Andyjr1515

Well, it doesn't half make it easier when you have an exact scale template to hand The maple is AAA (top) grade from David Dyke - it's important for a single piece neck, especially a 5 string, that the grain is completely straight and the timber length is aberration-free. I've lined up the neck exactly to the grain direction - the green line at the top on the above photo is where I will plane the slight angle off so my datum is also exactly in line with the grain: With around a mm oversize, all except that datum length is cut out on the bandsaw. The extra lines you see here are David Dyke's pencil template lines for them to position and cut the blank to. Happily, I know which one's are mine (and hence the green pen!) : So why that datum face? This, being parallel to the centre line, is what I will use - running along the guide fence on the router table - to cut the truss rod slot Well then, pretty much done. Agreed it's a bit on the chunky side, but I think @Happy Jack will soon get used to it once I've hammered those 6" nails in...

And so, back from grandparenting duties, back to the necks and back to bare wood! And a second go, this time with the inks. Colour match isn't quite as close but it is much, much more even and still feels just as silky smooth: Time to move onto the fretless!

Nice job, done well

Lovely job

Interesting concept ref the string length. How short scale are you thinking?

I might, of course, be wrong. That said, all of the photos I've ever seen of that model have headstock adjustment with the plug and small hole. A single action headstock adjustable would have a bullet nut. I am a great fan of Squiers - stunning bang for the buck and excellent in absolute terms too, IMHO.

Apologies - I'm late to the party on this one! I'm pretty sure the Squier VM's have a modern 2-way truss rod and so, as said above, the washer fix isn't relevant as the adjusting nut on these rods are welded to the rod. The washer method only applies to single action trussrods with a removeable nut. If the rod is 'maxed out', there are things you can try, but they may or may not help. The first thing to try is to put a set 'backbow' into the neck by taking the neck off, putting the nut and heel end of the fretboard upside down on some blocks and, with the truss rod still tightened as it is now, putting some weight in the middle of the neck to bend the neck the opposite way from the way the strings are trying to pull it. A couple of 1kg bags of sugar or a single large (2.5kg) bag of flour is probably enough - but not too much - weight. This is left like this for a day or two. With luck, the wood will hold at least some of that bend when the weight is taken off and give you a little bit of a reduction of the neck relief when the neck and strings are back on.

This is going to look great!

Yes, it certainly will Going to be a beaut!

Very interesting indeed! Thanks - I'll investigate, especially next time I'm after something 'strident'! And yes, paper/wood is the same material and so the characteristics of inks - and watercolours, which I'd never thought about - on the two media will be similar. Certainly, the two or three where I've used red calligraphy ink should last at least as long as the Lindisfarne Gospels or I will, indeed, demand my money back! In the first 8 of the 1300 years, they do indeed seem to be just as bright as the day they were done. I'm optimistic of the result

Nah...close but no cigar. I put a couple of coats of oil on and then, this morning, slurry and buffed it up. The good news is that it feels great! The bad news is that the stain is acting like a coating rather than a stain and that isn't what I'm after at all. For some reason I thought that the Chestnut stains didn't do that (I have used them before a number of times but not on an amber neck) but they do and it compromises the effect I'm after. So off it has to come! And so - although it will probably be a few days before I get back to it - I'm going to sand back to bare wood and go back to my preferred stain - pen ink. Yes - good old fountain pen ink! Being water based, ink really does soak into the wood surface rather than sit on top of it. I've used pen ink many times and there are great advantages: there are a myriad of colours; you also don't have to pre-mix the colours to get a particular shade - you can literally wipe on one colour and then wipe on the second colour; it is very cheap and so you can afford to try multiple combinations without breaking the bank. The only disadvantage is that there are some colours that fade - but there are fountain pen forums (yes - really) and some where folks do fade tests on a makers' full ranges (we are talking dozens and dozens), so it is pretty straightforward to avoid the ones that fade. @TheGreek 's 'Silk' bass, from a good many years ago, was done with ink...still orange, Mick? I have yellow and amber inks here so will be able to redo @Happy Jack 's neck as soon as I get back to it and then move onto the fretless

The amber in the original finish will have been sprayed over the clear primer - and any 'proper' builder would strip the whole thing down and replicate that But then you have issues of losing all of the decals, etc etc. And I don't have any spray expertise or equipment anyway But also, we are trying to get a much more slinky feel to the neck - which is why I'm going this route. Stains, though, have their own foibles, not least the degree to which the adsorption differs between end grain, straight grain, knots and ripples in the timber. Which is a long way of going about saying, 'there's something a bit odd with the stain at the volute' I may be able to sort this or it may turn out to be a case of 'it is what it is'. The nice thing about this method is that you can work further on particular areas even when the rest of it is finished. Here it is, with the first sealing coat of oil on it (I will add 2-3 of these and then slurry and buff the hardened oil as part of the process). Trust me - it works The finished neck will be satin rather than this coat which has a touch more gloss in it. Colour match-wise, it is pretty close when you see it against the fretboard: As the saying goes, maybe 'close enough for jazz'? And then, finally, the timber has arrived for the fretless neck from David Dyke: In absolute terms, you don't get a lot for your £100+...but in relative terms, this is beautiful timber hand picked by David's team. And for necks, you can't take chances. I now just have to make sure I don't massacre it...

So, with the extra Chestnut Spirit Stain (Yew) arrived, here is the cunning plan: - Jack ideally would like a 'silky smooth but still feels like wood' finish at the back of the neck. Normally, builders would favour a 'slurry and buff' application of Tru-oil, which achieves just that. - The conventional wisdom is that you can't stain a slurry and buff bit of wood, because the slurrying (using wet and dry abrasive where the wet is Tru-oil) will just sand the stain right off. But when did conventional wisdom...nay, wisdom...ever come into my builds and mods?? - The back and sides will be finished, but stopping short of the headstock and the concealed info on the back of the heel: - The stains I will be mixing are both Chestnut Spirit Stains (Yellow and Yew) and will be a trial-and-sandoffagainifitdoesntwork process to try to get a colour that is at least in the right ballpark (it won't be an exact match) - First I will need to make sure that every last bit of the fiendish and invisible primer spray that a lot of commercial builders use is off, because I need bare fresh wood for the stain to soak into - The fretboard and headstock front will be unaffected: It should be stained and the first couple of applications of the Andyjr1515wingingit method done before the end of today. The other bit of news is that, in about an hour's time, the timber for @Happy Jack 's fretless neck should be arriving (although probably a week before I will be able to start work on that one)

You can't imagine how long it took me on photoshop to make it look like it was a close fit!

Excellent result!

We're still fine tuning the shape of the headstock, but it is likely to be in the Firebird/Thunderbird ilk. The original Trini Deluxes seem to have had a number of variations but most appear to have had something like the Firebird. This will be fitted with the Steinberger banjo replacements so, within reason, the wood can be any shape. Also the neck carve is basically done. Jack took me some profiles from his favourite playing guitar and I've used those to try to gain a familiarity of feel with this build. I use a combination of spokeshave, micro-plane blade and cabinet scraper to creep up towards the shape: The chalk line along the spine is so that I never dig into the spine which would affect the neck depth. The neck carve is my favourite part but is often too quickly done and gone! And then the preparatory work on the finishing of the body. I use a rough version of the Tru-oil slurry and buff method early on to act as a: - grain fill / gap fill / sanding sealer - 'reveal coat' to show up any glue residue, sanding marks etc. To do this, I sand with some brutal 120 grit emery (with the grain always) used wet where the wet is lashings of Tru-oil. You end up with a slurry of wood dust that is then wiped off and allowed to dry. Even at this early stage, it's showing some promise

The Luminlays come in stick form and - as long as you have an accurate brad-point drill - are very easy to fit. You drill the hole a few mm, check fit the stick, pop a drop of superglue at the end, wait a couple of minutes and then razor-saw it flush. At the neck pocket, the body would overlap the larger dots and so I will use the smaller size. The end fret will have to stay as a black dot as the overhang isn't deep enough to take a larger drill hole - but generally the end of the fretboard is easy to find even in the dark : And with a final sand, done: So just waiting for the stain to arrive and I can finish this one off

So with the fretboard done, time to prepare for attaching it to the neck. But first, while I still have a flat surface to be able to put into my home-made router thicknesser jig, I need to get the neck down to final planned thickness. With a 2.5mm packer at the nut end to give me the taper of thickness, off we go. The clamps double up as end stops for the router carriage: Then the truss-rod fitted and protected from glue squeeze-out with a thin strip of masking tape: And, yes @TheGreek - you can NEVER have too many clamps And - to my admitted surprise - one straight and gap free fretboard fitted Just got the neck carve and headstock to do and then the main build part is complete Of course, then comes the finishing...and I've got no idea yet quite what I will do for that...

Well, Axminster excelled themselves - this arrived this morning And so by this evening, all the plug holes are filled. They will show up more once the stain and finish has been put on - but they merge in better than the black epoxy Next job is to find the teeny envelope with the Luminlay rods in...

Well, as I've been reminded of this thread, here are my two - although both are still presently with Matt Marriott (he 'borrowed' them to do some videos...a worryingly long time ago ). My bubinga-bodied through-neck fretless, based on the same proportions as the stupendous Warwick Thumb: And the Camphor topped neck through single cut:

Nice to see that headless again!

A 'AAA' quartersawn maple blank and ebony fingerboard for the fretless neck should be with me early next week, as should an 8mm taper plug cutter bit to cut the rest of the maple plugs (with proof of concept done, life's too short to slim the rest of them by hand!). I've just got to get hold of some amber stain and, once the plugs are in and the neck finish-sanded, I can start the refinishing of the neck. We're going for a silky-smooth-and-organic tru-oil slurry and buff. The headstock top and back and fretboard top are all untouched and will not need any refinish.

Actually, it's this next bit that's a bit scary - drilling out the old big and small dots This is so close to the top of the fretboard, the drill holes have to be spot on - my little Proxxon drill-press and the neck held absolutely vertical using that radius block again helps enormously. I decided that the dot at the 15th was as good a one as any to try it out: I don't have a plug cutter quite the right size, so I cut one from some plain rock maple offcut (should match) slightly larger than the drill hole and slimmed it down in a hand-drill chuck with some sandpaper on a block: Trying to match the grain direction as well as possible, glued it in, cut flush and sanded it. I'm quite pleased with the result - once there is a luminlay in the middle, I reckon that will look like it was meant to be there Now just got the others to plug - but that's enough scary stuff for one day, so it will have to wait until tomorrow

So the humble cabinet scraper. Basically, if you get dust, then either the burr has been prepared badly/is blunt or it is being used wrongly. The reality is that it is a type of plane - it is designed to be able to cut wafer thin and long shavings: And I find it ideal for modifying or carving necks because it is efficient but very controllable. Often I will do this with the neck still on the bass, sitting and holding it a bit like a back-to-front cello. But for the first de-varnish and rough cut, then I've cantilevered it from my work bench with the fretboard sitting in a fret radius block: For the first rough-cut, I marked the spine with a sharpie and then simply worked on removing the edge that the slimming left and blending it into the existing profile. This is done running the scraper up the whole length of the neck (which is why it's cantilevered) so that the profile is continuous around the neck and along it. The carve is usually best done by feel - the edge starts off feeling like a distinct line to your fingers, then feels like a slight lump as it smooths out and then, if it feels like one continuous curve to your finger or thumb from the fretboard to the spine, you know you have a blended shape. Here it is after the rough carve: You can see here how little of the black epoxy side dot depth has been removed. Sorting that will probably take longer than the whole reshaping and refinishing process!! So far so good....

The slim down should absolutely make it feel different - and yes, that's exactly what @Happy Jack is after. But the depth will be the same and the profile very, very similar so it should feel 'in the same vibe' but simply a lot easier to play for his preferred style And as Jack himself says, he already has a Plan B for the single-string version