Andyjr1515

Very nice indeed

Coming up very nicely.

It's back to my adage that building basses and guitars is a series of compromises held together by hope If you didn't have the cutaway at the tailstock, then you could fit a two piece in without moving the neck or stretching the body. Or you could leave the cutaway and stretch the body...or move the neck. It's sometimes a bit like parking in an empty...having too many choices is sometimes more challenging than not having enough

For a 34" I think where you have it looks OK, @Jimothey

Yes - it can make a big difference. Clearly, you can 'stretch' the body length to compensate but it does change the sit on the strap and the feel of the scale length. With a bridge fully back, you can get a 34" scale feeling more like a short scale and vice-versa. I can never believe that a Cort Curbow is full scale 34" when I put one on the strap... What scale is this?

Oooooh...that's nice

Looks nice. And the darkening effect of the finishing oil will deepen it to the full cherry. Looking forward to seeing it.

OK - in hope that this will clarify rather than further confuse...and with thanks to the folks whose photos I've purloined from Google: Objective: For buzz-free playing at decently low action of the strings above the fretboard, the neck needs to be pretty much flat However: In the absence of a trussrod, the string tension is going to do this - The string tension is pulling the headstock towards it and, because the neck is flexible, it bends. This would play buzz-free...but the action would be unplayably high. Common Solutions - Build the neck completely rigid and so the string tension cannot bend the neck. This can be done. Vigier guitars do not have a truss rod - the necks are very stiff. or - Fit a trussrod that is capable of trying to bend the neck in the opposite direction and, counteracting effect the string tension, leaving the neck straight. Truss-rods - the two common types So the trussrod's job is to resist that bending leaving the neck straight, even under full string tension. There are two commonly used designs of truss rod: Trussrod Design 1 - the (usually) two-way self bending trussrod This rod will bend independently of being in a neck or not. Turn the allen nut one way, it bends one way; turn the allen nut the other way, it bends in the opposite direction: It is fitted straight in a slot in the neck and, in the absence of any strings, adjusting the nut will make it bend, and the flexible neck has no option to bend with it: It doesn't matter whether the adjuster is at the headstock or the heel - the effect is just the same: Trussrod Design 2 - the single-acting rod Here, if the rod was not fitted, tightening the nut would not make it bend. But the way it is fitted, where the rod is anchored at both the heel and at the headstock end and the slot it sits in is, in itself, curved... ...means that as the nut is tightened, the rod tries to straighten itself. This makes the neck bend downwards. Ref the Ric issue on the pre-84 models (although their actual design is different to either of the above but the principle will be the same). You can imagine what stresses are on both the neck and the trussrod thread trying to get the turning nut to bend that stiff maple neck! But, of course, if you helped it along by physically bending the neck downwards at the headstock, the rod would straighten and the nut would feel looser. So, to take some of the stress off the rod and thread, you could pre-bend the neck, tighten the nut until it seated against the neck wood and then when you took the pressure off the neck, it (the neck) wouldn't be able to straighten again because the shortened trussrod wouldn't let it. Hopefully makes some sort of sense

I see where your original question comes from @Reggaebass . The link that @PlungerModerno includes above say that pre-1984 Rics need the neck to be physically bent and then the truss rod nut tightened to hold it in that bend. In reality, the rod will be doing exactly the same thing but simply will not be physically capable of actually moving the neck by itself, but nevertheless is strong enough to hold it there once the bend has been induced. For completeness, I'll see if I can find a few photos that illustrate the two truss rod types. And while all that is going on, hopefully @Geddys nose 's neck is gradually assuming its original shape

I've never worked on a Ric but I know their trussrods are a bit unusual (I think the lefty loosy, righty tighty is reversed?). But of the two physical principles used: - one is where the rod independently curves one way or the other based on the nut adjustment (typical of a modern two-way rod) and the neck simply follows the curve of the rod - the other is where the rod is clamped either end to the internals of the neck and shortening the rod 'pulls' the headstock towards the back of the heel (typical of a traditional one-way rod) - in both cases, the strings are trying to 'pull' the headstock towards the bridge

If you envisage the strings at the top of the neck pulling the neck in a bow shape as tightening the tuners make them shorter, the single action truss rod is doing the same at the back of the neck as the nut is tightened, making the trussrod shorter. I'll try to get a moment to draw a picture tomorrow.

Do you mean in normal use or to solve @Geddys nose's problem?

No - not quite. The strings pull the neck into a bow and arrow kind of bow - and the trussrod's job is to counteract that by trying to pull it into a backbow. If the two tensions balance, then the neck ends up straight. So if the truss rod has been left in its tightened state, but the strings are left slack, then the neck will indeed take on a back bow. Left too long like that and the back bow sort of sets into the wood. So if @Geddys nose does the opposite - leaving the trussrod loose but tightening the strings, then the strings will pull the neck into a bow and arrow forward bow. The plan is, if he leaves it like that for a while, then the back bow set into the wood will be corrected and the neck will be straightish when neither the truss rod nor the strings are tightened. That's the hope, anyway

OK I've just had a quick look at Ben's videos using the same products and it is very similar to the stain/tru-oil processes that a number of us use. The thing I am certain about is that you won't want to sand it right now in its dry stained form - you will sand down to bare wood or lighter wood far too quickly. My method starts in much the same place as Ben's but might be different after the first couple of coats of oil. So I suggest that you follow Ben's method, which is now to go straight to the finishing oil. If you get to where you want to be with just that method, then that would be brilliant - and let us all know . If you get to where you are happy with the basic finish and colour but find the surface a bit rough then I can give you some suggestions of the options to retain the finish but make it smoother to the touch if that is any help

What I meant was what final finishing coating are you putting on it?

Yes - it sounds like either the truss rod has been overtightened in the past, or maybe tightened properly but then the strings left slack or removed for a longish time and the wood has eventually taken on some of that shape. There are more dramatic ways of sorting this, but often the same process is reversible by broadly doing what you are doing...but it will take time. So, if you have the time, I would go for thicker strings as @Supernaut says, and tuning up two semitones as @PlungerModerno says with the truss rod completely slack and leave it for at least a week then see if it gets you where you want it, because flat is very, very close to where it needs to end up and so it won't take a lot to give just that smidgen of relief...

I wouldn't buff it with sandpaper. The depth that stains go to is VERY low and so any sanding will quickly expose the wood again. But there are ways to get you where you want to get. I have a method I can recommend for certain finishes - what finish are you planning?

Don't judge the colour by how it looks when it's dry - particularly reds. The colour it will end up once the final finish is on it will be roughly the same as it looks when it is damp - so quite a bit darker than the 'dry stained' look. You should find that the pinkiness goes away too. Looks good! What stain have you used?

That would look very good

That looks very nice

Wow! (again)

Ah - OK. Mind you, you could always inset an ebony triangle... Anyway - it's going to look fab whatever

Lovely! Weird, though...no doors or table-tops yet as far as I can see. Presumably next time MrsJabba_the_gut goes out for her 30minute exercise walk you'll get the kitchen door off and planed down before she gets back?

Hmmm...not sure I understand that. The fanned frets don't affect the string spacing and so, as long as the Nova clamp is square to the strings rather than to the zero fret/nut (like on the string retainer on your original drawing below), then it should work fine... Incidentally, we did something similar on @TheGreek 's Psilos bass - just because it has a headless tuner system doesn't mean that it needs to be headless

A very good move