Finished! Single cut bass - Alder and Camphor

Andyjr1515

Hi

Following my bubinga fretless completion, I got a pm from one of the members of the basschat forum to quote for a single cut, fretted 33" scale bass.

After a few email to-ing and fro-ing, we agreed the spec and the project was live.

The initial design was lovely but, by fluke, turned out to be too close to an existing UK maker's model - broadly a single-cut version of a jaguar top horn.  Neither of me nor the customer wanted any aspect of the build to be regarded as a clone (even though it wasn't) but instead we talked through the other single cut concepts that he liked and didn't like.  Through a process of elimination of PDF'd sketches, we settled on this, which he's very happy with:

  

The basic construction was agreed to be alder back, dark veneer separator and a fancy figured top, cutaway at the arm relief to expose the alder.

And did I have a fancy bit of wood for the top just waiting!

I bought this Camphor ages ago from Kirk at exotichardwoodsukltd and had been waiting for the right project:

Smells divine, too

It will be a thru neck (again) but - wait for it - I'M GOING TO BUILD THIS THE CONVENTIONAL WAY!  

I know...me...building conventionally???  Well, I'm sure a lot of it will still get experienced luthiers shaking their heads and posting "why, why, why has he done it like THAT????" , but the bit that is going to be conventional is that I'm going to add body wings to the neck, rather than rout my normal slot.

I got a lovely bit of alder from guitarbuild.co.uk, that I promptly sliced in two, thicknessed and then band-cut the outline, cunningly leaving a space for the neck...

  

The great revelation, however, was when I had thicknessed the Camphor, squared and trimmed the joint line, glued them and popped the two pieces into the sash clamps...

...and then wiped the glue squeeze-out off with a damp cloth:

This is pretty much the colour it will look when it's sanded and finished...there's quilting, bird's foot-ing, lava flow-ing and everything going on in there!  And it smells sooooo good

The rest of the wood is on order from David Dyke so next week, weather permitting, should see a decent bit of progress

Andy 

paulnb57

Bloody hell, that top has the potential to look awesome!

Have an inaugural wow!

TTony

Andyjr1515 said:

Yeah, that looks OK I suppose, reasonably interesting, but not exactly a wowser ...

Andyjr1515 said:

... whereas that goes well beyond my abilities with the English language to express total wow.

Just WOW.

Andyjr1515

paulnb57 said:

Bloody hell, that top has the potential to look awesome!

Have an inaugural wow!

You're too kind...I shall pass your comments to the tree  >-

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

Andyjr1515 said:

Yeah, that looks OK I suppose, reasonably interesting, but not exactly a wowser ...

Andyjr1515 said:

... whereas that goes well beyond my abilities with the English language to express total wow.

Just WOW.

Hi, Tony

I had hoped that it would be pretty spectacular, but it has even outstripped my wildest hopes and expectations.  It is a fabulous bit of wood...

TTony

I was going to ask whether you knew what you'd got before you wiped it, but it seemed a little rude!

I'm hoping to have some workshop time between now and the end of the year (just in time for it getting darker, damper, and colder), and its pics like that that prompt (kick) me into doing stuff again.

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

I was going to ask whether you knew what you'd got before you wiped it, but it seemed a little rude!

I'm hoping to have some workshop time between now and the end of the year (just in time for it getting darker, damper, and colder), and its pics like that that prompt (kick) me into doing stuff again.

Yup...building more is the only way I had wiped it before (ooh er missus) but the oxidisation was still there. Popping it through the thicknesser took that layer off and below was a figuring the like I've never seen before. To be honest, the photo doesn't even do it decent justice...

Sassafras

That does look amazing and I bet it's a godsend for anyone that might suffer from Catarrh on stage.

Andyjr1515

Sassafras said:

That does look amazing and I bet it's a godsend for anyone that might suffer from Catarrh on stage.

There's got to be dreadful pun somewhere about having Tunes on stage, but I can't think of one

Skodadad

I can see predators face in that wood. I hate you guys knowing how to do this stuff. It's going to be amazing when done.

Andyjr1515

Skodadad said:

I can see predators face in that wood. I hate you guys knowing how to do this stuff. It's going to be amazing when done.

Guessing how to do this stuff is probably closer to the mark...

Skodadad

In that case care to have a guess at the next lottery numbers? You seem to be a good guesser

Andyjr1515

Skodadad said:

In that case care to have a guess at the next lottery numbers? You seem to be a good guesser

Like the old joke goes, I pick 6 numbers, then discard those because none of those will come up, pick another 6 and throw those out, etc etc until I've just got 6 numbers left. My guitar builds are similar...you only see what I haven't chucked out trying to get there )

paulnb57

Like the old joke goes, I pick 6 numbers, then discard those because none of those will come up, pick another 6 and throw those out, etc etc until I've just got 6 numbers left. My guitar builds are similar...you only see what I haven't chucked out trying to get there )

Thats refreshingly honest, Ive had severalt attempts that have ended up as kindling.....

Andyjr1515

paulnb57 said:

Thats refreshingly honest, Ive had severalt attempts that have ended up as kindling.....

Tell me about it!   This is the 'excess' the first time I tried to make a bitscaster neck:

)

paulnb57

Good one! Wis'd

Skodadad

My kitchen looks like that most evenings! I really need a shed

Andyjr1515

Just a quick update on this.

As with a few of my previous builds, for the through neck, I have incorporated a scarfe joint on the inner walnut splice to give it a bit more strength but without the scarfe being visible on the outer mahogany splices.

Here is the inner splice being clamped to one of the outers - you can see the grain direction where the headstock will eventually be:

I also offset the 6mm inner splice to form the channel for the trussrod and cover strip:

The other outer splice has now been also glued together and the neck thicknessed down to final width.

Taking advantage of a day without rain (at last!), I band-sawed the top to pretty close to the final shape.  I will probably hand finish this and then use it as the router template for the alder back.  It adds a small risk of damage, but probably lower than the possibility of a chip pulling out if, instead, I router this using the mdf template.  Here it is prior to final profile sanding:

While it's been raining, the bridge and ebony fretboard have arrived so I can now work out neck angles, etc..  With a bit of luck and some decent weather, the neck should be outline shaped and it, the back and the top should be all glued up by the end of next week.  

Andyjr1515

Bit more progress.

Have finish-routed the camphor (including wenge veneer demarcation), slimmed down the neck, cut the headstock angle and flattened the top ready for the fretboard, calculated the bridge position, heights, neck angle, etc.

These are the major components :

Do you think the biplane look might catch on?  Also, do you reckon the neck's a bit too chunky?

Andyjr1515

I lined the edges of the alder with wenge veneer and glued them to the top.  As with my other unconventional construction methods, the neck is a snug fit, but not yet glued in (hence the clingfilm):

Today was supposed to be dry...they lied  (

Still, before the rain came, I finish-routed the alder, using the camphor as the bearing-trimmer template:

I also started the carve - at first with a block plane, but the camphor was a touch brittle, so I have played safe and gone over to a rasp file.  It will take longer, but is the safer option.

I hadn't done much before rain stopped play, but still pleased with how it's starting to look:

Andyjr1515

Took advantage this morning of a few hours dry weather to continue the rough-carve.  

I started with rasp file, then cabinet scrapers, then the first 'rough' sand.

Here it is after the rasp and scrapers:

...and here after the rough-sanding :

I will leave the body for a few days to let the thoughts gestate a while before any final tweaks and the final smoothing.  In the meantime, the neck beckons!