Deck Shorty

[alittlebitrobot]

I actually finished this a few months ago but was just reminded by the "show off your short scales" thread. I was reluctant to post considering the level of building on show in this forum, not just from pros but amateurs too.
But, I think I should post it as it could be inspirational for somebody who's thinking of giving something like this a go. If I can build something playable with no experience, no room to work in and fairly shabby tools; you can too

Let's begin.
I'd never played a short scale bass and they seemed like fun so I designed a 30" scale 4 string. I have no experience with building (I have one previous post in this forum which is basically just a heavy modificiation of a wrecked, old bass.) or woodwork in general (beyond carving/whittling little sculptures I make) so I didn't trust myself to build a straight, stable neck. I found somebody nearby selling an Encore short scale bass for 30 squids so I snapped it up. It was in bad shape, with the exception of the one thing I actually wanted; the neck.
Off to a great start. Apologies for the blurry photo, but you get the point.


Job one, stripping the glossy, glossy varnish, filling the tuner holes, neck screw holes and, ultimately, the tuner post holes too. It used to have kluson-style tuners (hence the unnecessary four holes per tuner) and one of them was missing the...twisty bit. So, I wanted to replace them with more modern tuners. Let me know if you want those K tuners.



Good. Now the body.
I traced the design on to mdf to make a router template (this would be my first time using a router. Exciting.) and rough cut with a handsaw. Then laid all the bits on to get an idea of how the bass would look.

I haven't actually reshaped the headstock here but I coloured in with black the bit that I planned to cut off, because I didn't like the original design. The electronic guts are from a retired/deceased Westone Spectrum GT bass. That bridge is a Gotoh 3D bridge from a disassembled bass, but I opted against it in the end and just went for a black BBOT bridge to match the tuners. The Gotoh is for sale, so let me know if you're interested and I'll supply pics and details.

Coming up next: Woody business.

Edited December 27, 2015 by alittlebitrobot

[alittlebitrobot]

Now, it appears some photos have gone walkies, which is a pity but no big deal, really. My dad took home some wood that was lying around the factory for some reason, so he made some vegetable planters for the garden and I took the leftovers; which I diagnosed to be Red Oak. I also used some of his old pine fence posts and some bits of the garden deck (hence the name of this post) that escaped the rot, which I decided was cedar.
So it was two blocks of red oak, the worst bit of wood I've ever had to deal with (more on that later), glued to a central block of pine and the cedar used as a top as welll as a veneer for the headstock.
A local carpenter foolishly claimed "no job too small" on his facebook page so I had him joint one side of the oak and put the cedar through a thicknesser (you'll see why in a second), the rest I wanted to try and square up myself with my blunt handplane. .....god, someone please come and sharpen my plane blade, all the youtube videos in the world don't seem to be helping.

Apologies again for crappy phone photos, but this is the oak-pine-pine-oak body blank glued up and squared up as best I could, which was actually pretty close. It didn't rock when I put it on the kitchen worktop. I don't have sash clamps and I can't find the photo I took of my glueing set-up for a thing this size but look up Izzy Swan thinkworks on youtube and you'll find what I did. Basically it was two blocks of wood on either side (lenght-wise), screwed to a base-board just slightly wider than my blank and then hammered in some wedges to force the oak and pine together. It worked, anyway.


The cedar before. You can see at the top of the left-most plank the hallmark of its former life as a garden deck.


and then thicknessed by Glen, planed by me and glued up. This is the top view. The underside had some gouges which I filled with wood putty. ............more on that later :/


And to make a veneer for the headstock, I took some leftover cedar, double-stick taped it to some mdf and went at it with a sharp chisel


nice and thin. No wonder people make lampshades with veneers. It glows so beautifully when the light comes through.


Gluey, gluey, clamp. ....with a clamping caul for pressure distribution and protection.


and trim with a sharp chisel and a wee notch for truss access


Back to the body; I took the blank and traced on the body shape (not actually visible in this photo). Can you see a dark semi-circle at the bottom-left? That's a fresh epoxy stain because a whole chunk just popped off. Right along the very semi-circular grain line.


Then I drilled the electronics cavity and hollowed out some weight-reducing cavities. I did this with Forstner bits in a hand-drill but, after this photo, I tidied them up with a router. You can also see a small trench I dremel-routed for the bridge earth wire.


Next, I rough cut both the body and top. Can you a see a dark line laterally intersecting the control cavity? Same as before; a bit just popped off.


and clamped them. I don't have enough clamps. Woodworkers say you can never have enough, but I really, really don't have enough. I only have two that have any kind of reach, so I did my best to make the others work by using my steel spirit level to run the length of the body with a tiny shim at the mid-point. This meant that the clamps at either end were actually applying pressure at three places rather than just each end


It worked! Perfect glue up at all points. Major relief.

Next, I taped the MDF template on top and used my new plunge router to trim the body.

That'll do for this post. Next: knobs, gaps in the record and mysterious rattling....

Edited December 29, 2015 by alittlebitrobot

[sblueplanet]

Been on the shorty thread and the finished bass looks awesome!

[alittlebitrobot]

Knob fun!
I decided to make the knobs like the body; an oak base and a cedar cap. For lack of a lathe, or even a drill press or whatever, I took a block of oak offcut, drilled a hole through it and put the mandrel from an old sanding disc through it so I could put it in the hand-drill. Then I clamped the drill to my bench and used the Dremel with a routing bit to make it into a cylinder.


Then, still using the lathe idea, held a dovetail saw against it to divide it in three


Then I widened the inside to the right size and glued on some cedar. Then I epoxied in some old plastic knobs from a busted guitar pedal


No final photos of the knobs. Sorry. But now it's control cavity cover time. I sawed up some of the oak into these strips


Then glued them together and, like the headstock veneer, thinned it with a chisel.


For some stability, I glued it to a piece of thin MDF and cut it to shape. It didn't work 100% so, to counteract some curling, I cut deep scores along the MDF and it flattened right out.


Then, when I was routing the ledge for the cavity cover...

This oak was the [b]worst[/b]. But I should say, now that the guitar is finished, it's perfectly stable. It was just the rough and tumble of construction that made it fall. Never again, though.

Anyway, I also made wooden pickup covers out of pine this time. (I ran out of cedar leftovers) Some more photos missing, unfortunately.

I have to say, drilling the holes for the pickup screws was, by a strong margin, the most aggravating process in the whole build. For my next build, I'm definitely getting a drill press or something to help with accurate, perpendicular cuts and drilling.

I also wanted to practice inlaying, so I made a small rosewood inlay in the headstock, freehanded with my Dremel and previously-photographed routing attachment. After trimming this down, I filled the gaps with the rosewood dust and glue. Sadly, no photos. I don't know what happened to them.


No photos of the neck pocket happening but you've seen that a million times. I roughed out the p/up cavities and then cleaned them up with the big router and a template.
At this point, a strange rattling sound was heard...



Here's all the bits, with tuners attached, and pot holes and neck holes drilled. Oh, I also made a little two-tone truss rod access cover.


Now.....where did that funny little soundhole come from? Well, the rattling I mentioned turned out to be something in one of the cavities under the top wood. After a minute, I realised it must've been a bit of wood putty that dried and broke off the underside of the topwood. After a lot of shaking, I decided it was in the bigger of the two cavities and that I had two options; either I shake the life out of the guitar enough to break the putty up until it was inaudible dust, or dig it out. I went with the latter as it gave me another bit of practice for that kind of fine routing.

Edited December 27, 2015 by alittlebitrobot

[alittlebitrobot]

And then sand, sand, sand, sand. I really want a bobbin sander, and Triton do a pretty affordable one..
The finish is just tung oil for the neck and tru-oil for the body.
I've since replaced the strings with ....I forget. DR Sunbeams, I think.

I'm posting these bigger because I want you to see [i]just[/i] how wonky the holes in the pickup covers went. BUT, they work because I then drilled the holes in the body according to their wonky positioning








So, that's it, and I know maybe I come across a bit slap-dash and "that'll do" but, honestly, I know myself too well. When I see some little detail that's gone wrong, I really want to just focus on it until it's right, but that way I never get anything [b]finished[/b] and it was crucially important to me at the outset of this that I end up with a playable bass and not just a bunch of stuff from an "unfinished project".
I'm not going to say what exactly I do for a living but it's "arty" and the amount of unfinished personal projects I have is just stupid. You learn so much more by finishing a thing. [i]Perfection[/i] is the enemy of [i]done[/i] If I had got caught up perfecting the problems with the neck or the body or whatever, I would never have got to experience the edifying fury of making wooden pickup covers with handtools. And so on and so on. It's great to have finished it and to give those absolute monsters of pickups a new lease on life (this thing is so ridiculously loud) and now, having finally gotten to have a go on a short scale, I like it!
My next build will be another shorty.

Having said all that, on my next build, I will allow myself a bit more care and attention within reason. It depends on the tools I acquire.

Ok. I'm done now I hope this was helpful to anybody who's thinking of having a go. There's nothing to worry about. If you're crap, nobody bans you from doing it and you get a free* bass at the end of it.

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='sblueplanet' timestamp='1451248453' post='2939111']
Been on the shorty thread and the finished bass looks awesome!
[/quote]

Thanks very much!

[Owen]

[s]You had better not leave us hanging. I want to see how this ends.[/s]

That is what I get for not refreshing a page before posting. Lovely job. I totally get the "just finish it" ethic. If only I could make it so in my life!

Edited December 27, 2015 by owen

[4-string-thing]

I love it, and have found it very inspiring..... How does it sound? (besides loud) Seeing as oak and pine are not really recognised as "tonewoods"

[Bloc Riff Nut]

That's awesome, thank god you posted.
Love those nobs. You've made a unique instrument.
Obviously a sound clip would bring the thread to fruition.
You should be proud as punch.

[blablas]

I think you should try to make new pickup covers with better aligned mounting holes.
Right now what you've got is a letdown for a nicely built and looking instrument.

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='4-string-thing' timestamp='1451294600' post='2939288']
I love it, and have found it very inspiring..... How does it sound? (besides loud) Seeing as oak and pine are not really recognised as "tonewoods"
[/quote]

Thank you!
I remember the first time I plugged it in and tuned up and thought "oh well. It sounds crap but at least it was fun to make", but then after a few weeks it sort of settled down. I've since read about this from proper luthiers who say it just takes a wee while for all this wood and steel to get used to its new life as a musical instrument.

To be honest, I'm ambivalent on the "tonewood" thing. I think a lot of people make far too much of it (and the people who pretend that a veneer of flame maple on a body gives some "brightness" drive me mental), but I'm not a total skeptic either. When I made the solid oak/pine body blank, obviously it was over-sized, but the weight was shocking. The oak was so heavy and so dense. No tap-tone there, just a flat thud. Now, I'm sure someone could sensibly argue that tap-tones are irrelevant to a solid-body instrument with magnetic pickups, but I was unhappy with the sheer atonality of the oak. Hence, the chambers. The amount of knots in the pine was an absolute curse because they cut and sand so differently to the surrounding wood, so I'd definitely avoid that in future.

It sounds nice now. I know we always struggle to describe tone but I'd say it is definitely "warmer" than the same pickups sounded in the Westone. That might just be the scale losing 4 inches.

PS: Just on tap-tones. [url="https://youtu.be/zmFSivO5Tuk?t=2m53s"]This video from PRS...[/url]

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='blablas' timestamp='1451306432' post='2939404'] I think you should try to make new pickup covers with better aligned mounting holes. Right now what you've got is a letdown for a nicely built and looking instrument. [/quote]

Oh, thanks You know what, I can't start on my next build for a while so making new covers would be a nice bit of practice in the meantime.

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='Bloc Riff Nut' timestamp='1451295825' post='2939295'] That's awesome, thank god you posted. Love those nobs. You've made a unique instrument. Obviously a sound clip would bring the thread to fruition. You should be proud as punch. [/quote]

thanks Just visiting my parents for Christmas but I'll try to record something this weekend.

[JPJ]

Great effort and result. Rather than purchasing a drum sander, go for the pillar drill and get a sanding drum like this one [url="http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-sleeveless-sanding-drums-ax896201"]http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-sleeveless-sanding-drums-ax896201[/url] to mount in the chuck - two birds, one stone :-)

[Andyjr1515]

I like this a LOT, alittlebitrobot

[ahpook]

That's great, what a lovely thread.

Paint me impressed.

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1451313606' post='2939471']
Great effort and result. Rather than purchasing a drum sander, go for the pillar drill and get a sanding drum like this one [url="http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-sleeveless-sanding-drums-ax896201"]http://www.axminster...-drums-ax896201[/url] to mount in the chuck - two birds, one stone :-)
[/quote]
Magic!


[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1451313749' post='2939473']
I like this a LOT, alittlebitrobot
[/quote]
Thanks, Andy! I was thinking of you and Blablas when I mentioned the quality of [i]amateurs[/i] in this forum

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1451314660' post='2939484']
That's great, what a lovely thread.

Paint me impressed.
[/quote]

Thanks very much

[scrumpymike]

Great job - ten out of ten for ingenuity!

[Bastav]

That looks great, well done!

[wmsheep]

Looks Great

[scojack]

That has come out pretty nice i'd say, and the magic (and fatal ) words at the end ,,,,my [i]next[/i] project....

[FlatEric]

Top job!

Just shows what can be done with a little enthusiasm and a few tools.

I love the control knobs!!

[Mykesbass]

Excellent job. Must use the inspiration to finish my restoration project.

[alittlebitrobot]

[quote name='scojack' timestamp='1451340886' post='2939754']
That has come out pretty nice i'd say, and the magic (and fatal ) words at the end ,,,,my [i]next[/i] project....
[/quote]

but I mean it! It's already designed. I'm hoping to be making another post here this time next year.

Edited December 30, 2015 by alittlebitrobot

[alittlebitrobot]

Thanks everybody kind words much appreciated.