Lets start this build again 5 String 35" Maple

[josiah goldfish]

Very nice, love the originality

[Snort]

Just weighed it, comes in at 6.6 Lbs so maybe 7.25 with hardware.

[Snort]

Thanks Josiah, I am making a lot up as I go along.

OK question,

How do you sand inside contours i.e. between the neck and the upper and lower horns, I would love to know of a good tool to help with this?

[lbridenstine]

Originally Posted by Snort

Thanks Josiah, I am making a lot up as I go along.

OK question,

How do you sand inside contours i.e. between the neck and the upper and lower horns, I would love to know of a good tool to help with this?

http://www.lowes.com/pd_85721-1069-6...der&facetInfo=

You could get one of those and use it on an electric drill. I had to wrap duct tape around it before putting the sand paper rolls on so they'd stop falling off.

[Snort]

Originally Posted by lbridenstine

http://www.lowes.com/pd_85721-1069-6...der&facetInfo=

You could get one of those and use it on an electric drill. I had to wrap duct tape around it before putting the sand paper rolls on so they'd stop falling off.

I have a similar set of those for my drill press, and they work great for the inside curves, but I am looking for something that will conform to the roundovers without putting flats on them. I saw some inflatable ones today in the Lee Valley catalogue, has anyone tried those yet?

If this makes any sense I need a sanding drum shaped like an apple core to fit the nice round over on the inside curve.

[Snort]

Tonight I drilled out the pup routes, then realized my dremel router base wont go into the recess enough as the end of the fretboard gets in the way, I may have to dremel this front one out freehand. I so need one of those mini router bases for dremel from stew mac.

[Snort]

So this week ive made some progress, the pickup routs have been completed



The bridge has been tried on for size and the mount holes drilled the ground wire will go under some aluminium tape which will then be covered with walnut veneer




Today I cut some paper templates so that i could then cut the walnut veneer



The first piece of veneer was steam ironed on



The second piece being cut to fit



And the second veneer steam ironed on, there is still some trimming to be carried out




So the walnut will hopefully become darker with a few coats of poly, I will most likely put on a few sealer coats soon and then I need to make a false scratchplate out of 1/4 maple which will be left natural colour. The idea will be to surround the pickups so you dont see the screw bulges, I need to come up with a few ideas for this before committing to it.






After reviewing these photos I am not so sure I like the veneer! at the very least I need to make the edge distance symetrical as well as trimming the veneer on both upper and lower horns before I go any further, lol next week it may all be stripped off again.

[Snort]

Well it took me 2 hours to get the last trace of glue off, but at last the veneer is gone, I think at this stage I will just use it for some highlights.

[Snort]

So its back to the drawing board, removal of the veneer also took all of the dye off, so that will need to be re applied, in the meantime I put some hardware on and tried some strings on it to check the layout for the nut




So now I am in the process of making a maple scratch plate to go around those ugly pickups



The bridge pieces are held in with only one screw, hence they look a little unaligned in the photo, I noticed tonight one of the grub screws is missing from the saddle adjustment, does anyone know if they are easily sourced?



The nut is not fitted yet but it is on my list of things to do very soon. this is a piece of brass, I ordered some brass nut blanks online but they were a little uncharismatic, so this piece is actualy the bolt of a brass gate bolt, shaved and filed down it should make a good nut.

I took the oportunity to weigh the bass with hardware on tonight it comes in at 8.6 lbs, who would have thought pickups tuners and strings would weigh so much

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Yep, my latest bass went from about 6.5 to 9 lbs after the electronics, hardware ad strings were installed.

Looks great! Good source for your brass nut.

[Snort]

Thanks Geoff appreciate the comment. Any suggestions as to how I could reduce the weight at this stage? I havn't added electronics or scratch plate yet so its about to get even heavier. Maybe 9lbs at completion!!!!

I played an Ibanez 5 string at long and Mcquade the other night and it instilled in me the beauty of a thin neck and how much material I might still shave off of my neck. There is a varience in thickness I have to address it goes from 1.007" at the body join to 1.017 at the nut. So I will even that out with the scrapers tonight. Do you think I could safely take much more off? I guess it is all dependant on the truss rod depth?

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Yeah, depending on the truss rod depth you could go much thinner. I normally shoot for between 0.75 and 0.875" for the bench depth, depending on the carve profile I'm going for. That would shave some weight, but likely not a lot.

Weight reduction ideas would be lighter hardware, chambered body, thinner body, smaller body, etc. These are not all easy to do on a completed instrument.

[Snort]

So Ive been off sick for a while and not able to do much in the way of physical work on the bass. So last weekend I stained the wings, and tidied up some routes, plus a couple of initial coats of poly on the wings.





I have taken the bridge down 2 mm to compensate a little for the metal tape and the walnut veneer that will go onto there soon.