Andyjr1515 Q1 '20 Challenge. A real one ;)

TTony

That looks like a handy little tool, and at least G&W are in the EU, so you don't have to worry about duty, VAT and the other charges!

Roland

Cue stock shortage as we all buy one

Andyjr1515

Tom has some Hipshot tuners and their new screw-adjust single saddles on order.

In the meantime, I've started on the neck and fretboard.

After lots of checking, and double checking and triple checking, the fretboard has been tapered and the neck blank cut to length and headstock angle cut:

 

  

Next job - while all of the straight sides are still there - is to route the truss-rod slot and then I can start cutting the neck profiles and heel cutouts

Andyjr1515

Trussrod slot cut and headstock plate area flattened.

 

The angle of cutaway at the nut makes it look like the headstock is going to be at an angle to the fretboard - but that is just an optical illusion - it is parallel to the top of the neck.

The headstock plate itself will be 1.5mm wenge constructional veneer as will be the pickup rings.

Last thing before bandsawing the neck outline shape is to cut the body joint.  Quadruple checking before I do that!!! 

TTony

Andyjr1515 said:

 

The body really does look quite petite on the end of that neck?  Or is that just because the neck isn't cut/carved yet?

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

Andyjr1515 said:

 

The body really does look quite petite on the end of that neck?  Or is that just because the neck isn't cut/carved yet?

Bit of both, probably.  It's closer to the size of a guitar body than a bass body - and half the thickness of many - but you are also seeing 60mm of more of the tenon, where normally that would be under the fretboard and your eye then would see that more as body than neck.


In overall terms it's closer in body size to a Warwick Thumb than a Fender Precision.  The Thumb bodies are actually tiny, considering they generally weigh about 350kg (or leastways it feels like that)!

Andyjr1515

After the quadruple checking, I marked up the neck pocket to start the initial hog-out and rout.

The first step serves a second purpose - what are the properties of this unknown wood species?  The last African Bass gave some challenges - and this is the same species, albeit a different cut.

I hogged out with one of my best Forstner bits - a Fisch Wave Cutter.  Quite expensive but stupendous bits if you want to minimise cutting issues.  The wood was, as I expected, very hard - the hardest wood I think I have dealt with (yes - harder than ebony in my experience) and quite brittle.  It doesn't matter because in both cases these are going to be cut away, but pinged some bits despite some very careful and steady cutting:

 

 

But that answered me a question.  Based on the grain pattern in this area, as you see below radiating from the centre of a knot, I might have to rethink the best way to attach the neck:

 

 

I used a chisel to straighten the sides and then a teeny bearing flush bit to rout down to the planned depth:

 

 

And then had a look and a think.  My concern is that, to do the original plan means I need to cut the pocket even shorter to square it up for the neck heel to butt up against: 

 

That's a lot of useful length to lose when the pocket base is quite thin and potentially very brittle - especially if I'm going to cut a biscuit slot in it as well!

So I've decided to leave the body heel where it is and use a cut-away neck plate (like this one I did recently on a modded Fender Rascal):

 

 

With that decided, I could cut the neck blank.  There is no heel as such, the whole blank up to the volute is cut at 15mm which will give me a maximum neck thickness of around 22mm.

 

 

And it will look something like this.  Proportions look a bit better now the fretboard is in the correct place, @TTony ;; ?  : 

TTony

Don't you just love the idiosyncrasies  of different varieties and even different cuts of the same variety of timber! 

You might have the best design, the best plan, the best tools and the best techniques, but if a piece of wood doesn't want to be worked in a particular way, then it can make life very difficult ...

And yes, the proportions look a lot more balanced now

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

Don't you just love the idiosyncrasies  of different varieties and even different cuts of the same variety of timber! 

You might have the best design, the best plan, the best tools and the best techniques, but if a piece of wood doesn't want to be worked in a particular way, then it can make life very difficult ...

Yes indeed.  It's why, with these kinds of builds, each step is partly just finding out if the next planned step is actually possible.  Got a few more exploratory steps to go, too

 It's why I like these slightly off-the-beaten-track builds

Roland

Each one is a voyage of discovery, and yields a series of challenges. Wouldn’t you hate to have to churn out a series of Ash bodies and maple necks. It might make life in the factory interesting, but I’d die of boredom after the third one.

TTony

Roland said:

It might make life in the factory interesting, 

Could anything make like in a factory interesting?

Much more fun when everything is a one-off, not knowing what problems you’re going to encounter, and then coming up with a neat solution to each of them.

Andyjr1515

Excepting a small triangular needle file that I draw along the slots to relieve the sharp edges, this is pretty much my whole fretting equipment:

 

The de-nibber is one of those tools that, once I got one, I couldn't imagine how I could do it without!  Worth every penny.

In terms of method, I :

- de-tang one end of the wire

- measure from where that end will position in the slot to the edge of other end of the fretboard

- detang there

- cut the de-tanged notch at the middle and I have my fret, de-tanged at both ends

- run a teeny bead of Titebond along the tangs

- place it in the slot, hammer one end, hammer the other end, hammer the middle to spread the tang barbs under the wood

- wipe the glue squeeze-out with a dampened cloth

- clamp a radius block over it 

- move to the next slot and repeat.

 

Once dry, I trim the overhanging ends, then sand the remaining overhang by drawing each side along my emery-papered levelling beam.  Then I tilt the board 45 degrees on the beam to create the bevel.

And here we have a fretted board ready for fitting at the appropriate time

PeteC

loving all the detail you have shared on this build - inspiring stuff ! 

TTony

That's coming together nicely Andy.

That's no surprise.

Andyjr1515

TTony said:

That's coming together nicely Andy.

That's no surprise.

Still plenty of time to c**k it up...and that would be no surprise either

TTony

Lol’d.

Andyjr1515

Someone asked what the tang nibbler/nipper does.  

Basically, it is to remove the fret tang either end of the fret.  This can be: to allow fretting on a fretboard with edge binding; to allow the fretslots to be filled in the case of an unbound board; to reduce the possibility some of those irritating sharp bits that catch your hands once the fretboard and neck have finished settling down after assembly and finishing!


This design of nibbler (you can just use a file or a file and side cutters but either method is a bit tedious) is a bit like a metal punch.  The nibbler has the shape of a fret for the fretwire to seat in:



The fretwire is slid into place:


Squeezing the nibbler cuts the tang cleanly off:


Cut in the middle and repeat for the next fret.  What you have at each go is a fret the right length but the tang cut a little shorter:



And that shot gives a sneak preview of the M5 inserts I've just fitted to the neck:


I usually use M4 (4mm) machine screws but - with this being an unknown timber for the body - wanted to be able to give the joint some serious welly if necessary to fully spread the load across the pocket area, hence the use of 5mm screws.


Here's what the other side looks like prior to tiding up the pocket shape:



I will be following the pocket parallel with the plate curve.  It will lose very little pocket area but should make it look like it was always meant to be attached like that.


So, I reckon I can probably fit the trussrod and fretboard next. 

 

Andyjr1515

Yes - I know that's a lot of clamps for a trussrod capping strip 




They're actually only lightly clamped.  I thought about using a beam of wood and just one clamp...and then I thought about it a bit more 

TTony

You have left a bit of space though.

Did you run out of clamps?

Andyjr1515

Now, when it comes to gluing the fretboard on, you can certainly never have too many clamps!




I have a hardwood back strip to protect the neck and clamp the fretboard using radius blocks as cauls.  Then I can apply huge pressure without damaging anything.


Following morning and it's starting to look more like a bass:



The carve of the body - almost certainly hand carved from a solid block of wood - is thinner at the top horn than the main body.  As such, this looks skewwhiff, but is actually in line with the bridge plane:


What I might do is split the difference - angle the neck heel a touch to maybe halve this effect and sink in the bridge elements on the same side to keep the geometry right.


The body carve is also slightly wavy - which I want to retain - but at the plate here, it will need to be flattened so I don't have any crack-inducing high spots:



Nowadays, I would normally chisel round and underneath something like this to inset the plate flush with the top - it is a small job but makes it look super classy - but in this case I daren't.  That pocket base is simply too thin and too unknown strengthwise to risk it.


I think next job is probably back to the body and starting to sort the pickup chambers.  Got a busy day or two coming up but I'll let you all know how I get on when I get back to it