6 String Fretless has begun!

[wsal]

Hey guys, as you may or may not have noted, I've been dropping comments here and there, popping in and out of threads, biding my time, but now after much waiting, the building has finally begun!

The wait was simply on a thickness planer, or more specifically, saving up for one (I'm 17, no I don't have the luxury of a credit card), so I could clean up all that timber and get things moving. Well now I have the thicknesser, I've cleaned up all the wood that I have so far, and things have started moving.

First up, the specs for this bass are:
6 String, Double cut, 34'' Scale
Fretless (with half lines, ie. Zon)
Neck through
Mahogany Body wings with Australian Blackwood tops
Queensland Maple laminated with Jarrah neck
Ebony fingerboard (pending ebony acquisition! )
Gotoh Tuners, Allparts Bridge
Probably EMG Pups and Pre (I know 'nordies' are all the rage, but I'm in Australia, we don't have luxuries like that...)

I've got a few pics of some of the work so far:
(featuring terrible lighting, or lack thereof, augmented by photoshop...go figure)
Note, all pieces are dampened with water in the usual fashion.
Body Wings, awaiting contouring:
Mahogany / Black Veneer Accent / Blackwood (**** pic, I know!):
Jarrah vs Qld Maple neck lams:

Yes, the body is very Fodera/Soundgear-esque. That's 100% intentional, cos I like those shapes, and have combined aspects of each for my own, so please, critics, save any negativity in that regard (Or go bag every other manufacturer/luthier who's ever made a Fender copy....yeah, didn't think so!). Afterall, building instruments is all about having an instrument exactly the way you want it right?

And now onto my first 'issues'... The pieces of neck wood I have, are somewhat bowed, lengthways. I know this wouldn't be so much of an issue if it were just one piece and I could just clamp it real tight against a flat reference when gluing, but its all pieces! I've been supporting the pieces at ends, and then placing weights on portions, to try and force the bow out, but its having very little effect. I was wondering if I could use a parallel fence guide thing on the router to route the truss slot parallel to the bow, and then force the neck back to accept the rod, which would keep it straight? (If I'm confusing you, the pieces are bowed such that they wouldn't be constantly parallel with the centre 'axis' of the neck...) Or do I need CF rods inserted?

[Giel]

First of all: Nice specs

Second:
You need to plane all the pieces of wood perfectly to get a good joint.
I suggest using something like this:



I asume you are glueing with tidebond?
When glueing with tidebond, the joint has to be absolutely plane (or flat, not sure how you say that in english)..
If you have a perfect joint, the glue between the two pieces is minimal, so you have the best transfer of tone..

Good luck!

[wsal]

I would do something like that, but the wood is already at the required thickness... I can't remove any more! Anyone else got ideas on fixing bowed wood?

[Greg Johnsen]

yah, when I had a fretboard that was bowed, I put a piece of wood under the side where the wood bowed. something like )- where the ) is the wood and the - is the piece of wood. anyways, you put the wood underneath, and clamp the ends to a flat piece of MDF, but when you clamp it, you want to clamp it with some counter bow (farther than straight) because only that will fix the bend.

either that or steam it and then clamp everything flat to a board or something

Greg

[wsal]

I'm liking the steam idea, but how do I apply the steam? A clothes iron? Wrap it in a damp cloth and press a soldering iron against it? Put it over a boiling saucepan of water??

[Dusty G]

If you're doing a nech thru, you'll be pretty dissapointed if the neck ends up warped and ruins the whole build. I would get better neck wood before you start.

[T2W]

Yeah, new wood for sure, it really sucks, I know, same thing just happened here with a six string. Got new wood and I dont regret it, new neck kicks ass and is even a whole lot nicer than the first one. Peace.

[wsal]

okay, supposing new wood is economically not an option, what do we think about using the truss rod and possibly CF rods as a means of straightening? If I combined those ideas with making sure the remaining neck pieces are dead straight for the wonky bit to be glued to, and clamping the s*** out of it, can I get results?

[wsal]

All this thinking about truss rods made me wonder, what stops a truss rod from sliding lengthways? Is it simply the tightness of the channel that we rely on or am I missing something? Stoopid question I know, but hey, I gotta know!

[Greg Johnsen]

the trussrod channels I've routed have been the length of the trussrod, therefore it won't move, plus, the ends are siliconed in.

Greg

[wsal]

Okay, so I've finally made enough progress to warrant an update!

Since I last posted, I've been working solely on the neck. I've developed some skill with the all-mighty noble hand-plane, and honed that wood down to straightness, with a bit of help from the clamping idea that Greg mentioned (works great!)

I decided quite early on to build the neck with the outside laminates tapered for the entire length, as opposed to tapering only the wood along the actual neck, and having the body end parallel to the centre line. This was based on many considerations: It would be easier to create such pieces of wood, it would be easier to work with these pieces once they are created (ie, I've built them longer than necessary, such that if there are any issues there is a bit of room to place the body in the optimum place, as opposed to the position being locked) etc.

To cut the taper, first I found a nice long piece of scrap wood, and as precisely as possible, cut this to the correct angle. This brought about the terrifying realisation that it is very hard to find a piece of wood in my shed that isn't bowed or warped or deformed in any other way. Through many gruelling hours of planing and sanding, I finally had my piece. This was to be my taper ripping jig.

This was then sturdily taped to the side of a length of Queensland maple, which was to be split into the two tapered lenghts, and I ruled a rough guideline of where to cut to result in two nice evenly sized pieces. Then I got the table saw ready to rip, which was when I realised that its blade depth was not enough to cut all the way through the wood... Not to be perturbed by this, I set up the rip fence, stuck my taper ripping jig against it and pushed the wood through. Then, understanding the inherent inaccuracies in my 'Triton' table saw setup, I decided not to try flip the piece over and swap the jig around and risk an enormous failure due to compounded errors and possible blade angle imperfections. Instead, I sat it on the band saw, and quickly sliced through the remaining wood. (Why didn't I do the entire job with the band saw I hear you ask? Well, lets just say that's not so accurate, not so high powered, I can't cut very straight with it, jig or no jig, and its not geared up for ripping ie. not very wide blade)

Now the full genius of my plan was to unfold I used the plane to remove the waste from where the table saw didn't reach, and then flipped the pieces around, and using some very strong, very thin double sided tape (seriously its amazing), I adhered the two original outside edges together. Now the joined shape was still rectangular, except the messy, blade scratched edges were facing out. So, I simply whipped both edges through the thicknesser a couple of times until both pieces were at their desired dimensions, pulled them apart again, and voila! We have neck lams

This post is verging on gargantuan, I'll start a new one for pics...

[THIRSTYGUMS]

put your board outside on a sunny day, damp the concave side i.e.
this side ------> )
and put it damp side down on the grass, the sun will shrink the top side ---> ( and pull out the edges, at the same time the damp will swell the other side and at the right time the two will even out and your board wil be relatively flat, now take it inside and dry in an even way and quickly plane or glue up your piece.
this is just one solution i have found to work
good luck anyway

[bluegreenturtle]

++++++++ a million for somebody attempting this at 17. You'll surely hone incredible skills, especially if you keep doing this after this one is done. I think we all want to see your progress, so keep it coming!!

[DanielM]

I started my first project when I was 17, not to mention there is this kid on ProjectGuitar.com (GodinSD) who makes such nice guitars he's already had several commission jobs!

that aside, good luck and above all enjoy! as a friend of mine once said (and I think of it everytime I see a 6'er fretless now) "wow six string fretless, that's quite hardcore.

[wsal]

Well gentlemen, its your lucky day, as I do have some pictures of progress for you, taken in marginally better light than the previous ones (although everything still does look a bit sickly).

Today I routed my trussrod slot, thankfully without a hitch...yet. And with that done, I was able to glue the neck tonight as well! If you're wondering what the connection is, I wanted to route the trussrod slot using the parallel guide along the centre lam of wood, instead of trying to route a straight line with no guide, which I would've had to do, had I done it after gluing.

After waiting for what felt like at least an hour for my photobucket stuff to load (I'm working with cripplingly slow dialup internet at the moment), I'm actually able to make this post. I apologize for the hugeness of the pictures, next time I'll try get them smaller before loading them up:

How the two pieces original fit together:



How the taper jig, etc. all fit together:



All the lams together:



All the wood together (I'm really happy with how the colours are matching up! The pieces aren't wet with spirit or anything by the way, so it'll REALLY liven up with some sanding and finishing...)



Finally able to glue!



Hope you all enjoy it, thanks for the kind words

[contakt321]

Looks great - Fodera ish. Cant wait to see how this turns out.

[wsal]

Absolutely -that's entirely intentional. I think Foderas look fantastic, and its the closest I'll ever come to owning one! They don't even sell them here!

Question for the day: obviously there was a bit of slippage during the clamping of the neck process, so I've got one of the sides perfectly flat with the hand plane. Is it necessary to do that again on the other side, or can I use the thicknesser? I'd like to be able to use the thicknesser to ensure parallel-ness, and cos planing the first half took freakin AGES!

Thanks again!

[wilser]

Originally Posted by wsal

Absolutely -that's entirely intentional. I think Foderas look fantastic, and its the closest I'll ever come to owning one! They don't even sell them here!

Question for the day: obviously there was a bit of slippage during the clamping of the neck process, so I've got one of the sides perfectly flat with the hand plane. Is it necessary to do that again on the other side, or can I use the thicknesser? I'd like to be able to use the thicknesser to ensure parallel-ness, and cos planing the first half took freakin AGES!

Thanks again!

if you've got one side flat and the grain orientation on the lams is aligned (meaning grain runs out in the same direction) then I don't see why you couldn't use your thicknesser. A hand plane would be harder to get consistent results with. I use my safe-t-planer for such things, no worries about grain direction.

[erikbojerik]

I have both thickness planer and thickness sander, and they are fine for fixing cupped wood (bowed across the width) but just can't do the job for wood bowed (or twisted) along its length unless you can first plane down one face perfectly flat.

You'd think that with a thicknesser you'd be planing the top flat, but the problem is that thicknessers don't have a long enough bed for the bottom surface to register on. So if you just use a thicknesser by itself, you end up with a long bowed board of uniform thickness.

[wsal]

Hey guys
Now I'm thinking about the headstock, and three questions have arisen that I want to address before jumping in and chopping up the wood...
1. What is the minimum thickness for a strong headstock (we're talking six strings, so I imagine it can't be too thin...)
2. Headstock Angle? I read in an article on building guitars that between 8 and 17 degrees is the usual range. Is this the same for basses, or do we need more break angle to fight greater string tension trying to slide the strings in the nut?
3. I see a lot of headstocks done with a black face (spector and gibson for example), that doesn't appear to be wood... It's perfectly flat with no grain and can either be matte (spector) or gloss (gibson). I don't have the capacity or desire to set up a proper colour spray system with all the lacquer, and the coats and the blah blah blah... So does anyone have any other solutions? I've got some black veneer left over from the body accent lines. Could I glue that on, sand it to the absolute finest sandpaper and maybe put on coats of filler, sand etc to get that perfect flat finish? I can't imagine being able to find any perfectly matching blackwood like the top, and I cant make my scraps veneer thin...at least to my knowledge I can't...
Cheers
Will