Andyjr1515

That looks lovely. Super grain patterning - very classy

You will have seen in many of my own threads, @songofthewind , my 'I HATE routers' declarations That said, for the top thicknessing, I think you've done well. That is a BIG area! Question - as long as the top is flat on the back for gapless gluing, does it matter that the thickness is on a tilt?

Not sure how I'd missed this. Great job @SpondonBassed Intrigued and impressed with the two extra angled 'pull up' screws into the neck heel. Never seen that before - is that a @SpondonBassed special?

Easiest way to find out if you have a general or specific problem is to use a rocker. For a guitar, you can make one out of an old credit card or store card. With a bass, I have in the past used an old plastic ruler (once with an undented edge) cut into 100mm; 75mm and 50mm lengths. What you do, three frets at a time and at each string position across the fretboard is hold the straight edge across the three frets with both hands and see if the straight edge rocks on the middle fret. If it does, you have a high spot. If it does the same at the other 3 (or 4) string positions, you have a high fret. Start with the 100mm length over the 1st, 2nd and 3rd frets at the G string position. Repeat at the D, A, E positions and for 5-stringers the B. Make a note (trust me, after 20 frets over 4 or 5 positions each, you will never remember without writing it down) then move up one fret and do the same with the next trio of frets. At the point that the straight edge is too long for covering just three frets, change to the shorter piece. Repeat all the way up the fretboard, changing to the 50mm length at the upper frets. In this photo, I'm only holding one side because I'm holding the camera with the other - to accurately feel the rocking, you need to hold both sides. Also, I'm using an old credit-card size - these are not long enough for the lower frets of a bass, hence the suggestion of using a cut-up old plastic ruler: And no, @Grahambythesea. For checking individual high frets with a rocker or taking a few high-spots off with a sanding block, generally you can do it with the truss rod not adjusted. But if you are into using a levelling beam to level all of the frets, then yes, you need to straighten the neck first.

With a few provisos, my personal opinion is: - for a fretboard that you know is basically OK but has a few high spots from place to place then yes. Go for the longer blocks though if they do two lengths - for a fretboard that has a more serious issue along the whole length or has had a full refret, then using a longish levelling beam first is pretty essential. That doesn't have to be a fancy luthier one - a DIY store long spirit level, a length of aluminium box section from ebay, etc, with some emery stuck on with two sided tape will work fine For the crowning, I have used something similar (although the teeny diamond file ones in wooden holders from Chris Alsop are MUCH better). The ones pictured above do tend to leave quite deep ripples from time to time which are difficult to get out. The diamond file ones give a much better result. What I personally do is: - form the crown with the file using the 'sharpie' trick to know how far to go - then use the file as a curved former and wrap a small piece of 400 emery over it to take out the scratches - repeat with 800 emery - repeat with varying grades of microweb (a single mixed pack will last years) I generally go 3600 grit; 6000; 8000; 12000

I was just about to post a question whether they are higher tension than your normal ones. The reason that the string sharpens as you press it down is that you are effectively bending the string - think Clapton on his Strat but vertically rather than horizontally. So the higher the action, as @mcnach says, the more it sharpens and the further back the saddle has to go to compensate. But likewise, the higher the tension of the string (and they do vary a lot between makes) the more it sharpens. A lighter gauge will have less tension and therefore GHS are quite right, it won't sharpen as much and hopefully will sit within your saddle adjustment range. Lowering the action a tad, if possible, will help some more.

I think I'd have said the opposite, @fleabag. Sanding sealer will do just that - form a seal - and that will affect how much the stain will penetrate the fibres. Interestingly, the patchiness that @GarethFlatlands suffered with the stain looked just like that - a surface contamination stopping the dye soaking in - but we know from the machining and sanding that it was freshly exposed wood. Very curious. But the paint job looks fab

That looks good

Based on the ebay username, I reckon it's the small recording studio in the town a few miles away. I suspect there's no way of knowing if it started life as a genuine Fender but gosh...what a way to treat one if it did

Guitarbuild.co.uk offer a range of customisable bodies. You just add the features you want on their online facility. https://www.guitarbuild.co.uk/collections/customisable-bass-bodies

Yes - definitely my eyes ...agreed you could drive a proverbial bus through that gap

OK. My eyes then

Excellent! Just looking at the outline drawings, @spacecowboy , do the string runs from the nut to the appropriate sides of the tuner posts work? Might be my eyes, but the strings look like they will clash in places...

Well, if you consider that most electric 6 strings (eg Les Paul, Stratocaster, Telecaster) with standard guitar strings are 42 or 43mm, I think yes...certainly for my fingers. The only difference is that presumably bottom end chords aren't a big need on a bass?

From a build point of view, then yes, you are right @donslow. But from a playing point of view, the Bronco has a slim neck - I think it is 38mm at the nut, and the Bass VI is more like 42mm. Bit of a squeeze!

OK. It was worth a try

In my experience, the 'sand, stain, sand, stain, sand' approach is useful on highly figured woods to get more stain in the end grain and lighter in the cross-grain - but for this kind of wood, to be honest it's 'the more coats the better'. Ref your photo, the brown area is likely to always be a little brown with water-based stains, but the light patches are usually signs of: - contamination of the wood...a problem sometimes with ready carved bodies but not the case here because you have thicknessed the timber and sanded it so all the surface wood has been removed - just not enough stain (or stain that is too weak) The first thing I would try is more coats of the navy - normally I would apply at least 4 coats of the base stain and sometimes more. If that is still patchy, then you could try a decent spirit stain (Chestnut are good - they do a great multi-colour sample pack for not a lot of money ... and each little bottle will stain at least one bass! The poster colour sample pack includes a strong blue and a strong purple amongst other very usable colours). And don't worry about more coats going deeper and deeper into the wood...they don't for the cross grain. They just give a more saturated coverage to pretty much the same depth of penetration - which is surprisingly small on all except end grain.

Yes! And I might have got my basses back from Matt by then even!

We have a winner Gold Star, smiley face and dancing emojis 'The Frieze Britches', from Planxty

Ah...not Fairport. I'll reveal what and who did the original in the morning

Good heavens. Well, assuming that's right, then there's a man who knows his music! (In all probablility) Gold Star & smiley face

Hi @GarethFlatlands Hmmm...that is indeed quite a thick fretboard. Does that mean that your trussrod slot at the nut is quite close to the bottom of the neck or is it a deep-ish neck? Anyway, that aside, I wouldn't head down the L-shape tenon route - it worked great but I'm sure that was more by luck than judgement Easiest and safest is to deepen the neck pocket of the body - there's plenty of meat at the bottom of the pocket and so you really won't have any issues strength-wise.

And so, as a post-script. P and his delightful wife arrived last weekend to pick up the Guitar Bouzouki. And I think he would be happy in me saying he loves it For me, that is a great pleasure and relief in equal measure! P was able to bring his standard Irish Bouzouki for me to have a look at and listen to and that was fascinating. We both agreed that the Guitar Bouzouki has a much richer sound (which would be hoped and expected) and a strummed chord just goes on, beating sub-harmonics all the way, for a long, long time. The neck between the two instruments was quite different, part designed and fully expected and part more of a surprise. P had requested it to be wider and shallower than his original which will always change the curves and feel, but the thing I noticed straightaway was that the 'V' on the original felt distinctly V shaped to the hand further up the fretboard than my build. It doesn't really show on the profile drawings but it does give it a different feel further up the board. Not necessarily a bad feel, but certainly a different feel. Changing that, if P's conclusion was that he wanted that tweaking, is actually a very easy fix and the sort of thing that can be done on a 'while you wait' basis. And there's a crazy coincidence (that I won't go into detail on) that might mean that finding a convenient time to do that would not be too much of problem. But, that said, even at first play, this is P showing how a Guitar Bouzouki should be played. Glorious! And particularly glorious through headphones

That is simply superb. Top drawer Wow!

Looks good!