Andyjr1515

Well, a bit of progress with the neck. Maple is here. Mahogany spices should be with me mid next week. And @Fishman is happy to sell me the Wal fretless fretboard I took off his Wal Pro 1e neck when I repaired the trussrod action and replaced it with an ebony fretted one a year or so as part of his Pro 1e refurbishment This is a shot back then after I'd managed to get it off in one piece: Should be with me next week By the way - ref the discussions earlier in the thread - you can see the major layer of carbon fibre on that model's neck. The really unusual thing is that this isn't fully resin encapsulated fibre which they used - underneath the surface, it's loose carbon fibres. There is a splendid video somewhere on the net of a guy trying to remove it all...what a mess!!! I did the sensible thing - I fixed the cracked carrier at the heel end to make the rod work again...and got the new fretboard on as quick as I could (and happily it worked fine )

Sorted

Got me to a T Richlite it is. What was I thinking (generally not about much)

I've just ordered another neck blank that will give me the right amount of depth to get the break angle I would feel more comfortable with (I can use the other one on another project that doesn't need the same depth)

Certainly am It looks and sounds GREAT in some of your Junkyard Dogs videos. Pretty slick playing in 'The House is Rocking' - that neck finish doing its stuff?

And...fret ends trimmed And why the clamp? Left to their own devices, the fret tangs in the slots would curve the fretboard. Normally, a small strip of double sided tape in the middle would hold the board to the beam. But, yes, this is Rocklite Richlite - and so... That said, the frets seem to be nicely held and it is very black. Just like the ebony of legend that the Vikings used to talk about around the camp fires of yore

And....all the frets are in And now work on the neck itself can start. I have a lovely piece of maple for the project but, I am going to explore the merits of getting a different piece before I start cutting. The problem is the depth. The piece is designed for a one-piece neck, which is what @fleabag is after...but those are usually cut to Fender-type proportions. And, because those have no headstock angle, the blanks tend to be relatively shallow. This is fine if you are going to use string trees/retainers - you can have a modest neck angle and the retainer provides the break angle on the longer string runs, like the one I recently did for Happy Jack's fretless: But it's not enough angle without. The above is around 3 degrees and I would be looking at around 10 degrees for one without retainers. So I need to order some more/different sized wood. That should come through pretty quickly and, in the meantime, I can be sorting the fret ends of the fretboard and the template for the 2-a-side headstock and so it should not impact on the overall timescales.

That's lovely! As you know, I'm a great fan of inks Ref unintentional staining, if you have very dark woods next to very light ones then slurry and wipe them individually, just up to the edge. But, because you are wiping the bulk off, and pretty much straight away, generally it isn't a problem.

Let's face it...it's all I deserve. That's MrsAndyjr1515's opinion, anyway

This is the general principle from the StomBoXed blog: The feed from the volume pot goes to A and the varying value capacitors are switched through one at a time, all with a common earth

The original Gibson Varitone (like on the EB-3) was a complicated little thingy electronically. I know because I built one from scratch (with a LOT of help from the clever folks round here ). Complicated and of dubious benefit for some of the switch settings (as @John Cribbin says above). But - if you want to be able to simply switch to a number of different capacitor values 'on full' with a rotary switch like the one you picture, yes - reasonably easy and relatively useful. There should be a few diagrams on Google. I'll have a peep when I get a chance if you can't find one.

By golly, this is tough stuff. I used a combination of jointer plane, block plane, micro plane, sanding block and full-length levelling beam to straighten up and narrow the sides by less than a mm each side. And it took best part of a couple of hours! There is, of course, a lot of taking it out of the bench vice and checking with the calipers (it had to be spot on - overshoot is not an option) but for an ebony board this would be a 30 minute job. And the fretting begins! A lot of builders add the frets after they glue the fretboard to the neck - and there are some advantages in doing that - but my preferred method (linked with the facilities I have and just a sequence that I find works best for me) is to fret the board first, level and bevel the edges and then glue the fretted board to the neck. And for this, I'm glad I've chosen it that way round. The amount of hammering needed is WAY heavier than for a wood board - and the stability from doing that on a flat solid surface is pretty essential. At the time of typing I'm over halfway - 10 still to do including the zero fret - but my hands are pretty comprehensively knackered so I'm going to call it a day and finish it off in the morning

Excellent! A great build and something that will stay in your and your son's memories for life

I do it too...and usually on my own threads

OK - one scary bit done - cutting the taper. I cut around 2mm oversize and then slowly sneak up on the final size with planes and sanding beams. This is at the 2mm oversize stage: Tomorrow, I will finish-size it and start on the fretting.

Hmmm...trouble is, the items I cover in oil and varnish aren't usually subjected to steam, splashes and hot mugs on a regular basis (well, other than those played in heavy metal bands) But if it was a bass that I knew would be caught in a rain shower every now and then... ...in terms of an oil finish for the timber colour and surface finish and then a polyurethane finish for the waterproofing, I would personally use Tru-oil followed by a decent polyurethane gloss. I would use the Tru-oil first as the grain filler by wet-and-dry wet sanding the piece, probably using around 300 grit where tru-oil is the 'wet' and then wipe off across the grain while still wet. This produces a slurry that very effectively fills voids and fissures. I would leave this overnight to harden off and repeat. I would then do a couple of 'slurry and buff' sessions - using 600-1000 grit wet and dry doing the same, but here I would wipe off ALL of the excess and immediately vigorously buff, along the grain, with a clean cloth to bring up a sheen. Again, I would leave a day after each. I would then leave it around a week to fully harden and then add the polyurethane varnish finish. But that's if it was a bass. And I wanted high gloss. If I wanted a satin finish, I would look at the Osmo Polyx range, especially the 3032 clear satin version, checking the water-resistance on their specs (I think it's probably good, but I've never had to consider it in a bathroom scenario). It is SUPER easy to apply (wipe on); low odour; brings out the depth of colour and ends up super tough. For best results, follow the application instructions ref drying times, etc.. I would NOT, however, recommend their gloss version. Used it once...'nuff said.

Well, maybe - but as most decent neck woods are quarter sawn, then I'm less sure about that. What we need is that guy in the video doing us a demo

Oh...and the grain direction of the timbers also makes a big difference. As I say - everything affects everything

Interesting video but, of course, only just touches the surface in terms of the decision making process. It's a big and fairly complicated topic because, like many things in a bass construction, everything affects everything (another way of putting my oft-quoted belief that 'guitars and basses are a series of compromises held together by hope' ) Absolutely. Two problems with going to or below 19mm: - A player issue: quite a few players will end up with hand cramp due to the position of the thumb and resulting muscle pull directions of the fingers. Some of that, of course, depends on your hand size - A practical issue: a truss rod slot is, as a rough minimum, 10mm deep at the adjuster position underneath the nut. The fretboards are usually around 6mm deep in the middle. The amount of wood underneath the trussrod for a 19mm deep is, therefore, 3mm max in the centre and less either side of the truss rod slot due to the curve of the neck profile. And just under the 1st fret is where the truss rod is applying all of its force downwards. And yes - trussrods sometimes come through the bottom of the neck... Not quite. If the laminate wasn't there, then it would be the base wood. So if it is a maple neck, then a mahogany or walnut splice will reduce the stiffness because those timbers bend more easily than rock maple. If it is a mahogany neck, then maple inserts will increase the stiffness. If it is a maple neck, then ebony inserts will increase the stiffness. Ditto the fretboard wood. And that - although how much of this is detectable to the average player (and almost always not detectable to the average audience ) is the topic of many debates - is why adding mahogany inserts to a maple neck is thought to add a touch of warmth and adding ebony inserts to a mahogany neck is thought to add a touch of mids and treble.

Never! And so am I, most of the time This is actually the first time I've worked with it so I am on a 'journey' as they say. Well - a quick look up on Google, it's clear that this type of product has been around for years and, I think, used in worktops, etc.. So you never know.

And running out of excuses to do the scary bit of cutting this to shape. Slots are deepened and the board is off the template: Oh - and a 'by the way'. I've promised @fleabag luminlays for the side dots. My small stash is running low and so I went onto the Luminlay site in Japan to order some more (they still haven't set up any distributor arrangements, as far as I can find out, in UK and Europe but the shipment from Japan is usually quick and efficient) but no...they can't ship to UK or Europe at the moment due to the flight route sanctions resulting from the invasion of Ukraine. I've spotted some on ebay shipping from the USA - I'll have to try that, costly or not.

I've learnt over the years that a stop-and-review approach is by far the best in this hobby. So before I cut the fretboard to shape - which means taking it off the fretting template - I'm going to do one additional thing. I'm going to put the board back into the mitre block and deepen the slots by a mm. The reason is that, because the Richlite is so tough, any slot that is even a smidge shallow would mean that the fret just isn't going to seat. With a wooden board, a decent enough whack with a hammer would sort minor variances (or so I'm told ) - but this would just bounce off. So that is what I'll be doing between naps today

I'd forgotten just how glorious this build is. No excuses now - we need to see this finished!

I think Richlite is, essentially, Ebonol. They are both paper based. The confusing (maybe intentional, maybe not) Rocklite Ebano is wood based. I actually own the first-in-the-world top back, sides and fretboard Rocklite Sundari guitar (the rosewood-look version) and it's very impressive. However, I've come across issues with some of the Ebano fretboards and personally hate the binding - I find the wood fibres are short and are almost impossible to bend without the fibres springing out, even on the non-taxing curves of an acoustic dreadnought. That said, Tonetech pretty much only sell that nowadays some presumably many folks find it OK. So far, though, for an ebony fretboard alternative I actually prefer this Richlite material even though it feels and looks less like wood than Rocklite. But for a rosewood alternative, the Rocklite takes some beating.

They recommend epoxy. No ironing this one off