Jimothey

Finally managed to do a bit more on this! I've now got the first coat of black stain on the back and sides.............

Looks more like a pear to me!! 😁

I was thinking the same thing! 😁

I dont think that's Zebrano it looks more like Macassar Ebony to me and I really like the Maple fretboard contrasting with the body, I much prefer that pairing than a light wood body with a darkwood fretboard........ But agree there are nicer streamers about for that kind of money 😀

I just really like the intricate colouring of the rug on it aswell very good attention to detail!! 😁

I couldn't resist doing a quick mockup..... 😀

Here's my test piece of veneer for the different colours......... 😀

The veneer is all glued (apart from one little bit) up and dried overnight so I started trimming and sanding it back today.......... 😀 I'm in two minds whether to stain the Sapele black I don't know if it will be too much of a contrast or whether to use the tinted Danish oil I used on one of my other builds?? The top will be just normal Danish oil....... 😀

Well there's no going back now!! I've resized the neck it's now officially a 4 string........ I'll start reshaping the neck tomorrow and I'm going to order the truss rod tonight then it's decision time re the fretboard?? I'm toying with the idea of staining the top either dark grey or orange but I'm just waiting for my stains to arrive so I can give it a try and see which one I prefer?? I'm leaning more towards orange but I'm a bit worried it will look a bit too much like a tiger??............... 😀

I got the cavities all capped off, arm carve and routed out for the neck and pickups........... And the veneer is rough cut, I had a go at steaming and bending the veneer over the chamfer but to no avail it just split!! so I think it's going to now be cut to the top not wrapped over........ 😀

After thinking long and hard about the work that would be involved in sorting the neck out to make it a 5 string and weighing up the fact that there is lots of things that could go catastrophically wrong I've decided to keep it as a 4 string and probably will wait and build a 5 string at a later date............ I've still got to rout the edges of the neck a little bit so I can make it have a 38mm nut and a 63mm heel (as it's 43mm nut and 70mm heel at present) which will be a lot easier than trying to glue strips on etc.......... I'm going to be experimenting with the finish this week as I've got a few ideas in mind 😀

I've just bought a block and binded Jazz neck from Amazon for my bitsa P and its surprisingly good quality the frets are all nice and level and the ends have been filed so no sharp edges and it only cost £35 the only thing is the colour is a bit darker than I expected but I can live with it......... Here's the link if your interested in having a look https://www.amazon.co.uk/string-Style-Replacement-Canada-Maple/dp/B078HR2ZWZ 😀

Here's my bitsa P nothing special but I like it! Even more now it's got flats on it!

Started the weight reduction today its already considerably lighter than it was! It's now roughly the same weight as the original body, By the time I've routed the pickups, neck pocket and finished the control cavity I think it will be kinda the weight I was aiming for......... Just got some cleaning up of the sides and do the rebate then I'm ready to start capping it off................ 😀

The veneer turned up yesterday so here's how the top will look Only problem is that where the nice figuring is will be covered by the bridge and pickups! I might have to do a bit of jiggery pokerey to get it looking good!?!....... 😀

I reckon this will be the amount I will need to chamber out, the bottom chamber I'll cover with 6mm ply so I can just use that for my controls......... But before I do that I need to thin the body down a bit!!...........

That's where I got the idea from! I knew I had seen it done but couldn't remember where I'd seen it!! Yeah that's exactly what I had in mind and if I combine that with thinning the body down a bit that hopefully will take the weight down considerably... ........ 😀

I was thinking of possibly doing a chamber from the top and glue in a cover plate out of 4mm ply then veneer over the top?.....

Yeah that's a good point and it would probably work better thanks mate 👍😀

At the moment the body is approx 44mm thick and weighs I would guess 1 1/2 times the weight of the original body so I've got to do something to lighten it and I thought this might be the easiest option?........ I was probably going to try and keep it to about 30mm in the centre but I think I will have to taper it to the neck pocket, Apart from the arm carve I was going to keep the top of the body flat, I'm planning on doing a side jack So I think it'll end up being a very slow process checking, double checking so I don't mess it 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

@Andyjr1515 I'm thinking that I would need to take out a little bit less than this but I'm not sure how exactly it will go at the bottom of the neck pocket?? Or is this too much??

Luckily it was in a position where I could just cut off square and glue a peice on so I managed to repair it quite well and rounded off the back and chamfered the top........... I'll probably start the contouring tomorrow and my veneer should be here tomorrow aswell............ 😀 I'm thinking I might have to try and contour the back 'al a @Andyjr1515 style' to try and remove some weight as the body is a tad on the heavy side

Here's the damaged top horn!......

Yeah your right it is a thing that is overlooked I can only hope that the repair will look half as good as @Jabba_the_gut's but his skills far exceed mine!! The body shape I based it on has a chamfered top edge but I'm going to try and veneer the chamfer to get the drop top look (which I think will be an arduous task but worth it!!)

Due to the expensive outlay for a new oven I've had to shelve the Ash and Panga Panga combo idea and I've decided on the 1 piece Sapele back stained black and Macassar Ebony veneered top finished with some Danish oil I cut out the body today and started trimming the body to the template, everything was going swimmingly until the bearing on my router bit decided to explode and ripping a big chunk out of the top horn!! (sorry I forgot to take a pic) so I've got to buy a new router bit and glue a lump of a Sapele on then re rout it😠 Instead of rounding over the top edge I've decided to chamfer it which I think will look good but I'm going to test it on an offcut first.............