Andyjr1515

Outstanding. Finished as good as it started

Ah - but we're aiming for between 7 and 7 1/2 Should be possible.

With the tried and tested luthier formula of: Assembled components - weight of taper removal and profile carving of neck + 5-string Superquad + 5th tuner - difference between borrowed tuners and hipshot superlites + difference between borrowed rosewood fretboard and ebony one + residual weight of finish after full evaporation and cooling - weight of plate - flour left on kitchen scales = projected weight of finished bass... ...I reckon that I need to lose around 1lb 8oz of weight from this point, in addition to the wood removed by tapering and profiling the neck already in the formula. Not impossible and will give me the excuse for the bit of styling at the back. I'll be doing a bit more drawing to make sure that my chambering from the top of the wings doesn't meet the carving at the back of the wings in a "France meets UK in middle of channel tunnel construction" kind of a way.

Yes - the whole thing has a real trad look about it. Looks great.

I have a bit of thinking and drawing to do on @Matt P 's singlecut before I do anything daft like cut or glue wood - working out control chamber size and position, weight relief chambering, back shape - so just to make sure that my hands don't seize up, a bit more progress on this. AHAH! I bet you thought I'd forgotten So, delving back in the memory, it was all about a potentially twisty neck. And out comes one of those tools that I rarely use but boy are they useful when you do. My mini hand router: What I am doing is levelling the tops of the rosewood packing/strengthening strips, flush with the top of the truss rod: Then I cut the free-bit-of-packing-waste rock maple to size: Then ran a thread of Titebond along the tops of them both and 'you can never have too many clamps': And finally, planed the strip flush with the top of the neck: And the neck is SO much more resistant to twisting So when I get another natural break from the single-cut, it'll be a refit of the fretboard - once I've worked out the best way to clamp it...

Lovely job

There are some notes I can't hit on my sax. The sax can, but I can't. So I play the ones I can and then just hum the ones I can't Could be a solution... And on a serious note - it depends on the neck. If there's a generous overhang after the 20th (ie, a fret to fret distance plus around 5mm, then yes it's possible. On a scale 0 to 10 of chances of wrecking a decent bass, around 3 for a bolt on and about 8 for a set neck . Could be cheaper to hum but not as exciting...

My goodness - it's a complete showstopper!

Well, the bit of 'slightly more conventional than I normally do' that I'm going to venture into, is the sequence. I think most builders go - neck blank; add side wings; fit top I tend to go - neckblank; fit top; add wings. And for this one, I'm going to do wings then top. So I will start here: Then sort the cable access and weight relief chambers, then flatten it all off, and then, once that's all done, glue on the top. I know...shocking. And why do it this perfectly logical and well tried way rather than the white knuckle ride of an Andyjr1515 'will it work or not' sequence? Well, because one of the targets is to keep within 7-7.5lbs. And there are a few unknowns still in terms of the weight: - It's a 5-er with a lot of maple in the neck blank - The 5er Superquad is MAHOOSIVE!!! - The back is oak - The bridge is high-ish mass But, weight permitting, I'd like to do something a little bit special at the back and so I may, or may not, want to add more, or different shaped, or differently positioned internal weight relief as I go along. And getting that right is a LOT easier if the wings are already on but where the internal faces are still fully accessible. But don't worry, there'll still be plenty of white-knuckle-on-the-very-edge-of-disaster moments to come that I'm sure will keep everyone interested

Not actually as scary as it looks...but this is why we do the 'check 14 times, cut once!' mantra And so this is how the neck blank will sit, except of course eventually the back will be profiled all the way to the heel and the side wings will be carved a bit like a bowl arena. Or, if I a*se it up, a bowel arena I've got some final bits to do on the blank before I go to the next major step, but that major step is usually, for me, gluing the top to the neck. Yes - I do everything pretty much the other way round to most sensible folks. But, hey, I might surprise everyone and do it the more conventional way

A lot of pencil sketching, measuring and pondering to make sure I don't end up cutting into fresh air before I get the neck blank onto the bandsaw again to extend the neck thickness into the body transition Fingers crossed

Dimensions or proportions, @Jimothey ? Proportions look about right to me. Dimensions...no idea. On my screen, it looks a bit small with a scale length of around 53mm Looks nice, whatever

And all slotted:

And fret slotting started:

"...and he is doing a roaring trade in home-made Swan Vestas"

Best not raise the topic of matches again. As I've said before, it isn't as much marvelling at the fantastic aquaducts the Romans built that are still standing...it's remembering the thousands that fell down while they were trying.

And to the fretboard. I had to mod my radius jig a little bit to take the modern sides (G&W now sell a Mark 3 and a Mark 4 and some bits for earlier Marks but it isn't clear which Mark one has in the first place - Carlos, please note!) but that said, this is one of the best investments I've ever made... A bit of set up, and a lot of hoovering afterwards, but this in under 20 minutes as opposed to two and a half days of anguish and dust, followed by three weeks in an institution to recover and then back to find it's tapered, dipped and skewed and a further four weeks in the institution! It then needs a further 30 minutes of hand sanding to get rid of the router lines (good chance to replenish the jar of ebony dust ) And ready for slotting

It's probably the luck of the draw. I opted for UPS and it came a day later than they said, but still actually received 5 calendar days after placing the order, which I was quite chuffed about. There were no additional charges, although the tracking showed it did halt for a customs check (which caused the day's delay). I suspect whether charges are made or not is related to value. I am unclear whether the price in the first place included Portugal's VAT (which presumably it shouldn't) but maybe that's also in the equation. It has to be said, the VAT rules and procedures change (which was slipped in as part of Brexit but actually wasn't part of it) is a right royal mess. Have you noticed the number of overseas sellers on ebay who now advertise "Ships Worldwide (excludes UK)"? And this is non-EU sellers as well as EU sellers...

That's lovely. And no.

It's the same arrangement for all but the upper notes on a piano. Fascinating to have this on a bass

Yes - gold star smiley face A Sei Flamboyant

Ah...might be. It's a fancy one anyway Beautiful job.

The original truss rod is one of these - a substantial aluminium three-sided box with the rod in the middle: So this, actually glued in the equally substantial slot in the neck... : ...will indeed stop the neck from twisting. Trouble is, this design can be highly troublesome. The original, as well as breaking its way through the back of the neck, was doing this too - can you see how the nut is pushing its way into the u-shape, expanding it and almost certainly resulting in the fretboard splitting away from the neck: So what I have done so far, it add a strip of silk fabric epoxied in to strengthen the very thin bottom of the slot where the crack has been mended (thanks for the tip, @6feet7 !) : ...and then to keep the neck straighter (it had assumed a permanent bow) I've used rosewood strips as the trussrod packers (the strips are VERY strong in this direction) to help keep the neck straight: But that's not going to stop it twisting. So what I can do with the rock maple offcut packaging strip that G&W sent in @Matt P 's parcel, is cut a capping strip that will fit over the two rosewood strips and make a hardwood U surrounding the trussrod to give it the same twist resistance as the original U of aluminium from the old trussrod. But the difference is that the U is not integral to the trussrod operation, as it was in the original, and so each only has one job - the wooden hardwood U to stop the twist and the trussrod to stop the bow...

I will - just got to take a few photos first otherwise, as normal with my posts, nobody will have any idea what I'm going on about

So why might @Fishman be pleased that I've bought stuff from G&W for @Matt P 's project over in the 'Build Diaries'? It's because while I've been trying to make some decent progress on Matt's build, I've been long-term pondering on an issue. When passing across the Washburn with the cracked neck to me, @Fishman mentioned that 'the headstock also twists quite easily'. That's OK, I thought - the scarf joint is cracked so of course its twisting easily! Now let me add a couple of other observations to the puzzle of this bass: - I wonder why the truss rod had to be tightened so much to burst its way through the back of the neck? - I wonder why Washburn glued the trussrod into the neck slot? That's a first for me. - I wonder what effect having so little wood underneath the trussrod at the nut end has on the integrity of the neck? And the answer is - all together now : Because the neck simply isn't strong enough. There's not enough wood of sufficient strength to hold everything where it should be. And why do I think that? Well - the fretboard isn't on yet. But, even with the scarf joint fully mended, and rosewood stiffeners/packers in the old wide trussrod slot even my arthritic hands can twist the neck with surprising ease and with modest force on the headstock. And if my kn******d hands can do that, then a slightly unflat fretboard certainly will, and the naturally imbalanced string tensions when it's tuned up to pitch certainly will. And that's probably why Washburn glued the trussrod in... And so what had the piece of maple G&W used as a packer got to do with anything? Because I have another cunning plan