New Bass Body

FYI, you can buy body blanks from Carvin, as well as all kinds of places on the net. A little more expensive up front, but it's already the right size and you don't have to buy a ton more than you need.

Where's the fun in that...?
I had a quote to move my wood store recently and it's four figures.. I'm moving the tools and benches myself.
 
Made more progress today. As noted, I cu the final shape a few days ago. It came out okay, but had a couple of dings along the way. Today I routed the edge to give a bevel. I've done this before on the walnut bass and didn't really have problems, this time not as good, but salvageable.

Around the horns, the router was unstable and I didn't expect that, so it rocked a bit and dug in some divets....

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and here...

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It hurts, but lots of sanding can fix that.

To prevent a repeat, I clamped down some scrap material for stabilizers.

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The bottom side came out much better.... so lesson learned: Always do the backside first. If you make a mistake, it'll be unnoticeable.

Like I said, Lots of sanding can fix any mistake. It came out alright.

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Next decision: Do I cut an arm rest on the upper front where the picking hand comes down? If so, how? Belt Sander?

After I do or don't do that, I'll cut out the pockets for the pick-ups and neck.
 
Making some progress. Got the neck pocket routed out. Not as accurate as I want, and a little sloppy on the sides, but it work okay. Here's a mock-up.

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Also got the pickup cavities routed out. Turns out on a jazz bass, the neck and bridge pickups do not have the same dimensions. The bridge pickup is a little longer. Does anyone know why? Class? Class? That's right, because the strings are not actually parallel. They spread out as they go from nut to bridge... just a little. Took me a few minutes to catch that little detail. Yes, that's my sweat I'm putting into this thing. :rolleyes:

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Here is the active preamp I had in the burl walnut Bass. I won't use the mounting plate. As I mentioned earlier, I will mount the pots directly to the maple cap.

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Here's a pic of the control cavity. It is not beautiful; don't judge me. Notice the holes drilled for the control knobs.

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Next step is the control cavity cover plate. I will make that out of zebrawood. I have to make a template first. Oh joy. To do so, I want to copy the outline of the control cavity. I taped some paper over the cavity and used a pencil to mark the edges.

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After that, I drew a template where part of it followed the curve of the bass. Traced the outline on to the zebrawood and cut it with the bandsaw.

Here's a mock-up

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Next up I have to make a template for the cover cavity. I want it to mount flush with the back of the bass, so I will route out only 1/4". I will make the template out 1/2" MDF.

That'll happen in the next few days.
 
Looking good my man... Soon you'll be chasing work away from me....;)

Had one of the few basses I've done in recent years back today for a fret dress and set up. Looking at yours and playing about on the bass I have here makes me want to do another one..

Here she is...

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Beautiful, Mutt. I like the carving around the perimeter. Not sure what to call it. And the multi lumber in the body. When I do my first neck, that's what I want to do.

I'm still debating on the arm rest thing. You know, the little cutaway for the picking arm to come down. How have you done yours in the past? Bandsaw? or belt sander? or??
 
The arching or contouring as it is on that I did with gouges and thumb plans. I have done it with just about everything in the past from an angle grinder to a power chisel. I never use a sander as I like to cut wood rather than abrade it so even with the angle grinder I stop short and finish with thumb planes and scrapers... I did that one by hand because the customer was unsure how far he wanted it to go so I did it a few times increasing it each time.. The recurve is concave almost as if the top has been sliced off an archtop..
 
Here is the part I'm talking about. I think I can fillet this with the band saw and then clean it up. Do you have any experience with how it will look cutting through the maple to the alder underneath? I think it might be interesting with the grain.

I have a piece I can practice on. If I do it right with that, then I'll do it on the guitar.

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I'd go with belt sander just because it would be easier to do it incrementally, and it just seems like it would be easier in general. But then, I always take the path of least commitment.
 
Here is the part I'm talking about. I think I can fillet this with the band saw and then clean it up. Do you have any experience with how it will look cutting through the maple to the alder underneath? I think it might be interesting with the grain.

I have a piece I can practice on. If I do it right with that, then I'll do it on the guitar.

Be VERY careful cutting that on a bandsaw. Round edge work pieces can kick back and cause you and the work serious damage.

How it will look would depend entirely on how good your glue line is. If it has aby voids then you will be cutting through them and will have unsightly joins and break out. How much do you trust yourself..;)
 
Thanks Beez. I'm testing out different ways to finish it on scrap wood and none of it is coming out the way I was hoping. I'm trying to get the grain to pop out and it just comes up looking like my grandmother's furniture.

I'm a little frustrated right now.
 
More progress.... I'll warn you, finishing a guitar is not my strong suit. In fact, it kicks my ass.

Here's a mock-up. Gonna look nice.

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I drilled the holes for the neck screws and it chewed up some of the Alder. Wood putty and lots of sanding. Have I mentioned that you can fix anything with sanding?
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Then it's on to color. I used Dye. I mentioned this before that I always thought stain and dye were the same thing. They are not. Google stain vs dye and read up on it. Here I'm using a Honey Amber dye with denatured alcohol. You won't find this crap at the Home Depot. Gotta go to a Woodcraft store or something equivalent.

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Dye then sand. It didn't come out the way I wanted on the first attempt. In fact, it didn't come out the way I wanted at all. So lots of experimenting on scrap wood. On the guitar. On my grandmother's furniture.


This is what I bought.

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Kinda yellow-ish. You can vary the amount of dye to alcohol. I dyed both the maple and the zebrawood.

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Then I used a red dye to do a sunburst around the edges.

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It came out real blotchy and I'm not sure why. Certainly wasn't like I expected based on all the you tube videos I watched.

But it has a certain charm to it I like. Road Kill.

There are some rough smudges where I accidently hit the wet paint when removing the template.

I used the template to help with the black edging and sunburst. Taped up all the holes.

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Then put double back tape on one side to lift it up off the guitar body. Give a little space between the guitar and the template.

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Sprayed with laquer paint. Smudged it, but will let it dry and sand it off then reshoot it. Did I mention that you can fix anything with sanding?

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The guitar has lines in the finish that I don't understand. I am not sure where they came from and why they didn't take the dye. But they are there and part of the guitar. If I were selling this to a customer, it would be unsatisfactory, but it's for me and so I can live with it.
 
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I'm not completely happy with the feathering, either. I'll sand most of the black off and do it again. There is a section where there is a definite hard line, then a feather. It should just flow from solid to feather without an interface. I'll fix that.

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Ah, forgot to mention. During my 2-week trip to Colombia, there was a small section of the maple cap that pulled away from the Alder body. I didn't grab a pic of it, but I fixed it by shoving glue into it and clamping it up for a day.

I guess that's that glue line Mutt was talking about. :rolleyes: :)
 
Thanks RFR. Maybe on the next project. Too late for it now. :)

Here's a mock-up with neck, pickups, bridge and knobs. Just about done.

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Ha!! Wow, the knobs look like they're photoshopped on there, but they aren't. They're actually sitting on the guitar. funny.
 
Not bad chilidog.

So how could you make that burst fade better? Just curious. I might try my own hand at some paint.
 
Are you talking about the black fade? I think the key is to do it all in one pass and stay very consistent. My problem here is I get impatient and go back to retouch a little and then the burst grows. I have to tell myself out loud to back off and let it sit.

I like the way the horns came out better than the butt end.
 
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