Jack Bruce Signature Fretless

[Andyjr1515]

Hi All

I'm probably breaking one of the forum etiquette rules by posting a Build Diary [i]after[/i] posting the finished article in Gear Porn, but my excuse is that I've spent 4-5 days a week of the last year and a quarter working in Belgium and if that's not a good enough excuse...for anything, really ...

The bass was commissioned by our old-git's-band's regular bass player, Pete (I'm the stand-in bassist), who wanted me to have a go at a tribute to the Warwick Thumb 4-based Jack Bruce Signature Fretless thru-neck. I tried to make him aware that it had every chance of ending up as very expensive wood chips to put onto the next BBQ we were invited to but he asked me to press on regardless.

I scaled up from a face-on photo on one of the original ads:



and as many google images as I could find. The Warwick site has loads of info also of the woods, electrics, some of the sizes, etc., and I gathered enough info to buy the wood and bits, trying wherever possible to use the same as the original.




The body wood is Bubinga, neck wood Amazaque (close relative of the original's Ovangkol) spliced with mahogany. Fretboard ebony. I got MEC active p/ups per the original but economised with a Seymour Duncan 3-band EQ rather than the very xpensive MEC one. Hardware was Warwick (surprisingly good value and pretty good stuff)

Then was loads of thinking and sketching to try to work out how they got the thru-neck showing only at the back. I worked out a scheme to 'dog-leg' the neck, and fit it into a routed slot at the back of the body. That's how I did it in the end (with a slight calculation error of which more later ) although I am told that the original's construction method was different - apparently the original Thumb has two body sides glued to the neck - Gibson 'wings' style - and then a piece of matching Bubinga covering the exposed neck on the top.

First job was to square up and glue the laminate neck. I did the squaring up in a home-made jig using a standard router.



The blank was then glued together with Original Titebond wood glue:




That's probably boring enough for starters. Next post I'll cover the rough-cutting and shaping of the body.

Thanks for looking

Andy

[White Cloud]

Nothing boring about this at all. Looks great, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the next instalment.

[philparker]

+1 I'm looking forward to this - I wish I had hte time, skill and patience to make guitars!

[Andyjr1515]

Onto the body...

...after some careful sanding and scraping to get the two edges as flat and square as possible, I joined the two pieces of Bubinga together with standard Titebond wood glue, trying to match the figuring to hide the join as much as I could. The original, as mentioned earlier, I think has three pieces - I think they glue the two sides either side of the neck, which is a centimetre or so thinner than the sides, then add a third, matched piece of thin Bubinga on top. My skills in cutting/sanding and fitting flat and square can't reach that level, hence the slot idea I settled on.





I then planed the top and bottom of the assembled body halves to give me some reasonably flat surfaces to work from:




Notice the extension to my Workmate...the patio table - really goes down with my better half as you can imagine.

Next job was routing the channel in the back that the thru neck will slot into. This is where, rushing to make progress while the weather was OK (I have no workshop so am a 'fair weather only' guitar builder ), I forgot a small but important bit of my build concept - the neck end should have been routed all the way through to the top for a few centimetres - it will become clear why in one of the future posts:





Next was to turn it into something more recognisable - marking out the shape and then rough bandsawing it out prior to finishing the outline with a template and bearing guided router bit:







Incidentally, the bandsaw is the entry-level one from Machine Mart. Many 'real' guitar builders look down on these, but my previous method was using a jigsaw . Cost a touch over £120 and works a treat - and no white finger syndrome .

Thanks for reading - I'll post some more when I can get a moment.

Andy

[Myke]

Looking good! Will keep my eye on this!

[yorick]

Looking forward to seeing the rest of this... I had John Diggins build me a thumb copy back in the mid nineties, which I still have. Unfortunately, first off he made it backwards (I'm left handed), then it took six months of pestering to get him to finish it off

[JimBobTTD]

Excellent stuff!

[Dolando]

That's looking great! I would like a bubinga bass at some point, ill be keeping a close eye on this.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Dolando

[Andyjr1515]

Hi - back from Belgium despite cancelled flights and snow-abandoned cars

So - back to the neck. The way I chose to get the 100% Bubinga on the top and yet see the thru neck at the back was to slot the body and dog-leg the neck. I have fairly basic equipment so find getting absolute flatness or squareness a bit of a challenge - I tend to do it all with a router.

For the neck to fit perfectly in the body slot, it had to be completely square and accurate. I did it like this - using two straight and flat laths (off an old bed!), I sandwiched the neck in my workmate between the laths, loosely tightened, then positioned them with a standard carpenters square until they were spot-on. I then used these as the rails for the router to square the neck up :






As you can see, the laths were quite thick, so I could go right up to the edges, taking a sliver off the edge of the lath at the same time. Clever people would have cut a notch in the laths to start with

Once I'd got the back square, I turned everything round, got everything flat on the dining room's laminate floor, then clamped it again to route the neck top and the dog-leg:




If I had wanted the neck to be angled, I would have simply raised the tailstock end a few mm in the lath-sandwich. As is happens, I was aiming for zero degrees angle.

However, this is where, in my haste to beat the rain, I made a c**k-up. I measured the dogleg up to the body joint and routed it - it should have been a few centimetres longer to allow enough wood remaining to carve the neck right into the body-carve . Anyway, on, on.

Neck and body were ready for trial fit:












Thanks for looking. Next stages will be posted probably next weekend

Andy

[Andyjr1515]

Hi
I had a pm asking me to explain my error (and the fix). The original looks like this:



Note that the neck carve where it meets the body is 'as one'.

Mine, on the other hand, isn't :




The reason is, a slight misalignment between design and manufacture (caused by rushing to take advantage of some dry weather ):

It was designed like this:




But I forgot about the one or two inches I was going to slot the body full depth at the neck join (with the neck 2 inches hidden under the fingerboard). In my haste, so pleased that it fit in the slot so well, I cut the neck to length. Sitting on a plane on the way to Belgium, I was thinking about the carve and suddenly realised that this would happen:



Had I glued and carved and strung, it would have been a happy clappy bass

Because I'd already cut the neck length, I couldn't just cut the body thru slot and move it down a couple of inches. In the end, I compromised with a conventional neck heel:



Ended OK: still full access to end of fretboard; our band's bassist is still delighted with it; good job I realised before carving the neck or cutting the body thru slot

Andy

[Dolando]

Thanks Andy, it think I've got my head round it all. I see what you mean by difficult to explain in words. Thanks for posting that, appreciate it.

[Andyjr1515]

So to the neck.

First job was to cut the truss rod slot. What surprised me is[b] just how close the bottom of the slot gets to breaking through the bottom of the neck . [/b]As such, it was strictly held to depth of rod and a thin hardwood strip to hold it in place.





The hardwood cover strip was epoxied in and then planed and down to the neck level:




After this, I could band-saw the side view of the neck:





I keep losing my broadband connection so I will post now and then later today cover the neck carve.

Thanks of looking
Andy

[Andyjr1515]

To the neck carve. So that the neck felt like our old-git's band's bassist beloved fretted Yamaha, I took some template measurements using the clever bit of plastic you can buy from most DIY stores to cut round pipes when tiling.

First action was to rasp-file the headstock end. You can see the template cut out of the cover of a used writing pad:





Then the same at the heel end:




Can't fully remember, but I think I did all the rough carving with the rasp file and my first attempt at using a cheapo spokeshave (for which, based on the number of times it clogged, I haven't got the hang of).

I think I did another accurate template filing at something like the 9th fret, then finished with files and sandpaper. Very hard work but immensely satisfying!

I was very relieved not to have broken through into the truss rod slot...





T

[Andyjr1515]

Next job was gluing the neck - again using Original Titebond




Next - while the back and top were still flat - was to do the bridge and pup routings:





Finally, I was able to get to the body shaping - it has a real curve (perfect for nestling the beer belly in ). I started with a router and then just used a surform and scrapers:







Thanks for looking!

[JimBobTTD]

Thanks for posting!

This is an excellent build diary with clear photos and good info. It will definitely go on to my reference list.

[Andyjr1515]

Thanks JimBob

[Andyjr1515]

Final furlong
I did a trial fit of the p/ups and hardware, and also the ebony fingerboard and headstock, to make sure everything was in the right place:




The body carves were completed top and bottom. I used a combination of router, block plane, rasp file, scraper and sanding blocks to get the final shape. It was b****y hard work! The timbers started to come up nicely, though:






Probably hardest of all was getting the fretboard down from c 10mm to 5mm and keep it flat and straight. I used the trust router again and then a long flat sanding beam with some 60 grit, progressing down to 400. I used a curved sanding block to get the 20" radius.

The headstock plate was then marked out with paper cut-outs of my swifts moniker. I should have worked out where the strings were going to go, mind you...




I used a jewellers saw to cut out the Mother of Pearl and a Dremel router attachment to route out the slots. The holes for the tuners were also drilled out.
Next was the control chamber, routed to fit the Warwick easy-access control chamber cover assembly. Note the cut through into the bridge and pup chambers - made access to the wires and earthing simple!




Last was the final finishing of the headstock. Note the not-perfectly positioned swifts! :




Final bit was to set in some Mother of Pearl fret markers:






A bit of waxing (Caretakers Beeswax) and wiring / assembly and......

.....FINISHED!!!!!!






Thanks for watching and for your encouraging comments - you're all sweeties

Andy

[RichardH]

Very nice. Fully agree re the comments on the photos and explanations.

[Myke]

Oh man! Well done, looks fantastic!

[JimBobTTD]

Love it! Well done!

[NancyJohnson]

Superb stuff. Well done!

[White Cloud]

I have to say, from a guitar building point of view, your methods were unconventional; but the proof is in the pudding. It looks amazing, very well done sir, and thanks for sharing!

[Andyjr1515]

Hi White Cloud
Yes -for 'unconventional', read 'crazy' !
The same mate has now asked me to do my take an an SG 6 string, despite my open declaration that he could get a real Gibson SG for cheaper than I could build him one :-). The weird thing is that I reckon (it will be mahogany with.a.burl.maple.cap, stained with red calligraphy ink) that the same construction method will give a much better thru neck stability than the 'stub' method of the original...so I'm going to do it again!
Funny old world...
Thanks for the feedback
Andy

[Andyjr1515]

By the way - thanks to all for the nice feedback. The mate who I made the fretless for gave me his Yamaha entry-level fretless as a bonus. I am going to reshape the neck profile and put on a starburst burr walnut veneer . When I get round to it, I'll post the build. Veneering is the quickest and cheapest way of making a so-so bass lookFABULOUS !

Edited March 1, 2013 by Andyjr1515

[White Cloud]

I look forward to your future builds, the sky would be the limit for you if you actually had a workshop...and didnt need to use a patio table as a workbench lol.

Kudos!