Another Swift Lite Bass

[Andyjr1515]

Bit more progress on this.  Tapered the neck to a touch oversize against the fretboard, installed the trussrod and glued on the fretboard:

 

I also took a couple of slices off some poplar offcut for the headstock plate and the control chamber cover.

Starting to look like a bass now

[Christine]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Bit more progress on this.  Tapered the neck to a touch oversize against the fretboard, installed the trussrod and glued on the fretboard:

 

I also took a couple of slices off some poplar offcut for the headstock plate and the control chamber cover.

Starting to look like a bass now

Loving those Linda Lovelace clamps, I must get some oneday

[Jimothey]

6 minutes ago, Christine said:

Loving those Linda Lovelace clamps, I must get some oneday

Wasn't she a porn star from the 70's?? 😁

[Bridgehouse]

4 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

Wasn't she a porn star from the 70's?? 😁

Yep - and she was famed for her clamping action!!

[Jimothey]

3 minutes ago, Bridgehouse said:

Yep - and she was famed for her clamping action!!

Or was it her deep throat abilities!! 😁 

[Bridgehouse]

9 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

Or was it her deep throat abilities!! 😁 

Dunno how that would help glue a Fretboard on tho? 

[Andyjr1515]

46 minutes ago, Christine said:

Loving those Linda Lovelace clamps, I must get some oneday

I've obviously led a sheltered life 

[Christine]

Oh dear, everyone's as corrupted as me! It's what they got called in my workshops

Back on topic

[Andyjr1515]

I do the neck carve over two or three days.  I do the carve with a combination of templates - based on profile drawings I got the prospective owner to take off his favourite playing bass - and feel.  The bit that takes the longest, usually, is the heel where the feel of the transition is what matters most.  However, when you do things by feel, I find it helps if you come back to it from time to time when your hand has forgotten the shape and is re-sensitised.

 

I’m pleased, though, with the first day’s progress.

 

First, I cut a stiff plasticard template from the measurements sent.  It's based on a Lakland 44-64 and it's interesting that it's very subtly asymmetric.  The closest equivalent I can think of is a Stevie Ray Vaughan 6 string electric  :

 

 

As with @eude's, I use a spokeshave for the very early bulk removal:

 

But quickly move over to microplane and cabinet scrapers to give me a much more controllable cut:

 

This is the result of the first stage:

 

It’s getting relatively close to the template shapes but, more to the point, it is starting to feel right.  You can see why I leave the back carve to late in the process.  If I get it right, the neck radius will smoothly disappear as the player progresses into the full body thickness at the upper frets.

 

This is the demarcation you get from doing that slightly odd back-to front-binding.  It looks great when you add luminlay black-surround side dots in the middle

 

 

[HazBeen]

Loving this a lot

[Christine]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I do the neck carve over two or three days.  I do the carve with a combination of templates - based on profile drawings I got the prospective owner to take off his favourite playing bass - and feel.  The bit that takes the longest, usually, is the heel where the feel of the transition is what matters most.  However, when you do things by feel, I find it helps if you come back to it from time to time when your hand has forgotten the shape and is re-sensitised.

 

I’m pleased, though, with the first day’s progress.

 

First, I cut a stiff plasticard template from the measurements sent.  It's based on a Lakland 44-64 and it's interesting that it's very subtly asymmetric.  The closest equivalent I can think of is a Stevie Ray Vaughan 6 string electric  :

 

 

As with @eude's, I use a spokeshave for the very early bulk removal:

 

But quickly move over to microplane and cabinet scrapers to give me a much more controllable cut:

 

This is the result of the first stage:

 

It’s getting relatively close to the template shapes but, more to the point, it is starting to feel right.  You can see why I leave the back carve to late in the process.  If I get it right, the neck radius will smoothly disappear as the player progresses into the full body thickness at the upper frets.

 

This is the demarcation you get from doing that slightly odd back-to front-binding.  It looks great when you add luminlay black-surround side dots in the middle

 

 

What do you think of those Microplanes Andy? We have one in the kitchen but I've never used one on wood. Love that spokeshave too, Veritas?

Better mention the bas too, well, it's typical of you, brilliant!!

[Andyjr1515]

38 minutes ago, Christine said:

What do you think of those Microplanes Andy? We have one in the kitchen but I've never used one on wood. Love that spokeshave too, Veritas?

Better mention the bas too, well, it's typical of you, brilliant!!

I think the micro planes are brilliant.  I use them more than anything else for general  bulk removal and, using the fine bladed ones, even for pre-sanding level.  I don't use a handle, though.  I don gloves and generally use them two handed, sometimes straight with the length but often held crossways and drawn diagonally.

The fine ones can flatten a bit and lose their effectiveness albeit after a decent amount of time, but the coarser ones seem to stay sharp for a long, long time  I also use the curved ones more than the flat ones - even when I'm trying to flatten things.

. I It's saying somrthing that if I had to choose between my shinto rasp and the micro planes, I'd choose the microplanes.

Yes - the spokeshave is veritas.  Not overly expensive but a beautiful and very effective tool

[Andyjr1515]

Still got the final shaping to finish, but grabbed a spare moment to do a few of the smaller jobs.

I cut some swifts:

Cut the control chamber cover from another offcut of the top wood:

 

And fitted the tuners and bridge to pop on some strings, just tightened enough to straighten them, so that I can work out the exact positions of the PJ pickups before the scary bit of cutting the chambers:

 

I will be sinking the bridge in so that the plate is flush with the top as I did with @Len_derby 's - but that and the pickup routs will wait a day or so while I make a bit more progress on @eude 's 6-er 

 

[HazBeen]

Ooh, starting to look the part! Lovely,

[Andyjr1515]

One of the challenging things about a through neck is that you can't fettle a neck pocket to correct any build, er-hum, 'vagaries'.  So neck angle for bridge height has to be pretty spot on as does the sideways straightness to make sure that the strings all line up with the fretboard and the pickup poles.  This is particularly important for a P pickup because any misalignment is very obvious. 

As such, if is a case of 'check ten times, cut once.

On a PJ, I always start with the P and then double check the J position once those chambers have been cut.

Also, as described in more detail in the Len_Derby thread, I just don't trust router templates.  Instead I:

• Drill a hole for each pickup corner, 1mm greater dia than the actual corner radius
• Forstner a hole for each lug - again using a bit 1mm greater dia than the lug
• Forstner out the bulk
• Clean up the top edges with some careful chisel work
• Check the fit against one of the pickup covers
• Clean up the sides and chamber bottom with a short bearing-guided trimmer router bit - which is now captive and therefore can't go on a holiday through the nicely carved top!

The result is this:

 

Which is then double checked with the two covers:

And then checked against each of the string positions:

 

You can see on the pencil marked position of the J pickup where I've moved it across 1mm from the original position...which is exactly why I do it this way round and always use the actual bridge and the actual pickup covers and some strings in the nut position.  It's a bit old fashioned, maybe, but it is less often now that I end up saying 'Well, it was right when I measured it against the drawing in the first place!'

[Andyjr1515]

These short days.

I emerged from the cellar after doing the Jazz rout and it's dark!

Ignore the artificial light but that's both pickups routed.  That might be the last scariest bit. 

Pleasingly, there's no daylight showing through the back  

...although that might be because it's night now...

    

[Andyjr1515]

One of the differences between @Len_derby 's build and this new one is that @Len_derby opted to leave the poplar burl voids as voids (by preference if I built one myself I would also opt for this) as it leaves the top looking very natural. 

On the other hand, coast-line Hawaii, which is where this build is headed, is quite different in terms of salt (really!) dust and major humidity swings.  As such, the client - who has run a successful carpentry business for many years (no pressure there, then) - is understanderbly a bit wary of ANY voids, whether they have had a finish applied or not and has opted for the voids to be filled on his own. 

The voids in this wood are generally in the centre of darkening wood and so I am filling them with z-epoxy mixed with a generous amount of dark sandings.  I collect sanding dust of all of the main timbers I use and the one that I judged to be the most appropriate is some cocobolo dust from the infamous 'Tom's African Build' build.  When wettened with epoxy, it has a very dark reddish brown hue which is pretty close in tone to the dark areas of the burl.

I've done this before and at first it always looks shockingly bad - but trust me, it will look fine in the end

Here's the first application:

 

An hour later it was set enough to sand back down to the wood and I then applied epoxy, overfilled, to the areas where the original application had sunk into the void and below the top surface level.  Here it is with those overfills:

 

I will sand these down later this afternoon and see where it leaves us - hopefully at a stage where I can start doing the final rough sanding for the body and neck.

So yes - it looks a bit stark at this stage but don't worry...it's going to look great, honest

 

[Andyjr1515]

All the voids are now filled and I've given it a sealing coat of tru-oil to see what it will look like when the finish has been applied. 

 

Don't panic about the squiffy bridge - it's just plonked there for me to see which bit of the figuring is covered.  The bridge will be set into the top - as I did with @Len_derby 's - so that the bridgeplate sits flush with the top rather than being perched on top of it.

The future owner has asked me to tint the fretboard and neck amber which I will do once the carving is complete and the frets have been levelled and polished.

Next job is completing the carve on the neck, sides and back and then starting the finish-sanding.

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Neck carve is almost there.

This is the excellent bit of the build because, like on @eude 's 6-stringer, you get to be able to play plenty of air-guitar! 

I get the basic shape using the profile templates taken from the future owner's favourite playing bass, but then go very much by feel.

Still a bit of tweaking, but the basic shape is almost there:

 

Certainly it's close enough for me to be able to feel my way into the heel carve.  Here, there's still lots more carving to do to get to a smooth transition as you approach the body and good access to the top frets but the basic shape is starting to emerge:

The carving is starting to create some really nice grain patterns too

I won't have time to finish the carve today, but should be within maybe a couple of days.

In the meantime, I'm doing a bit of experimenting with some offcuts of the top wood with different combinations of final coatings, including an interesting variation of the Osmo range - 1101...a very much thinner version of their 'gloss' that might actually come out as an alternative to using their thicker 3032 Satin Polyx.  A helpful tip from Gillett Guitars

Andy

 

[Andyjr1515]

Heel transition starting to get there...

[Norris]

This one's coming out real nice

[Andyjr1515]

With @eude 's bass now sorted and in time for his special date, I can turn my attention fully back to this - and today, I finished the carve!

So, plenty, plenty of sanding to look forward to but here's how it's looking.

The ash back wings and poplar top are pretty representative of the final colour but the neck and fretboard will be stained amber, per the new owner's request.  I will put the stain on after the final sanding stages.

 

[BassTool]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 10:43, Andyjr1515 said:

Don't panic about the squiffy bridge - it's just plonked there for me to see which bit of the figuring is covered. 

 

 

I gulped when I first looked at the pic! 😣

 

😂

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

I've stained the neck and fretboard and started applying the finishing oils.

Ref the fretboard and neck, the owner has always preferred a strong amber tint.  For particularly the fretboard, to contrast it needs to be lighter or darker than the top.  I did a few trials (my own inclination was to go lighter, like @Len_derby 's, rather than darker) but in the end we pitched for a match of a bass he sent me a photo of and which contrasts the other way round - strong colour neck making the body top actually look a decent number of shades lighter than it actually is.  Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, I'm about 1/2 way through the finish application and this is how it's looking:

 

Couple more days of finish application and then that can be sitting hardening while I do the remaining jobs.  Oh yes, and there's probably Christmas in between those two sets of activities  

 

[scrumpymike]

That's a real cracker Andy - love the contrasting black fret-marker blocks and the way they complement the black hardware (among other things).