New Build - Wenge/cocobolo/padauk hollowbody

[Simon.]

Those inlays are something else! What an amazing job to get them in without damaging anything. I personally wouldn't darken the fretboard - I think it works brilliantly as it is.

I'm curious as to how you cut the fret slots once the inlays are all in and set? Is there a risk of bits of the inlay snapping off?

Edited November 7, 2018 by Simon.

[mhoss32]

5 hours ago, BreadBin said:

Those inlays look fantastic! Do you think they will have much effect on the sound?

thanks very much! and i shouldnt think so. the ziricote is very hard anyway, and is slightly thicker than a normal fretboard, with the inlays only being a mm or so thick they won't have much effect on the material properties.

1 hour ago, Simon. said:

Those inlays are something else! What an amazing job to get them in without damaging anything. I personally wouldn't darken the fretboard - I think it works brilliantly as it is.

I'm curious as to how you cut the fret slots once the inlays are all in and set? Is there a risk of bits of the inlay snapping off?

thanks! theres a couple of little scratches here and there but nothing unfixable. thankfully a fret saw is sharp enough with enough teeth that it cuts through shell just fine, ill be more worried about seating the frets themselves. there's a small risk of chipping the shell as the frets are put in but ill cross that bridge when i come to it. 

[mhoss32]

well things have been progressing slowly but surely... first of all ive sanded down the pickup covers:

from this:

to this:

very pleased with them, i think they'll be a nice touch once verything is nice and finished up! i do need to get some gold pickup screws, as they came with silver ones so they match the rest of the hardware.

also, got he headstock plate glued on with some more alaldite (the saviour of the man trying to glue cocobolo to anything):

the purpose of the huge cutout for the Truss rod cover is so i can have a flush fitting one made of padauk. I love the look of padauk, but im trying to keep it's inclusion in this build to some subtle highlights here and there. along with the truss rod cover, im going to put a thin sheet in between the back piece of cocbolo and the wenge core of the body, and possibly along the edges of the fretboard as well. its such a bright colour when its finsihed, and although the figure of the cocobolo is pretty striking, all the other woods in this build are a bit more subdued in terms of their colours.

speaking of which:

the padauk glued to the back of the wenge. at the moment, that is just roughly cut back with a knife and some rough sandpaper, so theres a couple of rough edges where i had to glue some chipped off bits back on. its 1.5mm thick, but splits along the grain so easily.

and i cut the pickup holes and neck pocket from the top piece of cocobolo while i was cutting the F hole with a fret saw:

couldnt resist dropping the pickups in just to see how they looked, you can see from the picture how much the body wood has darkened since it was cut, against the freshly sanded pickups!

and one bit of self indulgance deserves another, once i got home i layed everything on top of eachother together:

its just about starting to look like a bass - exciting times! will be moving onto the bigsby at some point this week. the plan is to machine a new string bar with 4 holes spaced to match the schaller 462 roller bridge - about 16.5 mm. then, once the top is glued... itll be time to cut the binding channel (Gulp!!)

im a big fan of the "bound on the top, round on the back" look, a bit like the fender aerodyne, so the top and F hole will be bound with a combination of ebony and tulipwood:

the colours will give a nice compliment to the cocobolo i think, without being too light. i wanted to keep it all fairly dark for this build.

stay tuned!

[Andyjr1515]

Gosh - this build is on a whole different level.  Amazing stuff!

[NikNik]

What did you use to rout out the pup covers?

Very interesting project!

[mhoss32]

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Gosh - this build is on a whole different level.  Amazing stuff!

Thaks andy! high praise coming from you!!

3 minutes ago, NikNik said:

What did you use to rout out the pup covers?

Very interesting project!

I screwed the pickups to piece of scrap wood ,and then just passed them over a cutting bit on the router table to a depth of about 1/8 inch. the covers themselves were cut from the offcuts from the body and were glued in place while they were still oversized, then just sanded back with a couple of files and the disc sander

[mhoss32]

okie dokie, time for another quick update!

in order to make things a bit easier on myself in the long run, i decided to do the binding on the F hole before i glued the top to the core of the body. genius!

the F hole is pretty narrow and delicate, so instead of the tlipwood/ebony/tulipwood binding that will go all the way around the body, im just going to bind it ebony/tulipwood.

the ebony part of the binding is just made from a strip of 0.6mm ebony veneer, and so went on really easily. no trouble there. its very flexible and sticks well.

the tulipwood on the other hand was a massive pain in the butt. it looks lovely, as the grain runs vertically, but this makes it really liable to snap as you try and work it into place. its also a fair bit thicker than the ebony (about 1mm) so it needed a lot of sanding at each end to get it to join up smoothly. thankfully it seemed to some together alright in the end. i think it'll look really nice, especially around the edge of the body. one quick note: i realized after my last post, that the banding i have has the thin strips of black and white the other way around to the picture i put up (black on the outside and light on the inside), and that i removed the top layers of black and white with a scalpel so you can see the tulipwood from the top.

ive also started to do a bit of work on the bassby (the bigsby for the bass). first step i found some nice 10mm steel roundstock that was going spare in the workshop:

then a bit of turning on the lathe to get the grooves for the clips that hold it in place and it fits very nicely :), the small round piece with the hole through next to it will act as a drill guide to make sure the drill bit goes through vertically when i drill the 4 holes for the strings.

and here it is! just a first mockup at the moment, the plan moving forward is to do the same thing with some brass roundstock and then polish it up so it matches the frame a bit better. brass is also a lot easier to work than the hard steel bar ive been using, so the holes in the final version will almost certainly be a bit neater as they will be easier to drill smoothly. im optimistic anyway!

 

having had a bit of time to consider the daftness of putting a bigsby on a bass guitar, there are a few "solutions" ive come up with to the obvious problems. first off... this isnt going to be used for massive dive bombs and the like. more just for adding some shimmer to notes when needed. the holes for the g and e strings are 50mm apart center to center on the string bar ive made, which will work well as the schaller bridge's standard spacing is 51, and with adjustable spacing should be able to match up perfectly with a bit of fine adjustment. the roller saddles will also allow minimal resistance as the note is bent. ive already got a graphite nut, and the headstock is designed with straight runs from the nut to the tuners, so between all of those things tuning stability should be ok (fingers crossed).

Edited November 15, 2018 by mhoss32

[mhoss32]

time for a very frightening part... cutting the binding channel... and then binding it!

on that second picture it looks hugs, but in reality its about 3mm, which is just about right for the 3 layers of banding ill be using. te be honest, this part was fairly painless, the cocobolo machines pretty well so long as your router bits are nice and sharp. as you can see, the binding channel is fairly deep, and once the binding is installed it will leave about 4mm of the cocobolo top over the top. the plan is then to carve the top down to the binding, so that the body has a nice subtle shape on the top.

The first layer of the binding, you can see how much of the cocobolo is going to be carved away... and aslo how close in coclour the tulipwood is without finish on it. in relaity, the cocobolo will darken a bit more once a finish is applied, so there will be a nice contrast.

the second layer (the ebony) went on a hell of a lot smoother than the first... its only .6mm thick and the grain runs along it so its pretty resistant to splitting along the tighter curves.

and finally... all 3 layers are on!

theres a steep learning curve to doing binding, but overall im fairly pleased. i think itll look good once the top is carved and the binding is scraped.

but if you think it was nerve wracking doing it on the body...

this damn near gave me a heart attack. i couldnt quite put my finger on why... but i wasn't quite 100% happy with how the fretboard looked. i'd placed the inlays about 2mm away from the edge, so that if i wanted to i could bind the fretboard after the fact, and thats what i decided to do.

and honestly... im super gald that i did. i love the way the padauk binding looks now that its sanded back. and the inslay survived the whole operation intact.

it looks more like a picture in a frame now, and i like that a lot! its starting to look like a bass! ill be glueing the back in place today and then im more than a little nervous about carving the top next week.

its slowly getting there....

[Pea Turgh]

This is possibly one of the most over-the-top basses I have ever seen, and I love it!  I imagine Dracula would play this bad boy if he were a bassist.

[Andyjr1515]

Love it

[AndyTravis]

This is bonkers - very impressive!

[Christine]

Very cool, this will be something when it's done

[BassTool]

Amazing work!

[mhoss32]

Thanks so much everyone!

i'm super happy that everyone is enjoying this build log, im certainly enjoying building it!

making a start on the top carving for the body now. lots of work with rasps and spoke shaves. as mentioned in the previous post, this isn't going to be the most radical of carved tops, its more to add some shapes and highlights to the upper "horns", i also have to keep the carve very close to the edge at the bottom, so that the top is flat enough to accommodate the bigsby.

on the wider parts of the body, i really just want it to catch the light, and be a bit more shapely than a normal bass. this will also help to remove a little bit more of the weight from the body!

you can see from the left picture sort of what im going for, the curve is mostly convex and then only concave right down at the edge. it makes it look quite bulbous, but i dig that!

i also put a tiny bit of tru oil (literally 3 drops for the whole board) do darken the ziricote a tad before i put the frets on. i might do 1 more but i think that'll be it. i dont want the board to end up shiny, just a bit darker to add some contrast

 

[BassTool]

No pressure, but I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms it's gone so quiet on this beauty.... 

😩🤩🤩

 

[Kamiel]

Absolutely not my style of bass but damn is that some amazing craftmanship.

I have a padouk top on my own (handmade) bass, it is hands down the most beautiful wood I have ever seen, and with every other angle and light comes a different red, really amazing!

 

 

[TheGreek]

Love the fretboard...love what you're doing with the body...

I have a Bigsby which I was considering using on a project, I'd be interested in a bit more detail how you modified the 6 string to a 4 string. 

 

[KingPrawn]

On 15/12/2018 at 15:30, BassTool said:

No pressure, but I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms it's gone so quiet on this beauty.... 

😩🤩🤩

 

Ditto !

[Pea Turgh]

@mhoss32 How are you getting on with this, dude?!

[mhoss32]

Hello all! sorry about the delay, ive been away all Christmas so not been able to progress much, but i have finished the top carving!

will be moving onto the final sanding in the new year so stay tuned!

P.S thank you for your patience!!

[mhoss32]

and to reassure you all that progress is being made...

This is how we do electrical engineering and preamp design in manchester...

with a pint... in the pub

[mhoss32]

again, sorry for the delay in updating again!

once again its been a very busy few weeks. but we have progress!

Tuner holes are drilled for those massive schaller tuners!, and i drilled in a little recess for the little gold "tree of life" logo im putting on this bass. then the 6 holes for the neck screws and their bushings. then, after that comes the part i'd really been dreading. fretting the neck *gulp*

Thankfully that went relatively smoothly. had a couple of small chips out of the inlays but nothing too major, and i didnt lose any of the pieces. so just a matter of carefully glueing them back into place. for those wondering, its Jescar evo gold fw43080, so pretty small. and yes, its gold. nothing on this bass could be described as "understated" 😁

of course, i couldnt resist a quick mockup:

id say it was looking a bit like a bass! over the past few weeks i've also finsihed sanding the body all the way up to 400 grit, so it should be ready for finsihing soon. i've ordered some blonde dewaxed shellac, and im excited to see what it'll look like once the finish is on!

another side effect of my little hiatus however, is that the cocobolo has darkend quite a lot! im honestly not 100% sure on the chemistry/biology here, whether its to do with oxidation or reacting to light or a little bit of both. either way, i really like it, its starting to get that nice deep red colour and lovely black grain. the end of the journey is just about in sight!!

 

 

[BassTool]

Amazing 😍

 

Wondered if you'd considered a Truoil finish on that beautiful wood before plumping for shellac?

[mhoss32]

i had indeed considered it, in fact both of the buzzards had tru-oil finishes. i absolutely love the stuff! the problem is with the cocobolo. it's so oily that the oils in the wood can prevent the tru oil from drying properly 🙁

[mhoss32]

Guess whos back!? thats right, its been 7 moths, ive got a new job and have been away from home for ages, so this project has been on hiatus for a long long looooooong time. but now im picking it back up again. so heres some updates:

Side dots time for the fretboard. drilled first then using some brass tube and some very small abalone dots superglued in we'll have some nice shiny details that match all the rest of the gold and shell.

Then mixing up some shellac for the finish, this is a fairly thin cut of liberon blonde flakes, dissolved in clear methylated spirits:

And this is the first few coats applied to one of the pickups, and to the body:

makes the cocobolo look insane, all that lovely grain finally coming out! will be doing some more regular updates now so stay tuned, need to get this thing finished!