Si600 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 I saw P/J and failed to see the Jazz bit. The moment has passed so I'm not putting it back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted August 24, 2018 Author Share Posted August 24, 2018 3 minutes ago, Si600 said: I saw P/J and failed to see the Jazz bit. The moment has passed so I'm not putting it back My normal technique is to shoehorn any joke in anywhere. Though I should disclose my 2 1/2 year old is already rolling her eyes at my 'sense of humour', so maybe you're right. My wife is always complaining at my 'timing'... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 1 hour ago, Si600 said: Damn, failed joke, please disregard Something about flat bottoms by any chance, Si??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 (edited) 46 minutes ago, Si600 said: I saw P/J and failed to see the Jazz bit. The moment has passed so I'm not putting it back You just know you're going to have to put it back in, Si... Edited August 24, 2018 by Andyjr1515 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si600 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said: That looks great! You have a "precision" in your work that I aspire to. Boom Boom There. Happy now? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 Just now, Si600 said: Boom Boom There. Happy now? Yes I am but a simple soul 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christine Posted August 26, 2018 Share Posted August 26, 2018 Can I just add the reason I marked and routed the blocks before radiusing was because the Mother of Pearl isn't flexible so I couldn't get it marked out accurately or seat it if I routed a curved bottom following the radius of the board. With wood or Celluloid that isn't an issue 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted August 26, 2018 Author Share Posted August 26, 2018 9 hours ago, Christine said: Can I just add the reason I marked and routed the blocks before radiusing was because the Mother of Pearl isn't flexible so I couldn't get it marked out accurately or seat it if I routed a curved bottom following the radius of the board. With wood or Celluloid that isn't an issue Thanks for that, I thought that was probably the case. No curved bottoms. Understood! 😀 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Being slightly obsessive about these things, I've been working on a new technique for getting the neck pocket and neck to fit together perfectly, which if anyone is interested I'll describe here. (I'm not suggesting anything here is new, it's all been well and truly stolen from elsewhere!) First I get some 18mm mdf and 3 straight edges. I clamp the neck down (which isn't shown here) and make sure it's immovable. I then use double sided tape to stick down the straight edges so that they are up against the side of the neck.... I then remove the clamp and the neck, and take the straight edges/mdf to the router table where I use a guided bit to rout out the template... The next stage is to use a 1/4" radius roundover bit to round the ends of the neck so that they fit (almost) exactly into the template. The key here is to make sure that the bearing you used to cut out the template was also a 1/4" radius bit. The neck is put on its side and I rout just the ends of the neck so they are rounded. Probably if you've never used a router table before, this isn't the first thing you want to do, it is a bit nerve-wracking. However, I've done this a few times now and never had any issues and I'm very cautious about routing. Obviously make sure you aren't holding the neck down with you fingers near the cutter (I always use plastic handle push stick type things). I take it very slow and take many passes. It's then just a matter of clearing up the corner a bit with sandpaper and you should find the neck fits perfectly into the template. One thing that takes a bit of playing around with is making sure that the template is cut slightly oversize, so that the neck falls in, but doesn't have any visual gaps. I use 3 layers of (pink TESA) sensitive masking tape around the sides of the neck. That's for a neck that will have a tru-oil (so very thin) finish. If I was going to spray polyurethane you'd probably want to have at least 2 more layers. Or one layer of thicker tape. The key though is that once the neck pocket is cut, the neck should fall into the hole with no resistance. Forums seem to be full of people bragging about how tight their neck pocket is, without realising that once finish is applied, the neck will be impossible to insert. Hopefully someone found that useful😀 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted August 29, 2018 Author Share Posted August 29, 2018 Today was a day of experimenting, largely unsuccessful😮 First up, bindings. As I feared, bending 1.5mm plastic round a 6mm radius curve (on a scrap neck) is really hard..... I've tried both hot water and a heat gun, and while I can get pretty close, I just can't get it accurate enough so that I'm confident it will stay on long term. If you have gaps they act as a lever when you press on them, lifting up the binding elsewhere. Fender necks have a curved neck heel which increases the radius of the curve. So, I've ordered some 1mm binding which I'm pretty sure I'll be able to bend ok, but that's getting really thin. I'll see what it looks like. Binding may have to wait till the next one. Blocks. I tried @Christine's method on some scrap and it is great. What is less great is the condition of my chisels😲 If only there was a thread dedicated to sharpening......(he he thanks Christine!) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted August 30, 2018 Author Share Posted August 30, 2018 What do you think? The only mother of pearl inlay blocks I have been able to find are for guitars, so they're smaller than blocks would normally be for bass. I've cut the fret slots and just laid the MOP on top to see what you think... As opposed to normal jazz bass blocks which look like this... Alternatively, I could use a sheet of celluloid and cut it down down to size. Something like this.. Now I know this is well and truly a matter of little to no importance, but if anyone has an opinion, let me know. I'm leaning towards the celluloid. I'm just not sure I like the look of the smaller blocks, which are Les Paul size. Finally, here's some lovely contours! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba_the_gut Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 Lovely work! Still jealous of your drum sander...….!! Cheers Jez Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 Yup - nice contour My vote would always be mop over celluloid and the sizes don't look out of place to me - but what matters is what matters to you, not me @honza992 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba_the_gut Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 (edited) I like the mother of pearl blocks - I think they look really nice. I put blocks on a bass that were non-Fender sized and they look fine but as @Andyjr1515 says, it's about what you are happy with. Edited August 30, 2018 by Jabba_the_gut 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimothey Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 47 minutes ago, Jabba_the_gut said: I like the mother of pearl blocks - I think they look really nice. I put blocks on a bass that were non-Fender sized and they look fine but as @Andyjr1515 says, it's about what you are happy with. I can't quite make out from the pic but are the blocks Zebrano or Wenge? Either way looks great better than pearloid or MOP IMHO! 😀 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 Thanks all for the input. I'm going to use the MOP. I spent most of today routing out the channels for the blocks. More or less I used @Christine's method, ie: 1. Masking tape on the back of the blocks, and the fretboard. Use centrelines to line them up. Thin superglue them in place. Score round the edge with a blade. Then VERY carefully prise them off. Very carefully. I had the corner of one break off because I went at it too quickly. 2. I found it useful to use masking tape to make clearer where the edge of the block is. Being a bit ditzy, I can very happily rout away, completely forgetting that I'm supposed to be stopping at the line. So the pink masking tape is there as a reminder! I then routed with my palm router (not a dremel) and a 3mm mill bit. I thought this stage was going to be the most difficult. Actually it wasn't. The router rode on two stacked pieces of 18mm mdf, either side of the neck and it went very smoothly. My palm router (a Dewalt, the best designed tool I own) has a light underneath so I was able to see pretty clearly. I hand routed to within 0.5 - 1mm or so. 3. Chisels to then cut up to the line. This was....less easy. Other than for prising templates off😲, I've never used a chisel in my life. I'm not even sure quite how to use them. Am I supposed to be hitting them with a malet? Just pushing then to sort of slice wood off? I used a combination of both techniques. I found that the most important thing was that they were sharp...(I'm a slow learner!).....I sharpened them before I started and half way through. Actually I think I should have sharpened them 3 or even 4 times. This was the end result... Not perfect, (and this is the best one) but I'm pretty happy. I'm hoping that epoxy and sanding dust will make up for my sloppy work.... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christine Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 27 minutes ago, honza992 said: Thanks all for the input. I'm going to use the MOP. I spent most of today routing out the channels for the blocks. More or less I used @Christine's method, ie: 1. Masking tape on the back of the blocks, and the fretboard. Use centrelines to line them up. Thin superglue them in place. Score round the edge with a blade. Then VERY carefully prise them off. Very carefully. I had the corner of one break off because I went at it too quickly. 2. I found it useful to use masking tape to make clearer where the edge of the block is. Being a bit ditzy, I can very happily rout away, completely forgetting that I'm supposed to be stopping at the line. So the pink masking tape is there as a reminder! I then routed with my palm router (not a dremel) and a 3mm mill bit. I thought this stage was going to be the most difficult. Actually it wasn't. The router rode on two stacked pieces of 18mm mdf, either side of the neck and it went very smoothly. My palm router (a Dewalt, the best designed tool I own) has a light underneath so I was able to see pretty clearly. I hand routed to within 0.5 - 1mm or so. 3. Chisels to then cut up to the line. This was....less easy. Other than for prising templates off😲, I've never used a chisel in my life. I'm not even sure quite how to use them. Am I supposed to be hitting them with a malet? Just pushing then to sort of slice wood off? I used a combination of both techniques. I found that the most important thing was that they were sharp...(I'm a slow learner!).....I sharpened them before I started and half way through. Actually I think I should have sharpened them 3 or even 4 times. This was the end result... Not perfect, (and this is the best one) but I'm pretty happy. I'm hoping that epoxy and sanding dust will make up for my sloppy work.... That looks excellent!! A happy bunny? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 1 hour ago, honza992 said: Thanks all for the input. I'm going to use the MOP. I spent most of today routing out the channels for the blocks. More or less I used @Christine's method, ie: 1. Masking tape on the back of the blocks, and the fretboard. Use centrelines to line them up. Thin superglue them in place. Score round the edge with a blade. Then VERY carefully prise them off. Very carefully. I had the corner of one break off because I went at it too quickly. 2. I found it useful to use masking tape to make clearer where the edge of the block is. Being a bit ditzy, I can very happily rout away, completely forgetting that I'm supposed to be stopping at the line. So the pink masking tape is there as a reminder! I then routed with my palm router (not a dremel) and a 3mm mill bit. I thought this stage was going to be the most difficult. Actually it wasn't. The router rode on two stacked pieces of 18mm mdf, either side of the neck and it went very smoothly. My palm router (a Dewalt, the best designed tool I own) has a light underneath so I was able to see pretty clearly. I hand routed to within 0.5 - 1mm or so. 3. Chisels to then cut up to the line. This was....less easy. Other than for prising templates off😲, I've never used a chisel in my life. I'm not even sure quite how to use them. Am I supposed to be hitting them with a malet? Just pushing then to sort of slice wood off? I used a combination of both techniques. I found that the most important thing was that they were sharp...(I'm a slow learner!).....I sharpened them before I started and half way through. Actually I think I should have sharpened them 3 or even 4 times. This was the end result... Not perfect, (and this is the best one) but I'm pretty happy. I'm hoping that epoxy and sanding dust will make up for my sloppy work.... Looks pretty good to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 (edited) Well the 1mm binding arrived from David Dyke and it's perfect. It would have matched the vintage white paint exactly. Unfortunately I still can't get it bent round the curve at the heel of the neck, it's just too tight a radius☹️. Sooo.....binding will have to wait till my next build. Had I thought of this before, I could have modified the shape of the neck (to incude the traditional Fender heel curve) and all would have been fine. Oh well. Next time. Thread title edited to reflect my failure😲😭 Edited September 3, 2018 by honza992 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 41 minutes ago, honza992 said: Well the 1mm binding arrived from David Dyke and it's perfect. It would have matched the vintage white paint exactly. Unfortunately I still can't get it bent round the curve at the heel of the neck, it's just too tight a radius☹️. Sooo.....binding will have to wait till my next build. Had I thought of this before, I could have modified the shape of the neck (to incude the traditional Fender heel curve) and all would have been fine. Oh well. Next time. Thread title edited to reflect my failure😲😭 If 1/4" was too tight for 1mm binding what would you recommend as a minimum radius after the discovery? 5/8" or more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted September 4, 2018 Share Posted September 4, 2018 What type of binding are you using? I managed to get celluloid binding round a 1/4" turn. I used a hairdryer to get it nice and hot so I could bend it, then used weld-on to glue it. Once it was set, I then used a few drops of acetone in the slight gaps so I could pull those in and neaten it up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted September 4, 2018 Author Share Posted September 4, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, Norris said: What type of binding are you using? I managed to get celluloid binding round a 1/4" turn. I used a hairdryer to get it nice and hot so I could bend it, then used weld-on to glue it. Once it was set, I then used a few drops of acetone in the slight gaps so I could pull those in and neaten it up Wow that looks great. Did you do a build thread? I'm trying to use white plastic binding. I've tried both hot water and a heat gun. I wonder if celluloid has a lower melting point? I'm not sure a hair dryer would be enough to soften the plastic binding enough. A hair dryer would solve the issue of the heat gun heating it too much and melting it though. I'll steal the wife's and give it a go. Or of course you may just be better at it than me! Edited September 4, 2018 by honza992 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted September 4, 2018 Author Share Posted September 4, 2018 OK, interesting. I've just tried bending a piece of pearloid binding and managed to bend it perfectly easily round the heel of the neck. Clearly not all binding is made out of the same material, and some bends a lot easier than others. I wonder if you can get a vintage white made out of the same stuff as the pearloid one I've just practised on.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted September 4, 2018 Share Posted September 4, 2018 I did do a build thread but on another site. Non-bass guitar builds were not quite so prevalent on BC back when I started that one. If heat is not bending it enough for you, you could try a dab of acetone to soften it slightly before heat bending. Too much or too long with the acetone may distort it though. You can get small bottles of acetone from your local pharmacy. It doesn't half evaporate quickly though! (I spilled some and the floor was wet for about 5 seconds!) Maybe try some on a small offcut. Failing that you may need to cut and join it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honza992 Posted September 4, 2018 Author Share Posted September 4, 2018 1 minute ago, Norris said: I did do a build thread but on another site. Non-bass guitar builds were not quite so prevalent on BC back when I started that one. If heat is not bending it enough for you, you could try a dab of acetone to soften it slightly before heat bending. Too much or too long with the acetone may distort it though. You can get small bottles of acetone from your local pharmacy. It doesn't half evaporate quickly though! (I spilled some and the floor was wet for about 5 seconds!) Maybe try some on a small offcut. Failing that you may need to cut and join it OK, nice tip about the acetone. I'll give it a go. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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