Out my depth - Vox fretless.

[Raslee]

Looking great Andy. Really interesting to see the process too - I still wouldn’t trust my clumsy self  to take on this. You’re a man of many talents 😊

[derreybass]

Well done Andy glad to se your keeping busy.

[Andyjr1515]

Just checked with the straight edge and the bow has come back a touch, although only by about 0.5mm .   
 

That being said, as @HazBeen said earlier, it pays to sit on the cautious side and so I have ordered a couple of carbon fibre rods to insert.  For this kind of thing, I go fairly modest - 4x4mm box section.  Super light but very stiff.  The advantage is that they don't take too much of the gluing face away and they also don't take too much of the neck wood away

They should be with me Monday/Tuesday so that gives me a day or so to work out how on earth I'm going to clamp the neck / guide the router!

[SpondonBassed]

2 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

They should be with me Monday/Tuesday so that gives me a day or so to work out how on earth I'm going to clamp the neck / guide the router!

How about making a mould?

Clingfilm the neck and pour some plaster of paris into a box mould then sit the neck, face up, into the plaster.  You'd need just enough to follow most of the neck contour and with a spirit level on top to maintain the level determined by the bottom of the mould.  You should end up with something that you can clamp.

I should check first how hot it gets as it goes off first though.  A thick wad of it might overheat the neck.  I wouldn't use two pack body filler for that reason.

[Andyjr1515]

7 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

How about making a mould?

Clingfilm the neck and pour some plaster of paris into a box mould then sit the neck, face up, into the plaster.  You'd need just enough to follow most of the neck contour and with a spirit level on top to maintain the level determined by the bottom of the mould.  You should end up with something that you can clamp.

I should check first how hot it gets as it goes off first though.  A thick wad of it might overheat the neck.  I wouldn't use two pack body filler for that reason.

I think that might be in the territory of 'too hard'

If I can think of a reliable way of guiding it, then I suppose face down on the router table makes the most sense.  But using the fence is tricky because the headstock gets in the way.  I'm pondering on somehow getting some guide pegs that could sit in the truss rod slot...

[Jimothey]

I was thinking that if you make a jig with a small piece of timber fixed to the bottom that sits in the truss rod groove then rout out a slot each side of it for the carbon rods then you can fix that to the neck and use a top bearing flush cutter the same width as the slot that will run down the slots and viola!! You have two grooves for the carbon rods..... 👍🏻 

[Andyjr1515]

17 minutes ago, Jimothey said:

I was thinking that if you make a jig with a small piece of timber fixed to the bottom that sits in the truss rod groove then rout out a slot each side of it for the carbon rods then you can fix that to the neck and use a top bearing flush cutter the same width as the slot that will run down the slots and viola!! You have two grooves for the carbon rods..... 👍🏻 

Good thought - I would need a variation on the theme because the 4mm bit I have won't take a bearing, but I see where you're coming from. 

The alternative I also thought was a tapered packer for the length of the neck with the outer edge ending up at the same width as the headstock all the way down.  Then I would be able to run it along the router table fence in the normal way.  It's a bit like your idea but upside down

 

[Andyjr1515]

Got it!

It'll need to be tomorrow when I can take a photo to explain my mad plan...but I do indeed have a mad plan!   

[SpondonBassed]

19 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I do indeed have a mad plan!

While we wait, here is a man with a lot of them.  Remember those machines in Vision On?

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by SpondonBassed

[Andyjr1515]

So why is cutting the two 4mmx4mm slots such a challenge?

Well, with a standard router, you have to fix the neck immovably and dead flat - and then you have to get the router itself to run in a dead straight path for half a meter with less than 0.2mm drift.  And, unlike a Fender neck, the headstock on the Vox doesn't sit flat with the heel - so there are no convenient surfaces to put double-sided tape to stop the neck moving around (which, if it happened, would spell disaster).  And you can't use clamps because they get in the way of the router  

Then, with a router table, you don't have to clamp the neck at all.  BUT you would normally run the side of the neck along the table fence which gives you the dimensional accuracy...but then the headstock would hit the fence and move it a couple of inches...not good for the 'no more than 0.2mm drift' 

So enter the, probably, least used accessory that comes in some of the Dremel sets - the radius jig:

Now, for cutting radii, 'precision' is emphatically not its middle name.

But I'm not thinking of using it to cut a radius

Add a spare strip of 2mm thick binding (in the picture above)...then fitting the Dremel with a decent quality and sharp 1.6mm router bit:

Then inset the binding strip into the slot and run the router (keeping it square) up the slot, keeping firm pressure of the jig spike against the binding strip:

...gives me a 1.5mm slot parallel to the trussrod slot.  Then removing the binding strip and repeating, this time running the jig spike along the side of the trussrod slot:

...gives me a slot 3.6mm wide - giving me, at worst, a modicum of inadvertent  drift room or, at best, a small tidy up with a sharp chisel.

Then turn it round and repeat on the other side.

Might work 

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Andyjr1515

[SpondonBassed]

Nifty.

[Andyjr1515]

11 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

Nifty.

If it works.  Nutty - if it doesn't 

[Geek99]

On 29/01/2021 at 12:23, Si600 said:

I have a feeling that Mrs 1515 has kind of given up and is just resigned to sawdust everywhere. 

Yes @Andyjr1515 what colour is it eh?

 

good work mister

Edited January 31, 2021 by Geek99

[BassTool]

49 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

So why is cutting the two 4mmx4mm slots such a challenge?

Well, with a standard router, you have to fix the neck immovably and dead flat - and then you have to get the router itself to run in a dead straight path for half a meter with less than 0.2mm drift.  And, unlike a Fender neck, the headstock on the Vox doesn't sit flat with the heel - so there are no convenient surfaces to put double-sided tape to stop the neck moving around (which, if it happened, would spell disaster).  And you can't use clamps because they get in the way of the router  

Then, with a router table, you don't have to clamp the neck at all.  BUT you would normally run the side of the neck along the table fence which gives you the dimensional accuracy...but then the headstock would hit the fence and move it a couple of inches...not good for the 'no more than 0.2mm drift' 

So enter the, probably, least used accessory that comes in some of the Dremel sets - the radius jig:

Now, for cutting radii, 'precision' is emphatically not its middle name.

But I'm not thinking of using it to cut a radius

Add a spare strip of 2mm thick binding (in the picture above)...then fitting the Dremel with a decent quality and sharp 1.6mm router bit:

Then inset the binding strip into the slot and run the router (keeping it square) up the slot, keeping firm pressure of the jig spike against the binding strip:

...gives me a 1.5mm slot parallel to the trussrod slot.  Then removing the binding strip and repeating, this time running the jig spike along the side of the trussrod slot:

...gives me a slot 3.6mm wide - giving me, at worst, a modicum of inadvertent  drift room or, at best, a small tidy up with a sharp chisel.

Then turn it round and repeat on the other side.

Might work 

 

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🤞🏼

[Raslee]

Yes, most definitely out my depth......deeper than I thought possible in fact - great work mate  

[Andyjr1515]

And - to my admitted great surprise - it worked!

Here's the first run with the binding spacer in place:

 

And here it is after the spacer has been removed and I've repeated it on the other side.  Mathematics says that there would be a 0.4mm sliver in the middle - which there was.  It just needed a sprape down the slot with a narrow chisel and all was cleaned up waiting the two rods that should be arriving  in the next couple of days.  Then we can get the fretboard back on

 

Oh, and to prove that more experience doesn't eliminate whoopsies - see the little line on the left of the above photo near the top?

That's what happens when the distance clamping screw loosens from the vibration as you're cutting the slot:

It's only 2mm deep and it didn't go very far - but in that I could actually feel something change and stopped immediately, that cut happened in an instant.  And normally with routers (especially the big ones) you can't see what's happening and can't hear or feel that something is amiss - and they have much bigger bits going much deeper...

Did I ever mention that I hate routers 

Anyway - happily we're on the home straight with this one

 

 

[BassTool]

Great result!! 👌🏼👍🏼

[SpondonBassed]

Never doubted you for a moment!

I bet it was squeaky bum time when you realised that screw had decided to drift loose though.

[Andyjr1515]

2 hours ago, SpondonBassed said:

Never doubted you for a moment!

I bet it was squeaky bum time when you realised that screw had decided to drift loose though.

Remember those shots of Saturn 5... 

[HazBeen]

Has a Mirka and then routes the slot with a Dremel..... gotta love it  

Well done! 

[Andyjr1515]

The carbon rods arrived.  4mmx4mm box section - light as a feather and very strong!

A bit of tidying up of the slots to make sure they fully seated:

 

Then a liberal application of Z-poxy and a clamp to a flat surface, using wooden radius blocks to protect the neck from the clamps:

And a quick check to make sure that both edges are fully flat with the tabletop (no - it's OK...it's not MrsAndyjr1515's favourite dining table  .  Mind you, it IS MrsAndyjr1515's clingfilm  ) while the epoxy fully cures:

 

 

 

 

 

[Andyjr1515]

Next steps were to put some packing strip in the bottom of the original trussrod slot to level it out from its original curved single-action rod rout, then put in the new two-way rod and finally fit and plane level a piece of binding strip to act as a truss-rod cap:

...and that means that the next job is re-fitting the fretboard

Which, all being well with be tomorrow.

[Andyjr1515]

Well, it seemed a waste of overnight glue curing time not to mask it, glue it and clamp it this evening:

And yes - you can NEVER have too many clamps (or cauls, for that matter  )

Fingers crossed!

[Raslee]

I can feel it breathing again

[Andyjr1515]

OK - this looks a bit better than the 5mm gap in the middle that there was before 

The joints both sides are good with just a light run-down of the glue joint to do with a single-edged razor.  Funnily enough, not to take any glue off, but to remove this teeny edge either side:

Basically, fretboards shrink a touch when you iron them off...but actually often shrink over time in any case.  Ever had fret ends get a bit sharp on a new bass after a year or so?  That's the wood shrinking and leaving the fret ends exposed a teeny bit. 

With the heel end of the board flush, this looks at first glance like shrinkage of the length of the board but is actually just where sanding the neck surface flat prior to fixing the board has cut into the headstock / neck curve.  This will have a touch of finish applied to colour match:

 

The adjuster, although smaller than the original, remains in the right position for access for the allen key via the body recess:

 

So a tidy up of the edges, a final levelling and re-treatment of the fretboard, cutting of a new nut (the original didn't like being removed) and we can get this back to @Raslee