Pain in the custom neck

[Richard R]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Having looked at this in sickening detail,  digital calipers use two etched capacitative scales of different pitches that function in the same way as an etched vernier scale.

 

Interesting - Can you post a link? 

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, Fishman said:

 

I should also add that all the others I tested had either a warm or cold tint – the Fiebings is neutral, and very black!

I think the only issue - and this is almost only related to maple - is that the grain lines are SO unabsorbent, that they are almost impossible to hide with a stain, however good, and even with multiple applications.  My test piece illustrates:

 

This has had 4 applications, fully dried in between.  In real life, the black is blacker than black!

 

However, fear not!  In the event this happens on the actual neck, @fleabag and I have a very cunning plan 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Andyjr1515

[Andyjr1515]

After a few days catching up with family and domestic stuff, I'm back in the cellar.  Which, after a few days catching up with family and getting involved in the domestic stuff, MrsAndyjr1515 says is the best place for me.  

 

All being well, I'll be able to get this to staining and ready for return stage by the end of tomorrow.  Knocked off a couple more 'to-do' items this morning:

 

Added a third magnet to the trussrod cover to make sure the apex doesn't lift and get caught on something and drop off when @fleabag gets overtaken by the beat and starts flinging the bass around the stage:

 

And the sanding is approaching staining level:

 

 

 

 

[fleabag]

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

 

However, fear not!  In the event this happens on the actual neck, @fleabag and I have a very cunning plan 

 

So cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a Weasel.

 

Thanks Blackadder 

 

[ezbass]

7 minutes ago, fleabag said:

 

So cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a Weasel.

 

Thanks Black(stain)adder 

 

FTFY

[Andyjr1515]

Drilling the tuner holes - more detail than most normal folks need or want but for anyone setting out on this crazy pastime... 

 

@fleabag had given me the basic layout of the 2-a-side tuner arrangement he was after, needing 14mm holes drilling in the four positions.  It's always useful to have actual tuners to hand rather than just rely on drawings and, while I don't have the actual tuners that he will be using, I have a fairly representative set in my bits box.

 

This method below assumes that the builder is working within a given shape.  Note though that, generally, a builder would sort where the tuners need to be and then design the shape of the headstock to fit within that layout.  In this case @fleabag has given me the shape he would like, but actually that's fine because it is relatively generic and therefore will still 'work'.

 

And so - the plan is to have straight string runs.   So the first thing is to take a template of the headstock and draw a centre line along the centre of the fretboard to the end of the headstock.  Then, with the nut or spacer, it is to draw where the inside of each string will meet its respective tuner peg:

 

So in this pic, for the two bass strings, the line is from the left hand side of each slot and for the treble strings it is the right hand side of the slot.  If you draw from the middle of the nut slot, then the tuner peg will end up with half a strings-width offset.  For electric guitars and also a bass G string, that would be unnoticeable, but for the thicker strings of a bass, it matters.

 

Next is to decide where the tuners are going to be positioned along the length.  Here, what matters is:

- are the tuners going to be close enough to the edge of the headstock to allow the tuners to turn?

- are they going to be too close to the edge of the headstock and leave the body of the tuner hanging in mid air?

- are they far enough from each other to avoid clashing with the one next to them, both at the tuner knob wings or at the back, body to body?

 

This is an arrangement that would fit @fleabag's general concept and still meets the above criteria:

 

So now, with a pair of compasses set to the radius of the tuner peg size of @fleabag's tuners, I can draw where the centre point of the tuners will need to be:

 

This might make it easier to envisage what I meant at the beginning.  Note that the inside edge of each string is now going to be contact with the correct side of its tuner peg so, however thick the string is, the nut to tuner run will still be straight.

 

Next is to lay the template over the headstock and use a sharp punch to mark the centre point on the headstock plate:

 

Then to the drill press.  It is blocked up and checked with a spirit level to ensure that the headstock is level across both axes.  Generally, there still needs to be some judicious light filing with a round file for the final fitting (especially a 14mm tuner spigot fitting a 14mm hole) but that task is a lot more difficult if the hole isn't perpendicular  

 

And that's it, done:

 

 

 

 

 

[Joe Nation]

Were you being incredibly fastidious by running the string paths with a slight taper to match the bridge-to-nut taper (so each string is truly straight), or are you a normal person and just drew them parallel?

[Andyjr1515]

Just now, Joe Nation said:

Were you being incredibly fastidious by running the string paths with a slight taper to match the bridge-to-nut taper (so each string is truly straight), or are you a normal person and just drew them parallel?

Normal (although, admittedly, Andyjr1515 and normal in the same paragraph is clearly an oxymoron   )

 

On a particularly wide bridge/narrow nut neck, I would tend to taper the runs but you then have to consider whether a passing string is going to foul one of the other set of windings.  It sort of depends. 

[Andyjr1515]

Next task is levelling and re-crowning/polishing the frets.

 

Basically, the neck is adjusted to as straight as possible and then a sanding beam is used to take any unevenness out.  You stop once the emery is just skimming all frets in all places and then move onto using a rocker to check for any high spots.

 

 

  That done, I use emery and progressively finer micro-web wrapped round my crowning file to re-crown, get rid of the scratches and polish:

 

10 done, 12 to go.  I'll finish those later this afternoon to give the pain from my f*****g (****** = lippin)  arthritis a chance to ease off.

 

And then...I think it's the last job, the staining 

 

[fleabag]

It's like a horror film innit .. " The Staining "  starring  ajr1515

 

 

[SpondonBassed]

[fleabag]

That's the one !  Here's daddy !

[fleabag]

Back on earth, i've just received this in the post.  A rechargeable LED UV lamp, bulb length is 5-1/4"  so can do 2 or 3 side dots at once at the nut end and 5 or 6 at once at the dusty end.

 

Takes one monster 18650 Li On 3.7v rechargeable, and the pack comes with a charger and USB lead

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by fleabag

[Andyjr1515]

Well...I don't think @fleabag and I are going to need the cunning plan for the staining.

 

That's what I call black!  One coat only so far...

 

 

 

Mind you, I might need a cunning plan to find the luminlay dots again for @fleabag to wave his magic wand at!  

[fleabag]

Ooohyah, thats one worry off my sagging shoulders.  That is looking black - keep going AJ. Blacker than black is the best black. 

 

You dont wanna see my magic wand, i promise you

[Andyjr1515]

29 minutes ago, fleabag said:

You dont wanna see my magic wand, i promise you

They say there are no certainties in life

 

But I'm certain about that one.  

[benh]

[Daz39]

1 hour ago, fleabag said:

Back on earth, i've just received this in the post.  A rechargeable LED UV lamp, bulb length is 5-1/4"  so can do 2 or 3 side dots at once at the nut end and 5 or 6 at once at the dusty end.

 

Takes one monster 18650 Li On 3.7v rechargeable, and the pack comes with a charger and USB lead

 

 

 

You got that from Wish.com didn’t you…

[fleabag]

Yup, but only half my wish came true.  I had to pay for it.

[Andyjr1515]

And so fully dried overnight and then this morning a decent sanding of 240 up to 500 grit to sort the risen grain and another coat.  This needs to full dry, but may well be the last coat needed:

 

 

Very close to being finished! 

 

 

[fleabag]

That looks stunning.  It looks like it was matt black spray painted.  10/10 

 

[Andyjr1515]

And....  (drumroll)

 

...actually, the drummer can go and get a cup of tea.  Actually, the drummer can probably go for a short away-break  

 

We've found the fatal flaw with Fiebings.  When I did the sanding for the extra coats, I did wonder.  I was expecting black and dusty on the sandpaper.  Instead, it was black and lacquery blobs gumming up the paper almost immediately.  More like a coating than a stain.

 

And sure enough - I think that it is, used like this, much more of a coating than a stain.  And add polyurethane varnish, it fully softens.  And two days later it is still the consistency of warm tar - black and sticky and no sign whatsoever of curing.  And for a neck - even if it started to harden - that's no good.

 

It was worth a try, because that was blacker than any 'normal' black stain.  But not suitable for this job.

 

So we are back to Plan A, which is that @fleabag will get it sprayed.

 

So, just got to get three coats of warm tar off** and we're away! 

 

 

 

 

 

**Hmmm... better tell the drummer to make his short away-break not that short...  

 

 

[fleabag]

What a bottomer 🤕

 

Plan A then Andy

[Happy Jack]

Mind you, warm tar on the back of the neck would certainly encourage @fleabag to stay near the money notes ...

 

[Andyjr1515]

On 11/05/2022 at 12:22, fleabag said:

What a bottomer 🤕

 

Plan A then Andy

Hmmm...but there might be a Plan C 

 

I've started the removal.   Using single-bladed razor blades as scrapers - and then a proper cabinet scraper - to remove the goop of the main part of the neck allowed me to start sanding without the paper clogging up within seconds.  After an hour of sanding, I'm down to 'largely wood' where the black is from the first coat of Fiebings that was properly absorbed into the freshly sanded wood.

 

But to get to fully clean wood will need a fair bit of wood removal.  Which is fine - except for the heel where I don't want to lose any of the width.

 

And that got me thinking.  Long-term followers of my threads will know that my favourite stain is permanent fountain pen ink.  Well, that was discounted on this project because it is generally not thought to be the 'blacker than black' that @fleabag is after.  But...well, at least for the heel, worth a try?

 

So here's what Quink does:

 

Looks pretty black to me!  And it's fully dry.  And it has fully absorbed into the timber even though there is the residual Fiebings there.  And I KNOW that polyurethane has no adverse reaction at all to it.

 

For the sake of an afternoon lost if I'm wrong, I'm up for trying it all over...