6-string fretted for Jim

SDB Guitars · #1 08-03-2010, 05:58 AM

In my other thread ( New bass - "The Blue Bass" made with Alowood ), in which I'm building a fretless short scale out of Alowood, there was a side discussion regarding single cutaway vs. double cutaway instruments...

So, I decided to start a thread for this 6-string double cutaway I'm building for a friend Jim. It's a little different than the other build, procedurally, so I'll walk through some of the steps.

First off, I am doing a 9-piece laminated neck on this one... curly maple and bloodwood. MMMMmmmm, bloodwood. Here, I am sanding the "pin stripe" laminations in the drum sander (Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic):

Basically, these pin stripes are about 1/32" thick, and there are another set of bloodwood laminations that are about 1/8" thick that I forgot to photograph, but it's basically the same process... Cut slightly oversize, get rid of saw marks on the drum sander.

The body for this bass is a swamp ash core with bloodwood accent laminations and burled myrtle top/back laminations. Once again, sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures. Better ones to come, I promise:

So, while sanding the neck laminations, I started gluing up the body core. 1.125" thick swamp ash... I already kinda roughed out the shape... This is basically my process whether I'm doing a single cutaway, or a double cutaway instrument. Sometimes I use the cut-off pieces to help clamp, but in this case, it wasn't necessary:

SDB Guitars · #2 08-03-2010, 06:24 AM

Here's a shot of the neck blank, glued up, and thicknessed on the drum sander:

SDB Guitars · #3 08-03-2010, 06:39 AM

...and gluing up the scarf joint. I used the same type of jig to cut the joint for this as I listed in a previous thread. However, this neck was too tall for the table saw to cut clear through, so I had to finish it with a Japanese saw, and sand everything flush prior to gluing. I used 3/32" dowels in the "scrap" area of the headstock to keep everything aligned, though you can't see them because the clamps cover them up:

SDB Guitars · #4 08-03-2010, 06:50 AM

Gluing the top bloodwood and myrtle laminations... a friend who has a vacuum press in his shop helped me out immensely on this build, as his shop is infinitely better equipped than mine, and his knowledge has been invaluable.

Here's what it looked like after gluing and running a pass or two through the thicknessing sander:

Note that the top lamination doesn't quite hit the edge in a spot. That's okay, as the body is oversized at the moment, and anything that's left will come out in the roundover and body carving phase.

SDB Guitars · #5 08-03-2010, 06:53 AM

And here's a shot of the back, after it has been glued together, but before laminating onto the body. I'm getting ready to route out the control cavity plate:

SDB Guitars · #6 08-03-2010, 06:55 AM

Here is the same plate, with the control cavity routed out. Used a 1/16" bit for this:

You can see the outline of the final shape penciled onto the back lamination for reference...

SDB Guitars · #7 08-03-2010, 06:58 AM

So, that's a first glimpse into the 6-string double cutaway bass I'm building... let me know what you think!

vbasscustom · #8 08-03-2010, 08:19 AM

looks good, well, the body does, the pictures look like crap

SDB Guitars · #9 08-03-2010, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vbasscustom

looks good, well, the body does, the pictures look like crap

Yeah, yeah...

The first two pictures were taken with my old cell phone, the newer ones were taken with my iPhone, which is still not a fantastic camera, by any stretch. No flash on either of them. when in the shop, I don't carry a nice camera around. Once the bass is complete and has the finish applied, I will, of course, take some nice pictures of it...

vbasscustom · #10 08-03-2010, 08:54 AM

yeah its deffinetly a cool shape. keep us updated.

Dark Horse · #11 08-03-2010, 09:09 AM

I think it will look really good when done. I'm not a huge fan of the CT-ish scroll on the cutaway, but that's just personal preference. I can definitely respect and appreciate the work on a design like this. Looking forward to watching this build.

SDB Guitars · #12 08-03-2010, 09:40 AM

As a side note, in order to keep your varius laminates from sliding around, it's good to insert some indexing pins (in this case, 3/32" dowels) to keep everything lined up. I've highlighted them in this picture:

BassCycle · #13 08-03-2010, 12:47 PM

subbed

SDB Guitars · #14 08-03-2010, 01:03 PM

So, here's the body all laminated up... it goes - burled myrtle back, bloodwood line, ash core, bloodwood line, burled myrtle top. Also, the neck is tapered and routed for the truss rod. I'm using spoke wheel adjustment at the heel:

SDB Guitars · #15 08-03-2010, 01:19 PM

Rear cavity cover:

And the cavity that is under the cover:

SDB Guitars · #16 08-03-2010, 01:57 PM

The body, cut to shape, with the neck pocket roughly located in pencil:

The back of the body, with the cavity cover in place:

SDB Guitars · #17 08-03-2010, 02:00 PM

That's all she wrote, for the moment... I have to slot the fingerboard, glue it up, round over the body, etc. I'll be out of town all weekend, so we'll see if I can't get to some of this early next week.

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas and/or suggestions?

BassCycle · #18 08-03-2010, 02:22 PM

That's looking awesome!

SDB Guitars · #19 08-03-2010, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BassCycle

That's looking awesome!

Thanks! After sanding, the back almost looks better than the top. They both have the curly grain, but the back has more of the burl to it.

One more picture for you... the knobs and pickup covers are made of bloodwood. The pickups are Nordstrand Fat Stacks (at least, for the moment... might switch to Big Splits or Big Singles... we'll wee):