the nut to tuner run will still be straight. Next is to lay the template over the headstock and use a sharp punch to mark the centre point on the headstock plate: Then to the drill press. It is blocked up and checked with a spirit level to ensure that the headstock is level across both axes. Generally, there still needs to be some judicious light filing with a round file for the final fitting (especially a 14mm tuner spigot fitting a 14mm hole) but that task is a lot more difficult if the hole isn't perpendicular And that's it, done:

After a few days catching up with family and domestic stuff, I'm back in the cellar. Which, after a few days catching up with family and getting involved in the domestic stuff, MrsAndyjr1515 says is the best place for me. All being well, I'll be able to get this to staining and ready for return stage by the end of tomorrow. Knocked off a couple more 'to-do' items this morning: Added a third magnet to the trussrod cover to make sure the apex doesn't lift and get caught on something and drop off when @fleabag gets overtaken by the beat and starts flinging the bass around the stage: And the sanding is approaching staining level:

I think the only issue - and this is almost only related to maple - is that the grain lines are SO unabsorbent, that they are almost impossible to hide with a stain, however good, and even with multiple applications. My test piece illustrates: This has had 4 applications, fully dried in between. In real life, the black is blacker than black! However, fear not! In the event this happens on the actual neck, @fleabag and I have a very cunning plan

Haven't done a lot on the neck over the last few days but most of the coming week will be devoted to finishing @fleabag's neck and making decent progress with this one. The one thing I did do, though, while the equipment was still out on the bench, was run the neck blank through the thicknesser - just to ensure both surfaces were completely flat and to check that there weren't any duff glue joints. This looks OK And trimming the end shows the grain enough to perhaps better explain why there was the conversation earlier about the number of maple splices and how they are arranged: When solid, all of the grain will have been at the same angle, like the grain direction that you see on the left hand section above going like this ///////// . And the grain direction is a key factor to which direction the timber would move as temperature/humidity/aging variations occur. So the principle is: - if the timber with the grain like this //////// ,when subjected to temperature change, humidity change or just natural drying over time, has a tendency to bend, say, <- this way, then if you flipped it to \\\\\\\\\, then it will, instead, have a tendency to bend -> this way - so if you have one piece going \\\\\\\\\\ and join it to a piece going ///////// then you end up with grain that goes \\\\\\\\\///////// And now the bending tendency goes like this <--> ....which cancels each other out - and so - even in extremes of temperature or humidity change - it will stay straight. And that is probably why Wal go to the bother of splitting and joining that centre section. And I presume that a Wal is also as above, so you have the same effect between every one of the four pieces, ie //////\\\\////\\\\\\ And what about the mahogany? Well, it is straighter grained, softer, thinner and weaker and any tendency for that to bend would be fully counteracted by the maple.

All seems to be gap free and straight Over the weekend, I'll pop it through the thicknesser to get the surface flat and even for the next steps.

I couldn't have put it clearer myself And the result is: All of the squaring up, saw cut losses, etc have lost me a net 3mm of headstock width but that will not affect either the functionality or the overall look (lightly pencilled here) The flowery glass is less about me reaching into my domestic side as much as finding out that toughened glass chopping boards from Dunelm are ideal as dead flat surfaces for initial glue levelling/chisel sharpening/etc. The sandpaper and leather for the latter can be seen stuck to the other side

Hang on! Something a bit odd here??? It's alright - don't panic...there's madness in my method in my madness. It's all about keeping everything straight. The glue dampens the timber, that expands and, given the length and narrowness of the 4-piece centre section, this drying can easily allow the section to bend. The narrower the section, the more susceptible it is to bend. So if I cut the relatively thin top section of the neck and then glue it, the same can happen and when that dries, there can be a small bend left...and now that is wider, that can be a divil to sort. But there is no chance that the centre section is going to bend the above maple blank. So it's now dry, it's straight and when I do now cut it to width, it is that much wider...and that should tame any residual tendency to bend. Leastways, that's the theory So this afternoon, I will make the final cut, plane the cut edge, flip it to get the grain mirrored and glue it to the bare mahogany face and that should mean that the basic blank is fully glued up.