Andyjr1515

Softly, softly catchee monkey... Creeping up on the back carve. I've checked once again all of the carve vs chamber depths and am fairly certain I'm safe from any unexpected breakthoughs Rough carve not quite finished but probably one more session will do it ready for scraping - and by then, the Superquad will be here and I can start on the top . As I predicted, the carve has morphed and I've added some extra modest waist carves which I think will suit the look :

Excellent

With the Superquad on its way, it's time to start the back carve. While there is a broad plan, this will 'morph' as the carve happens. First, I carved the back of the lower cutout, extending the sweep of the heel cutaway. Then I started scooping bulk out to take some more weight out and also provide a bit of 'too many biscuits' relief . It won't be a @TheGreek 'contact lens' symmetry at the back - I am preserving the depth of the control chamber until I can be sure the SimS multi-wire loom will fit without the need for a screwed back plate - but that same vibe. So out comes my beloved Veritas Pullshave : The pullshave is designed to scoop the shape of wooden chair seats...so after a hard gig, @Matt P will be able to flip the bass upside down on top a tripod and sit on it! Because I have actual chambers and potential chambers and fixing screws to accommodate, I'm doing this a bit at a time, with plenty of pauses, measurements and ponderings. This is where it's at so far: That would probably already sort the effect of too many custard creams - but I'll be aiming for a full jaffa cake depth When that's done, I'll then go back to the heel and reshape that. And by the time that's done, the SuperQuad will be here and I can start thinking about the top carve

And done. Hardly an invisible mend, but silky smooth to the touch, structurally sound and sounds great!

It's an exquisite bit of craftsmanship...

The other way, if the builder is working off a thicker blank is to take a thin slice off - over a few mm, the grain pattern wouldn't be that different - and that would then mean that the gap could be quite a bit tighter than mine. But it does mean having an industrial size and quality of band-saw.

That is a stunning bass....

For the scarfe repair, we've decided to flaunt it! So the fill is epoxy mixed with ebony dust: @Fishman is going for playability rather than aesthetics and wants to go for a sanded neck silky feel rather than the flattering effect of a couple of coats of gloss (a little bit of gloss hides lots of things ). So the objective is a smooth-to-touch-and-no-sticky feel. This is relatively easy to achieve because the old Washburn finish is, of course, rock hard and you do not start exposing uncured nitro as you sand through the outer skin (unlike some other makes where is can still be like it years later mentioning no names but Gibson please note! ). The challenge will be more about getting the transition at the headstock and heel looking OK. After a scrape-flush of the epoxy, a progression of fine wet and dry, followed by progressively finer scotchbright has got me here so far: Playability-wise, objective already met - it feels great! But just to finish off I want to get the heel and headstock transitions looking intentional and bring out the colour of the original out a touch more. You see better what I mean in this shot here: So I will spend a bit of time tomorrow continuing the same treatment up to a masked line at the heel and headstock joint, and also run through a number of grades of micro-web which will bring the depth of colour of the neck itself out without loosing the satin feel.

Oh...and 24th fret access - even to the bottom B - is a breeze

Yes it does, @Jakester , yes it does. And it's glued and it's trimmed and the cut out carve is started and it's dampened and the bridge isn't straight and there's a drop of water on the fretboard... ...but it IS starting to look like a bass

While I'm still not decided whether there will be any further major carving at the back, it always pays to know where the hidden chambers are and how deep they are. I simply take a paper template to keep in the file: And write the respective depths of those chambers: I also pre-drilled the bridge earth wire holes in the top and the matching one in the back - it's a lot easier (and less scary) than once it's fully assembled. Then, after a final 'have I forgotten anything important' pause, the top is now gluing. And no, you can't have too many clamps Very soon and it really IS going to start looking like a bass

And today was chamber day Weight relief top left; shallow weight relief top horn due to cutaway the other side; battery slot in control chamber; access from the Superquad chamber to the control chamber for the SimS 140-wire (or that's what it feels like) wiring loom and connector; no weight relief at the lower horn because we are going to have a deep cutaway cutaway there (a particularly nice feature on @Matt P's design); no weight relief in the central area to maximise the stiffness and density between the neck and bridge (although, of course, there will be an enormous Superquad chamber in the middle. This little lot... ...now weighs around 7.3lbs, so, adding Superquad, pots, tuners but less wood still to be carved, I think we are on target for 7.5lbs maximum, with some remaining options up my sleeve if I'm wrong Time to ponder and take and record measurements so I don't inadvertently carve into the chambers once they are hidden...but we're almost ready to get that top on!

Yes - I generally start with 2000 wet and dry emery used wet and then move onto micromesh. It's great stuff and especially for fine finishing curved surfaces because it just follows the surface shape. Fully washable too! Great tip from @mybass if you've not tried it

So sides are done, transition smooth to the touch and ready for the final all over fine sand and a final couple of very light coats of gloss varnish which will restore the colour and should largely hide the repair: But before I do that, I have to fill that scarfe joint repair. And have the discussion of 'hide or flaunt' with @Fishman And spend most of the rest of today doing some important but exciting stuff on Matt P's build (Which is a long way of saying I'll be doing the scarfe joint repair tomorrow )

Actually, for the second time I passed it across a week or so ago but, once @Jus Lukin got it on his own rig there were a couple of things he noticed, notably that the D seemed a little muted and that there was a bit of a mains buzz in the P position. We did the basic checks by email (I always assume that it's a 'feature' I've inadvertently introduced into the build ) but the results were a bit puzzling and led to thinking it was maybe more something to do with pickups than the bridge seating, etc.. I suggested that I take it back, double check the stuff we'd already checked and give it the full once over. I still have a hypothesis to bounce off Martin Sims on one issue for future reference, but I think I've bottomed what and why stuff was happening and it's ready to go back to @Jus Lukin this coming weekend. The pickups are big and can, of course, tilt side to side and front to back. And the neck has an angle so the strings are angled relative to the top. But because the Superquads are large and made up of four separate coils, for each combination of pickup and configuration, the signal can be disproportionately impacted by the both the sideways tilt and front back tilt - and the best physical position of the pickup for one setting isn't necessarily ideal for another setting. So lots of fiddling about with the pickup height adjustment screws through headphones and a DAW waveform and I think I have 'the great British compromise' where it seems to work OK now for most settings. And the most sensitive coil to get right was the rearward P coil. And I think this is also related to the mains buzz in P setting. The most fascinating thing with Superquads to an electric guitarist - remember these are passive pickups - is that the single coil (split coil in electric guitarist lingo) setting is SILENT. Bung up the gain, bung up the treble, still silent. That is unprecedented in the guitar world, where split coiling a humbucker to single coil always brings a bit of buzz with it. So those two side-by-side coils must be humbucking. And for the humbucker position to be humbucking, the other two coils must be the other way round. And therefore, the two P coils must be the SAME way round - ie not humbucking. I think they are, in effect, offset single coils! That's the bit I just want to confirm with Martin. But there was something I could do that would help - I have added an earth to the off/on toggles to ensure that any pickup that is off is fully shorted out (probably should have done this to start with). Through my buzzy system it has reduced the solo P buzz considerably. Now, if you whop up the gain and the treble, then the one configuration that still is going to buzz a bit is the P...but then again if I'm right, it would. But in normal amp situations, even in my buzzy house, it doesn't seem to be as much a major issue.

I bet you thought I'd forgotten this Well...MrsAndyjr1515 hadn't. With it still being in one piece, it's time to start tidying it up ready for return. The easy bit was giving the fretboard a bit of love and attention. Nice piece of rosewood: Then it was the glue lines. First job was getting rid of any glue and cracked finish. I have started with a single-edged razor blade: Next job - BEFORE I sanded that smooth - should have been filling any gaps with epoxy mixed with wood dust. I forgot that was the sequence in my rush to get it smooth to the touch (there's some fine sandpaper glued to the back of that ply: And why should I have filled first? Well...see that fine white varnish dust...in the cracks. Anyway, after a happy half hour with a pin and a vacuum, I then did the first epoxy/wood dust fill: Starting to look a bit better. Then the repaired scarfe and back cracks. Well the repaired cracks again is just a case of smoothing it off with the razor. For the scarfe repair, it is going to have to be properly filled and so the first job is to start chavelling away the glue and lacquer to give any filler enough depth to get decent adhesion: And, although I will need to talk to @Fishman for his view, looking at this...hmmm...you know the phrase, "If you can't hide it, then flaunt it!"?

Very splendid

I did a number of passes, ending up with a 4mm deep slot: Then, from the other side, cut the chamber as I do my pickup chambers nowadays...starting with a Forstner to part-depth: Then chiselled the periphery to act as a guide for the bearing on a top-bearing router bit: So now, and only now, when it is captive and can't go anywhere because of the bearing, out can come the horrible hand router... : ...to tidy up the sides and gradually deepen the body until breakthrough! : And, with a mm adjustment of my chisel line eventually release. And we have a grain matching, 3mm thick back cover I think the phrase, 'Well, you could knock me down with a feather!' springs to mind. I wasn't expecting that!!! Time for a cup of tea, I reckon....

It all started with this photo (which I think is a Fodera): Note the hatch? More to the point, the grain on the hatch... It's cut out of the back - you can tell by the grain. Now, I'm sure that Fodera would use a CNC to cut it so fine and accurately. Well, I haven't got a CNC. But I DO have something much more useful - a vivid imagination and a flagrant disregard of my own abilities Lots of pics here, but that's a lot easier than trying to describe it all: I used a paper template to mark out the hatch and cut around the shape of the oversize body. I put a crease in where the top would come to to ensure I wasn't too close to the edge: I then pencilled some datum marks on, lined up the template and drew the same hatch on the other side: Then got out the trusty Dremel in its precision base and a 1mm router bit...that would give me a bit of wiggle room for an eventual 1.5mm gap: I did a number of passes, ending up with a 4mm deep slot: Ooops - pressed the wrong button!

Great job

And so to chambers. In many ways, the most important chamber is the control chamber. The internal layout is going to be something along these lines. Plus, of course, the Apollo space-capsule type multi-wire loom driving the Superquad : So the hatch will be something like this: And yes - that top line IS parallel with the neck laths...it's the wide angle lens distorting So I'm going to try something I've never done before. You know when you see someone do something that you think "Wow - why didn't I think of that??" Well, with me, that's usually something that @Jabba_the_gut 's done...but just so he doesn't get too smug - this time it's Fodera. So probably won't work when I try to do it

A little bit of scraping to get rid of the glue squeeze-out and tidy some of the joins, but this is much better than before...and it's flat It's now trimmed to the final oversize before the final shaping rout that will happen once the top is glued on, using the top as the routing guide (yes, I know... ) . The fretboard overhang will be shortened and possibly shaped, depending on @Matt P 's preferences: Just got to finalise and cut the control, cable and weight-relief chambers and then the top can be glued on. Next jobs! Oh - that and ordering the 5 string Superquad...

And the purpleheart laths have been thicknessed and jointed and the first two being glued. Why the sash clamps? Well, the jointing meant that the mating faces of the two purpleheart laths were pretty perfect. Then, when I popped the glue on to glue them in position, one was like a banana! So the sash clamps are there to hold them straight for a decent lath to lath joint and the G clamps are for a good wing to lath joint. I've never come across such glue warping before with purpleheart - but it does probably explain why it warped the top when I first glued them on that! Any other builders come across this issue? Anyway, I'll do the remaining laths one at a time - and with the sash clamps for good measure - so they are always each gluing to their previously hard glued colleagues Note, by the way, the SW BassBash mug still in good use @scrumpymike ! Should be in good use again later in the year

For fitting the binding so that is it snug against the bottoms of the fret-ends, I find that the easiest way is to put the fretboard back onto the metal fret slotting template and then I know the bottom of the binding is going to be flat against the neck when it's fitted and then I shave the top of the binding until it pushes tightly under the protruding fret ends. For this little job - sanding is no good because you don't want a rounded edge - I find it easiest to put my block plane upside down into the bench vice and then draw the top of the binding along the blade: That done, titebond and plenty of spool clamps for a tight fit: And done. They will be scraped with a single edged razor blade to take the glue line off and add the continuation of the radius, which will make them pretty invisible, and the top corners will be rounded off after fitting to the neck. The bindings are around 0.5mm proud of the fret-ends: Next job is to thickness the replacement purpleheart and glue it to the neck/wings assembly. As always, many thanks for looking