First Build - FJ Special ( Fanned Fret Content)

[xaxxat]

Originally Posted by Cougmeister

After some scrounging, needing to keep this build as low cost as possible, I bought some 3+2 black gotoh style tuners off of a fellow TBer.

Time for some input - Should I go with an aluminum bridge that won't match the black tuners but will match the control plate, or go with a brass/aluminum brass and paint it gloss black to match the tuners?

Here's some pictures the bass as it is right now. I may end up getting a new pickguard, but it would be a BWB one.

IMO, powder coating the bridge would be better than painting it.

[Cougmeister]

Well I think I've decided to go with aluminum for the bridge. I may go on and make a new control plate out of aluminum as well. This got me thinking about switching it to a passive system too, with either a vvt or a 3vt.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Here's some progress on the neck. I'm still waiting for the fretboard and some other bits.

Here's the blank.


I routed the trussrod channel with a 1/4" round nose bit in my router table. I am using an LMII double action truss rod, which has square areas at two ends where the threads are located, so I squared up those areas using a chisel. It fits like a glove...

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Some progress with the headstock.

I glued ears to the headstock area to widen the blank in this area. I used small pieces of maple from the same piece from which the rest of the neck was cut.

I used my router in my home built sled to drop the level of headstock face to what is required... about 1/4" lower than the fretboard gluing surface.





I then used some chisels and gouges to rough the curved transition between the neck and headstock surface.



I then cut the headstock shape on the bandsaw and cleaned it up on the spindle sander.



The transition need some final touch up, but that will come once the fretboard is attached.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Some more progress. I cut the neck taper. This has to be done quite precisely in order to match an existing bolt on neck pocket. Normally I build the neck first and then cut the neck pocket to match the neck.

I carefully laid out the neck taper based on the measurements of the neck on the bass. It is 1.875" at the nut and 2.865" at the heel. Since the new necks nut is both angled and displaced further from the heel, the actual spot on the new neck that is 1.875" wide is not the nut location, but between the first and second fret. With this laid out, I was ready to start cutting.



I first cut the neck close to taper on my bandsaw. I left a little over 1 mm on either side of the marked taper. This would be taken off with the router.



The neck was cut to exact shape using a jig I have for cutting straight lines using a top bearing template bit. It uses two De-sta-co toggle clamps. These clamps are extremely useful for building jigs and I have plans for making a few more jigs with some more that I have.



I used this jig to cut the neck to final shape and I used my oscillating spindle sander to clean up the transition from the neck to the headstock. The only thing left is to shape the heel of the neck and then the shape in the headstock plane is complete.





I have to pick up the rest of the parts tomorrow as the shipment has arrived at the post office. Next I will shape the heel, drill the tuner holes and then slot the fretboard. Once that's done I will use my router plane setup to get the neck and headstock cut to depth on the back side before gluing on the fretboard. It shouldn't really be too long before the neck's ready for finishing.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

The fretboard is now slotted and the tuner holes are drilled. I also slotted a fretboard for a 6 string fanned fret bass I'll be building.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

I trimmed the fretboard roughly to shape and glued the fretboard on.



I used a flush trim bit to get the board to match the neck and cleaned up the fretboard overhang on the spindle sander.





I then drilled the face and side dot holes. I installed the side dots, but I waited until after I'd sanded the fretboard radius before I installed the face dots. Here's a shot of the neck as it is right now:



Next I'll sand the fretboard up to 1000 grit before installing the frets. After that I'll carve the neck. Then it's just finish sanding and on to finishing.

[Splods]

Looking awesome, I'm wondering whether or not there is enough material there for the string nut, but as I cannot hold it, I will hope for he best.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

The shelf that the nut sits on? There's plenty of material.

[Cougmeister]

Looks like plenty of room to me as well.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Next up I installed the frets:





Nothing really special here, though the fanned frets make pretty much every fret have to conform to a different radius. The fretboard is 12" radius and I bent the fretwire to a 10" radius, which worked well across the board.

Next I carved the back of the neck. I used my standard method of defining a course of point exactly and then blending the neck between the two. I checked with the calipers periodically to ensure the correct thickness and with a contour gauge to check that the shape was correct.



The main part of the neck was carved entirely with a surform before being cleaned up with 80 grit sandpaper. The heel transition was done with a rasp as the curved face allowed for more accurate shaping there.





The frets were then leveled, recrowned and polished. Not to exciting to look at, but very important for buzz free low action. I use both a short straight edge to check for rocking and a 2' straight edge to check the entire neck. When there's no light between the 2' straight edge and any of the frets along the strings path, I know things are properly level.

[suraj]

Thanks Geoff for sharing your work and your methods. The forum really learns and benefits from the tiny details. On a side note I'm assuming you hammered your frets right ? If you did, did you require a lot of fret leveling compared to a neck you may have fretted using a press ?

[Cougmeister]

Ok guys, time for some more input.

Were talking about changing the finish from gloss/nitro to an oil/wax like a dingwall. I've never played a bass with an oil/wax neck and can't find one at the local guitar center. What do you guys think I should go with?

[suraj]

oil/wax

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Suraj, thanks, I hope some people can find something useful in my posts. I've learned a ton from various online forums on instrument building, so I hope I can return even a small amount.

I've never used a fret press, though I would like to try one. I don't find that a lot of leveling is required with hammering. I find that a couple of things contribute to reduce the amount of leveling required:

-ensure the fretboard is perfectly level prior to installing the frets
-ensure the fret slots are all perpendicular to the fretboard surface
-use small, consistent taps to get the frets seated and ensure that they are properly seated along their entire length

By employing these I've been able to reduce the amount of work level frets to (typically) only slight recrowning. I do believe that pressing is superior and I will at some point make the switch. Of course, this job wouldn't really have been possible with a press due to the constantly varying radii of the frets.

[JoeDeF]

Originally Posted by Cougmeister

Ok guys, time for some more input.

Were talking about changing the finish from gloss/nitro to an oil/wax like a dingwall. I've never played a bass with an oil/wax neck and can't find one at the local guitar center. What do you guys think I should go with?

Violins, violas, cellos, basses, and gambas have had their necks finished most of the time with a little (often linseed) oil for centuries now (though other very thin coatings such as French polishing using a small amount of thinned shellac many be found). That's why the neck is a different color than the rest of the instrument, which was varnished. Wax was not needed. Many if not most bowed instrument luthiers still today use oil (often boiled linseed oil or a similar polymerizing oil like real tung oil). Sometimes carnauba wax is used.

I think an oiled neck feels great! If you have the chance to try a bowed instrument of even middling quality, you can probably get a sense of what it feels like. Slick and fast.

[Cougmeister]

We decided to go with an oil/wax finish. the headstock will be gloss, but that is so we can apply a waterslide decal and seal it on. Here's the decal for now, but it is still open to changes.

[pilotjones]

Is there any potential trademark problem in using the word "jazz" in the name of a bass guitar?

[Cougmeister]

I hadn't even thought about that. I would sure hope not. It would seem kind if silly in my mind.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

It is almost certainly a trademark of FMIC. Every Jazz Bass headstock I've seen either has "Trade Mark" printed below "Jazz Bass" or has "Jazz Bass®".