Andyjr1515

When I've finished the fret levelling, etc, I will scrape in between each of the fret pairs with a single-edged razor and then see how the ebony looks. With some pieces you can get to an excellent shine just with going up the grades of microweb up to around 12000 grit. Some benefit, though, with a light tru-oil or linseed oil & buff. I'll see when we get there.

Top glued and frets trimmed: Other than the cut at the rear to give finger room access to the tuner knobs, the next major task is working on the back wings - working out the weight relief chambers, the cable runs, the control chamber before routing them before they are glued into place - so a few days on the drawing board rather than cutting or gluing wood. The adage of 'check 3 14 times before you cut or glue anything' springs to mind

The fretting process is very similar to @Fishman 's Wal save, only difference being the fretwire (Evo Gold coiled as opposed to Nickel Silver straight) and that it is being done before attaching to the neck. A light run along the slot with a triangular needle file to take the brittle corners off: Fretwire cut to length and de-tanged at the sides: Small bead of Titebond along the tang, then mallet one side, then the other side then the middle. The squeeze-out confirms that the fret has seated: Then wipe off the squeeze-out and clamp a radius block to hold the fret to shape while the titebond hardens: And it really is starting to look like a bass now

Not sure how I missed this. Love that shape and figuring

All frets in ready for trimming once the Titebond has fully set:

All looking good from here

Well done It's splendid!

After scraping the fretboard edges (easier before the frets are in) if was time to start fretting. @Fishman has gone for nickel silver rather than the harder - but slightly brass-coloured - EVO Golds I tend to fit to my builds. The nickel silver are no more difficult than the EVO Golds to fit, but this being a flat board - and the fretboard already on the neck (On a 'new' build, I would generally fret the board and then glue to the un-profiled neck) it needs a slightly different approach. For the flat board, I went for flat wire rather than coiled. But what's this??? Why would crazy Andyjr1515 take flat wire and bend it to fit onto a flat board?? Well, the theory is to hammer one side of the fret, then the other. This leaves a 'hump' in the middle because the wire has been bent. Then I hammer the middle and it forces the barbs that have already gone into the slot sideways, locking the fret in. On the actual fretwire, I made the curve quite a bit less than in the photo above. I also use tang nippers to ensure that you don't get the sharp tang ends protruding from the fretboard as it settles: The last two things I do before hammering the fret in is run a triangular needle file gently along the fret slot to take the sharp corners off and also run a tiny bead of titebond along the tang. Then it's the 'hammer one side; hammer the other side, hammer in the middle; wipe off the glue squeeze-out': You can see the hump in the middle here before I flatten that with the mallet. Finally, I clamp a caul on (a radius block in the case of a radiussed board) for 10 minutes or so to hold it firmly flat (or radiussed) while the glue grabs: 5 done, 16 (I think) still to do

Happy New Year, everyone. Fingers crossed... And so to - the important test. With that unusual graphite/carbon/whatever plate representing the greatest proportion of the gluing surface to the fretboard, was it going to be able to stand reasonable tightening of the trussrod without a sharp *CRACK* and a demonstration of the removal of the fretboard around 45minutes quicker than using the iron and steel sheet? It is an interesting difference, of course, between the 'traditional' style of single action truss rod and a modern one. In the modern ones, the rod itself bends, pressing down at each end and pressing up under the middle of the fretboard. Here there is a possibility of the rod popping off the fretboard. With the traditional single-action anchored ones, the shortening rod bends the neck wood and the fretboard bends along for the ride. So the theory is that there is less force on the fretboard joint with a traditional anchored rod. Leastways, that's how the logic seemed last night after a couple of cans of 5.2% marshmallow stout! But the test has to be done because there's no point in fretting this if the joint isn't sound under normal strain. So this is the before - my aluminium box-section straight edge laying on the neck with trussrod loose: And this is after tightening the rod to a normal extreme - the kind of back bow typical of when you remove the strings on a set-up bass: And the glue joint held. Which makes it my first 'phew!' of 2021 So over the next day or so, this should be able to be fretted up

Don't underestimate how much difference to the look of the headstock happens when you add the tuners. Take an Ibanez - without the tuners it looks positively skinny but with them if looks absolutely fine. I agree with @TheGreek - your original in the pics looks fine to me By the way, to look back at the original headstock design I re-read the saddles issue. I'm still a bit bothered at the desire for the saddles themselves to be lined up in a particular way (this might be an interpretation problem my end). Just for the avoidance of doubt - the position of the saddle blocks themselves are determined by the physics and geometry of the bass and strings. They will have to go where they need to go to intonate. In very general terms, that tends to be G=scale D=scale+1mm A=scale+2mm E=scale+3mm. For safety, I make sure that the G has at least 1mm extra backward movement (that is, scale + 1mm) and the bottom E a further 2mm (that is, scale +5mm). The bridge elements themselves - the saddle holders - or bridge in the case of an integrated bridge, can be put anywhere as long as that allows the saddle blocks to have the above movement or more.

Some important progress. First I drilled the trussrod access hole. This end has some excess wood to the length and sides for @Jus Lukin and me to sort some degree of carve, chamfer or rounding: Then the trussrod channel routed, happily successfully breaking into the access drill hole at the head (phew!) and the taper cut oversize, leaving also the head oversize on the basis that you can always take wood off but it's more challenging to put it back on! Long way to go yet, but it's looking closer like a bass at each step Next will be sorting the head carve and achieving the final 'spine' depth of the neck while the blank is easy to handle - leaving the rectangular cross-section of the neck until quite a bit later - before then gluing the top to the neck.

This morning was about tapering the fretboard and starting to think of options with the trussrod and headstock. Using last night's calculations, I marked the cutting line on the fretboard in pencil (best thing to use on ebony - it shines, giving a decent contrast...and it rubs off if you mark it in the wrong place ) then onto the bandsaw and finishing it off to the line with a sharp plane: I'm sticking with the string spacing of the Nova headclamp and so should not need a 'nut' behind the zero fret. Instead, once it has been fretted, I will chamfer the fretboard overhang and cut some relief grooves down to the clamp holes. As such, the clamp unit will butt right up to the fretboard end. The fretboard thickness also gives me a decent break angle over the zero fret without the need to step the neck at the head: The pencil line beyond the clamp block is the closest I will go at the top to allow any string ends to be still protected by the head, hopefully leading to less mysterious holes in @Jus Lukin 's , his band-mates or their audience members' jumpers I will give some thought to end detailing/shape and bounce them off @Jus Lukin One thing that will be there is the truss-rod access hole that will be drilled just below and under the clamp block. Albeit 10-12mm lower and in the centre of the neck, orientation and lengthways position-wise the rod will go here with the slot, running up to the zero fret, meeting up (hopefully) with the hole drilled under the block that the adjuster will sit in: So this afternoon's tasks are: - rout the trussrod slot - drill the rod access hole - finalise the profile shape under the zero fret - rough taper the neck a couple of mm oversize to the fretboard (which is already at finished dimensions)

And we're back on this one too I'm doing some of the stuff for this project and @Fishman 's Wal save at the same time because they are using similar tools and set-ups. So next steps on this is about preparing stuff for the fretboard to be glued. But on this there are a few things to be done first. The swifts have been tidied up and the fretboard is now ready to be tapered and cut to final width and size: We are going for an 18mm string spacing at the bridge and for that I received a set of the individual bases for the Nova bridge from @Andre_Passini just before Christmas. The reason I needed these are that the 4-element base is 19mm spacing. I really like how the same tuner/saddle assemblies can be used on either types of base - very cool! So my next job this afternoon is drawing the string runs full size so that I can determine the fretboard taper. I will then pencil that onto the ebony and, in the morning, bandsaw/plane the board to finished size and taper. Then the next job after that will be to sort the best arrangement for the trussrod - because it is a LOT easier to rout a trussrod groove before you taper the neck! And once I've done that, I will be gluing the top onto the neck! (Remember, folks. While I'm always happy to share how and why I do stuff...never assume that it is the way it should be done )

So - scary day. Attaching the new fretboard. First job was to make sure that the mating surfaces were absolutely flat. When you are making a neck from scratch, generally you leave the neck as a rectangular section until after the fretboard has been fitted - that way you can clamp firmly along each of the sides of the fretboard to avoid any gaps. But with a finished neck, you can't do that. You can only clamp along the spine of the profiled neck and therefore you are relying on the flatness of the fretboard itself - and the neck mating surface - to fully squeeze out the glue and close the gap at either side of the fretboard. So both the bottom of the fretboard and the neck itself has to be completely flat. I used a scraper to make sure all of the glue residue from the old fretboard was gone and then ran a straight edge all the way along the neck - with its graphite/carbon core - to ensure absolute flatness all the way up. And it wasn't quite. The graphite/carbon (I say that because I don't actually know what the fibres are) was just a teeny bit raised one side. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because the clamping would just force the side gap closed. But with the replacement that wasn't going to be good enough. So some very careful scraping and sanding (I made a small sanding block for the job) ensured that it was made flat. And for this job - with the very fine graphite/carbon/whatever dust - it was the full A1/P2 spec respirator...this is no time at all to end up at A&E with a severe respiratory problem! The neck was masked off to keep the glue off the original finish, the truss-rod adjuster was protected from glue squeeze-out and a clearance channel in the fretboard added to ensure no binding: Then the Titebond, spool clamps, cauls and G-clamps: Note that all of the clamps are running down the centre. This is different to how I will do @Jus Lukin 's where I will have the luxury of being able to clamp along each edge. So in this case, it is the fretboard stiffness that is applying the clamping pressure across the width, and itself protected by the caul on top. The result was better than I expected and as good as I could have hoped: This will now sit at least 24 hours for the glue to fully harden before I do anything with it

And what is this cunning plan? Well it's to use the spool clamps in the photos above, but with a mod. At the heel, all is straightforward because the sides of the heel and the freboard are both square and so the fretboard just can't move sideways at all: But here at the nut, the fretboard is tapered and so I have to mod the clamps otherwise they are just clamping the widest point, which is the top of the fretboard which would allow sideways movement of the fretboard to the neck: And so they are modded to give clearance of the fretboard and clamp the narrower neck/board join: And then - other than the G clamps - I should just need this: - Good quality masking tape for the neck up to the join - A flat hardwood clamping caul for the fretboard - a softer caul for the bottom of the neck. I will scrape a 'C' shape into this so the load is spread a touch But it's still worth sleeping on it before taking the action. And then, while this is gluing tomorrow, @Jus Lukin 's headless will be getting some attention

And - we're back Compliments of the Season to one and all. So having tolerated me over the past few days, MrsAndyjr1515 has encouraged me back down into the cellar. By the ominous click when I went down there, I think I now understand why 'double-security padlocks' were on her Christmas list Anyway - it was useful and, under duress, she has let me out to take some photos in the short daylight hours left. Fretboard! This build - straightforward in many respects - has some 'every ounce of skill and a decent sprinkling of luck' aspects. One is that we are trying to replace the fretboard without the need - at all - to refinish or even touch up the neck itself. Why? Well - it has ageing and player's mojo. It has cracks in the varnish. It has dints from having to escape quickly from bad gigs: And so I will be changing my normal sequence of fretting, attaching and final dimensioning the fretboard. Nowadays I normally cut close to final size, fret, sand and dress the fret ends and board top to final size, glue fretboard, scrape the taper from the fret-ends to the neck join, blending the fretboard and neck profile with scraper and sanding block. For this - to try to avoid scraping the neck anywhere but the glue line - I will be: cutting, planing and scraping the fretboard to exact final dimensions at the board/neck join line; gluing the board to the neck, finishing the fretboard sides from glue join to fretboard top; fretting; sand and dress the fret ends. So first job was to cut the board to shape leaving around 2mm oversize of the neck shape (1mm safety factor for a further 1mm taper between the top of the fretboard and the join line thus allowing the neck profile to continue up to the top of the board): Then some VERY careful work (after a few sacrifices to the Bassmaker Gods) with the block plane to add the taper to the sides so the at the join the fretboard is an exact fit: And the board is ready to glue. Normally, you would drill a couple of holes in a couple of the fret slots to put some panel pins in to stop the board floating out of position on the glue during clamping. But there is so little timber either side of that central graphite slab I'm actually reluctant to do that. I have a cunning plan...but am going to sleep on it just in case it doesn't sound so cunning in the morning

Excellent

I suppose that we should collectively apologise to @Fishman for collectively hijacking the thread. That said, both he and @Jus Lukin have probably concluded that nothing much is likely to be happening on their projects until the next lockdown Boxing Day the next lockdown on Boxing Day. The Good News is that I can be pretty certain of no family or domestic distractions from this weekend on until at least ...gosh...spring, by the look of it. And I've already got some serious 'must get back into the cellar' pangs. And, as maybe you can imagine, MrsAndyjr1515 fully shares that sentiment.

Yes - fairly relaxed about it. I was driving in full Hazmat gear anyway

To ease everyone away from air guitars... ...but still not onto building because the re-distribution of the Christmas feast is still ongoing : I drove to one of the local villages a few miles away yesterday. After about 3 miles, on the road I was on I approached a HUGE red sign. "Oh, not more 'temporary' traffic lights!!" And no. It wasn't. It read "IMPORTANT. YOU ARE NOW EXITING AN AVIAN INFLUENZA CONTROL ZONE" WTF?? And I was EXITING it!! What next? Locusts?

Absolutely. At a bargain price of £27 plus shipping . Want some on the headless?

Hmmmm...think about it, @TheGreek...air guitar modifications. So take said airguitar for, say, three weeks; give it a thorough overhaul and set up; pass back to delighted airguitar player with very reasonable invoice for £300... ...I think @Si600 might be onto something here!

Hi @Kiwi I'd missed TheGreek's earlier post above. Yes indeed - pm @bertbass Mick got him to make me that great AJR Guitarmods display posted above!

No probs at all. But do kick off a thread - I'm sure someone will spot it who can suggest someone they know of.

Not something I use, to be honest. You would be best posting a specific thread either in this section or in 'Repairs and Technical' - more folks would see it than just the ones following this thread.