Finished! A Bridge Too Far?

[TheGreek]

I know that I've got the right personnel on this project....

Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[stearstree1304]

exciting stuff - Love seeing how the detail starts to unfold as the build progresses. I've also had a quick look at the Herrick Pickups site - some very interesting stuff going on over there!!

[TheGreek]

Just checked Martin's website - some (more than I expected) great items - really like the MM scratchplates:



..and the Violafon Bass:



Check it out yourselves: https://www.herrickpickups.com/

[Andyjr1515]

You must be all thinking that this build is taking a bit longer than my normal fairly-rapid-but-maybe-a-bit-cavalier efforts

Well, there's a good reason for it. It is the sheer number of things that could render the whole thing down to fire-wood So I basically look at it, and sketch it, and go through a mental action on it and look at it again and sketch it again and go through.....well, you probably get the picture.

One of the challenges is that there are no easy datums.

Anyway, on with the next scary bits - some cutting and some gluing.

The first cut (contrary to the little ditty) is actually quite shallow - it's the first chisel cut in the body wing for the tuner block to fit against:


The better I get at sharpening and using chisels, the more I prefer using them. With routers, there is SO much that can go irretrievably wrong SO quickly....

This is how the tuner block will fit the slot:


By the way - I talk about the lack of easy datums. Because I will be carving both the top and back of the body, then at this stage the neck has to be accurately positioned somewhere in the middle of the body wing, as denoted by the pencil lines you can see. The top will have the fretboard slab set into the 4mm rebate, covering the laminated neck:



and the back will be carved up to the neck to give the 'contact lens' profile curve.

The neck and upper body wing is presently glued and clamped up. I'll post a shot in the morning when I un-clamp it.
No turning back now!

Edited April 28, 2017 by Andyjr1515

[Andyjr1515]

The top body wing is now glued and I have the next "Just sit and look at it and THINK about it, Andyjr1515 - AND DON'T TOUCH A BLOODY THING UNTIL YOU HAVE!!!!!!" phase





You can see the slot where the strings will come through the fretboard and also the rebate that the body-section of the fretboard will slot into. There is a similar rebate at the back, which will be carved up to the neck position to form the under-curve of the body. The top of the neck is flat up to the lower wing join (24th fret) and then angles down a touch to at least get a couple of mm or so extra room between the plucking/picking hand and the body top.

The "sit and think" time here is quite important - how many of us builders have ended up with a complete body and then thought, "Ah....now how am I going to get the cable from the pickup to the control chamber??? Ooops!"

- and with the added innovation of the individual coils, that really would be a bit of a problem.

Still - I reckon I'll be producing a bit more sawdust before the end of tomorrow. And then I'll be able to glue the bottom wing on and we then have something that is really going to start looking like a bass

[LukeFRC]

Looks great!

[Andyjr1515]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1493470047' post='3288590']
Looks great!
[/quote]
Thanks!

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1493480422' post='3288691']
Thanks!
[/quote] like don't get me wrong - I think it's utterly mental. But it looks awesome so far.

[Andyjr1515]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1493482063' post='3288703']
like don't get me wrong - I think it's utterly mental. But it looks awesome so far.
[/quote]

[Si600]

Silly question, but thinking back to the drawings and mock ups, have you cut the bridge slot the wrong way, or am I seeing the top as the back? It makes sense in my mildly tipsy head!

[Andyjr1515]

[quote name='Si600' timestamp='1493503292' post='3288868']
Silly question, but thinking back to the drawings and mock ups, have you cut the bridge slot the wrong way, or am I seeing the top as the back? It makes sense in my mildly tipsy head!
[/quote]
Happily, it is right .

Mind you, you wouldn't believe how many times I checked before I cut or glued anything!

[Andyjr1515]

Well, there's little excuse not to glue this all together soon....

The cable runs are cut - rounding corners wherever possible to avoid snagging - and the cutout on the lower body wing has been done and checked for positioning of the tuner block:




The ebony overlap will be taken off before I glue the wing on, now i know exactly where the wing will join.

The one thing I will have a think about is whether to glue it with a removable string / cord in the cable channel to be pulled through while the glue is still soft - it would be a beggar if the channel got filled with glue squeeze-out...

[Andyjr1515]

OK - I really did run out of excuses to avoid gluing the second body wing.

Now this is a busy photo...but there's a lot going on:


The side is being clamped with the big bench vice, and sash clamps and adjustable clamps. I am using the offcuts from the body blanks to give me squared-up surfaces for the clamps to work on. The top clamps are holding the two wings against the bench so that it will be flat and even on the top when I unclamp and turn it over.

Additionally, I have an old bass string making sure the cable run's clear of glue (I've used it as a swab a now will leave it in place to take out once it's all dried) and I've loosely positioned the tuner block to make sure that the body section is in EXACTLY the right place...and it is

[mixingwithtom]

Wowzer!! Looking ace

[Bastav]

Looking good!

[JPJ]

Definitely a seminal moment in this build. And if ever an image reinforced the old saying 'you can never have enough clamps' then this is it 😎

[Andyjr1515]

And here we have a self-supporting glued assembly where everything is broadly in the right place!

[TheGreek]

Coming on strong...not sure whether to go with black, white or gold strings....

Edited May 1, 2017 by TheGreek

[Andyjr1515]

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1493646858' post='3289658'] Definitely a seminal moment in this build. And if ever an image reinforced the old saying 'you can never have enough clamps' then this is it [/quote]

Absolutely. I don't know what pressure the big bench vice was applying, but I reckon combined the force was pretty massive

[Andyjr1515]

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1493647596' post='3289666'] Coming on strong...not sure whether to go with black, white or gold strings.... [/quote]

As the AJRGuitarmods saying often goes, "If ever this actually makes it through to completion, you can have whatever b****y coloured strings you want!"

[BassApprentice]

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1493647596' post='3289666']
Coming on strong...not sure whether to go with black, white or gold strings....
[/quote]

I stumbled across these a while back, at £25 it's not breaking the bank (compared to other coated/coloured strings) for trying our colour combinations

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aurora-Bass-Coloured-Guitar-Strings-/251865899904?var=&hash=item3aa460a380:m:mr3aBRRB1eH7GpkLoa1VviQ"]http://www.ebay.co.u...1eH7GpkLoa1VviQ[/url]

Aurora used to do the coating for DR before DR started doing it in house so they are good quality


Andy, I know it's not easy, but you make it look very easy!!

Edited May 1, 2017 by BassApprentice

[TheGreek]

[quote name='BassApprentice' timestamp='1493651483' post='3289713']
I stumbled across these a while back, at £25 it's not breaking the bank (compared to other coated/coloured strings) for trying our colour combinations

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aurora-Bass-Coloured-Guitar-Strings-/251865899904?var=&hash=item3aa460a380:m:mr3aBRRB1eH7GpkLoa1VviQ"]http://www.ebay.co.u...1eH7GpkLoa1VviQ[/url]

Aurora used to do the coating for DR before DR started doing it in house so they are good quality


Andy, I know it's not easy, but you make it look very easy!!
[/quote]

There the ones I'm after but they don't have the ones I want in a 40 in stock so I've got them on order...thankfully no rush at the moment.

[cheddatom]

this is amazing

[Andyjr1515]

Thanks for the encouraging words, folks

One of the challenges of this kind of build is envisaging quite how things are going to work - particularly curves and carves. And then that links to the sequence you do things. If I was better at envisaging shapes (some people are very good at this but I'm not), then the last thing I would want to do for all other practical reasons would be the tuner-block infill.

But actually, because as soon as I start carving, pretty much everything is going to be curved, I have decided to put that on first and at least get the shape in my head from one 2-D viewpoint.

So on goes some laminated neck offcut, angled accordingly and with an ebony veneer demarcation line:



And then out come the chisels.

The finished article will have two thin outside maple curved fillets to finish it off - and that will carve through to the general curve of the back, but I now can see how that will work (remember that the body panels at the back will be scooped so that the body edges at the join will be level with the neck, taking away completely the rebate you see in these shots):

[TheGreek]

Beautiful touch Andy...it'll be little things like this that will make the design.

Well chuffed with the progress.