Finished! A Very Special Save

[Fishman]

14 hours ago, NickA said:

Still wondering how @fishman came upon a pro 1e without its body or bridge!  

The simple truth is that I bought the neck earlier this year from someone on the Wal Lovers FB page and the pickup/preamp/scratchplate I bought in the for sale section on this very forum about 10 years ago

I had two lovely Mk I Wals that I had to sell a while back when business wasn't so good, so I kept my eye out for any Wal bargains and here we are

Edited December 22, 2020 by Fishman

[TheGreek]

If anybody is looking for a spare Wal neck there are two here.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/wal-twin-neck-custom-bass/1393232273

[NickA]

3 hours ago, TheGreek said:

If anybody is looking for a spare Wal neck there are two here.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/wal-twin-neck-custom-bass/1393232273

A better use for the necks IMHO.  That twin 5-string must be unliftable (chambered or not).

[Si600]

7 hours ago, TheGreek said:

Found this image again

Does that say Air Guitar modifications?

[TheGreek]

AJR - @Andyjr1515's "trading" name.

[Andyjr1515]

Hmmmm...think about it, @TheGreek...air guitar modifications.

  So take said airguitar for, say, three weeks; give it a thorough overhaul and set up; pass back to delighted airguitar player with very reasonable invoice for £300...

...I think @Si600 might be onto something here! 

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 11, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Hellzero]

No, only fresh air.

[Andyjr1515]

53 minutes ago, Jus Lukin said:

Interesting...

Does that include fresh strings?

Absolutely.  At a bargain price of £27 plus shipping . Want some on the headless?

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 11, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[BassBus]

9 hours ago, Hellzero said:

No, only fresh air.

Well Thomann shipped me a set of strings recently and added a whole box of free fresh air with them. 

[Richard R]

If the air guitar is very long scale indeed it can incorporate real live swifts. 

[Andyjr1515]

To ease everyone away from air guitars...

...but still not onto building because the re-distribution of the Christmas feast is still ongoing   : 

I drove to one of the local villages a few miles away yesterday.  After about 3 miles, on the road I was on I approached a HUGE red sign.  "Oh, not more 'temporary' traffic lights!!"

And no.  It wasn't. 

It read "IMPORTANT.  YOU ARE NOW EXITING AN AVIAN INFLUENZA CONTROL ZONE"

WTF?? 

And I was EXITING it!! 

What next?  Locusts?

[BassBus]

 

[ezbass]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

To ease everyone away from air guitars...

...but still not onto building because the re-distribution of the Christmas feast is still ongoing   : 

I drove to one of the local villages a few miles away yesterday.  After about 3 miles, on the road I was on I approached a HUGE red sign.  "Oh, not more 'temporary' traffic lights!!"

And no.  It wasn't. 

It read "IMPORTANT.  YOU ARE NOW EXITING AN AVIAN INFLUENZA CONTROL ZONE"

WTF?? 

And I was EXITING it!! 

What next?  Locusts?

2020, the year that keeps on giving.

[Jimothey]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

To ease everyone away from air guitars...

...but still not onto building because the re-distribution of the Christmas feast is still ongoing   : 

I drove to one of the local villages a few miles away yesterday.  After about 3 miles, on the road I was on I approached a HUGE red sign.  "Oh, not more 'temporary' traffic lights!!"

And no.  It wasn't. 

It read "IMPORTANT.  YOU ARE NOW EXITING AN AVIAN INFLUENZA CONTROL ZONE"

WTF?? 

And I was EXITING it!! 

What next?  Locusts?

Unless you visit poultry farms or have poultry yourself then its nothing to worry about, only 1500 people have died from avian flu in the last 50yrs If you have got poultry then they just need to be kept indoors or like my chickens they are kept in enclosed roofed run......👍🏻

[Andyjr1515]

10 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

Unless you visit poultry farms or have poultry yourself then its nothing to worry about, only 1500 people have died from avian flu in the last 50yrs

Yes - fairly relaxed about it.  I was driving in full Hazmat gear anyway 

[TheGreek]

[Andyjr1515]

I suppose that we should collectively apologise to @Fishman for collectively hijacking the thread.  That said, both he and @Jus Lukin have probably concluded that nothing much is likely to be happening on their projects until the next lockdown     Boxing Day      the next lockdown on Boxing Day.

The Good News is that I can be pretty certain of no family or domestic distractions from this weekend on until at least ...gosh...spring, by the look of it.  And I've already got some serious 'must get back into the cellar' pangs.  And, as maybe you can imagine, MrsAndyjr1515 fully shares that sentiment. 

 

[Jabba_the_gut]

9 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

What next?  Locusts?

I know that feeling. Been persisting it down here for ages and the water is rising. Went to check on my elderly neighbour, Noah, but he's left a note on the door saying he's gone to the marina with his wife, 2 cats, 2 dogs.....

[Andyjr1515]

And - we're back

Compliments of the Season to one and all.

So having tolerated me over the past few days, MrsAndyjr1515 has encouraged me back down into the cellar.  By the ominous click when I went down there, I think I now understand why 'double-security padlocks' were on her Christmas list 

Anyway - it was useful and, under duress, she has let me out to take some photos in the short daylight hours left. 

Fretboard!

This build - straightforward in many respects - has some 'every ounce of skill and a decent sprinkling of luck' aspects.  One is that we are trying to replace the fretboard without the need - at all - to refinish or even touch up the neck itself.

Why?  Well - it has ageing and player's mojo.  It has cracks in the varnish.  It has dints from having to escape quickly from bad gigs:

 

And so I will be changing my normal sequence of fretting, attaching and final dimensioning the fretboard.  Nowadays I normally cut close to final size, fret, sand and dress the fret ends and board top to final size, glue fretboard, scrape the taper from the fret-ends to the neck join, blending the fretboard and neck profile with scraper and sanding block.

For this - to try to avoid scraping the neck anywhere but the glue line - I will be: cutting, planing and scraping the fretboard to exact final dimensions at the board/neck join line; gluing the board to the neck, finishing the fretboard sides from glue join to fretboard top; fretting; sand and dress the fret ends.

So first job was to cut the board to shape leaving around 2mm oversize of the neck shape (1mm safety factor for a further 1mm taper between the top of the fretboard and the join line thus allowing the neck profile to continue up to the top of the board):

 

Then some VERY careful work (after a few sacrifices to the Bassmaker Gods) with the block plane to add the taper to the sides so the at the join the fretboard is an exact fit:

 

And the board is ready to glue.

Normally, you would drill a couple of holes in a couple of the fret slots to put some panel pins in to stop the board floating out of position on the glue during clamping.  But there is so little timber either side of that central graphite slab I'm actually reluctant to do that.  I have a cunning plan...but am going to sleep on it just in case it doesn't sound so cunning in the morning 

[Andyjr1515]

And what is this cunning plan?

Well it's to use the spool clamps in the photos above, but with a mod.

At the heel, all is straightforward because the sides of the heel and the freboard are both square and so the fretboard just can't move sideways at all:

 

 

But here at the nut, the fretboard is tapered and so I have to mod the clamps otherwise they are just clamping the widest point, which is the top of the fretboard which would allow sideways movement of the fretboard to the neck:

 

And so they are modded to give clearance of the fretboard and clamp the narrower neck/board join:

 

And then - other than the G clamps - I should just need this:

-  Good quality masking tape for the neck up to the join

- A flat hardwood clamping caul for the fretboard

- a softer caul for the bottom of the neck.  I will scrape a 'C' shape into this so the load is spread a touch

But it's still worth sleeping on it before taking the action.

And then, while this is gluing tomorrow, @Jus Lukin 's headless will be getting some attention

 

 

 

 

[HazBeen]

As it happens I am also close to gluing my ebony board. I chickened out today,  as I wanted to triple check everything. You’ve given me some solid tips  

[Andyjr1515]

So - scary day.  Attaching the new fretboard.

First job was to make sure that the mating surfaces were absolutely flat.  When you are making a neck from scratch, generally you leave the neck as a rectangular section until after the fretboard has been fitted - that way you can clamp firmly along each of the sides of the fretboard to avoid any gaps.

But with a finished neck, you can't do that.  You can only clamp along the spine of the profiled neck and therefore you are relying on the flatness of the fretboard itself - and the neck mating surface - to fully squeeze out the glue and close the gap at either side of the fretboard.  So both the bottom of the fretboard and the neck itself has to be completely flat.

I used a scraper to make sure all of the glue residue from the old fretboard was gone and then ran a straight edge all the way along the neck - with its graphite/carbon core - to ensure absolute flatness all the way up.  And it wasn't quite.  The graphite/carbon (I say that because I don't actually know what the fibres are) was just a teeny bit raised one side.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem because the clamping would just force the side gap closed.  But with the replacement that wasn't going to be good enough.

So some very careful scraping and sanding (I made a small sanding block for the job) ensured that it was made flat.  And for this job - with the very fine graphite/carbon/whatever dust - it was the full A1/P2 spec respirator...this is no time at all to end up at A&E with a severe respiratory problem! 

The neck was masked off to keep the glue off the original finish, the truss-rod adjuster was protected from glue squeeze-out and a clearance channel in the fretboard added to ensure no binding:

 

Then the Titebond, spool clamps, cauls and G-clamps:

Note that all of the clamps are running down the centre.  This is different to how I will do @Jus Lukin 's where I will have the luxury of being able to clamp along each edge.

So in this case, it is the fretboard stiffness that is applying the clamping pressure across the width, and itself protected by the caul on top.

 

The result was better than I expected and as good as I could have hoped:

This will now sit at least 24 hours for the glue to fully harden before I do anything with it

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Andyjr1515

[HazBeen]

Phewww 😀