NOTO Narwhal 6

[roberthabraken]

Gorgeous! Still not impressed by the headstock shape, but other than that, it's one beautiful instrument! Great execution, great result. And your working pace is a lot better than mine too .. I really need to catch up..

I'm curious how you'll experience the flat fingerboard. And what the possibilities of the electronics are. Can't wait to hear some samples

Ps. Oh and that guardian? I've got dozens of them outside my shop, guarding my territory

[Matteo Marziali]

It's really a piece of art! I like the body shape and the finale part of the neck so perfectly hide in to the body!

[erokit]

WOW! That bass is turning out beautiful. And I do like the headstock. Does "work" better with seeing the logo and the "n" motif.

[PaPaVB20]

Wow, nice looking bass! any sound clips?

[BananaKing]

That is one sexy beast. Nice job!

[octaedro7]

Thanks for the compliments guys.


Regarding the radius: I strung it and started to play, my focus was into checking that the bridge recess depth was enough. I didn´t notice nor even remember that it is a flat fingerboard. As JC made me realize, fbs in 6 stringers are normally flatter so the difference with my other sixers is minimum (they are probably in the 22"-24" area).
The bridge height really came out well. I could get very low action on the first octave but the second was buzzy around the 17th fret and on, on most of the strings. Not a surprise as I hadn’t done the leveling yet.

Disassembled the thingy again and prepared my kit for the fret work.
Fret rockers:



Fret leveler block, 180 grit:



Made some marks where I spotted issues with the rockers for checking after the leveling:




Instead of just start leveling I tried hammering the spots found with the rockers which worked pretty fine. I could eliminate many high fret areas (as I could verify with the rockers).
To get the neck straight I adjusted the relief of the neck using as reference the scale template used for slotting the FB (used as straight edge). Stewmac sells a dedicated tool for this which is basically the same thing but with wider notches allowing the straight edge to touch the surface of the fretboard. This is definitively better, because the scale template’s notches are not wider than the frets (at least not than the medium sized) so it sits on top of the frets, touching their crown on 2 points, and since the frets are not yet leveled, their un-evenness (in height) introduces error. That said, ime, If you do the fretting sufficiently careful, this difference is small enough to not affect your ability to use it as a straight edge. If I could afford it I’d buy the official tool but priorities regarding tool purchasing are different.

The leveling went fine. Now the dressing was kind of painful. I bought a Stewmac 2 sided crown dressing file, the cheapest tool for the job they sell. Story short: waste of money, go for the diamond one.
I did the polishing with Brasso and a piece of cloth adhered to my mouse sander. Beautiful result, better than perceived in the picture:



Having the right dressing file could have improved the results but anyway it turned out pretty fine aesthetically.


After strung it back and fine tune the nut I could not help but to smile. I could get a really low action with no buzzing whatsoever , way better than I expected.

So after cleaning and reorganizing the whole work shop I happened to have the luck that my neighbor was getting rid of stuff and I could grab a parabolic antenna holder, basically a curved metal tube ready to mount in the wall, perfect to make a holder for applying the finish to the body.




I carefully masked both the neck and body:






I prepared some wiped poly and started to apply coats. It’s super nice seeing the grain popping up. I tried to capture the 3D effect that the finish produces both with pictures and a couple of videos (the waiting time between coats invites) but did not really achieve it. Anyway here they are:






http://youtu.be/zD120vrR6Gk
http://youtu.be/zW8LCE01XfU
http://youtu.be/zJi07r1hehM

Next episode:
More coats - Applying Decals - More coats - Sanding, Sanding, Sanding..... and Sanding

Thanks for watching

[Mister Know Not]

Fantastic...
This is one very good looking bass...
Them dutch dudes...crazy, yet brilliant..

[francotedescoga]

This has got to be one of the best looking Single-Cuts I've ever seen.

[pilotjones]

Nice work, and that has to be one of the nicest pieces of zebrano ever.


It loks like the top is thicker in some places, and thinner in ithers with more layers behind it. How does that work, and why?

[octaedro7]

Originally Posted by Mister Know Not

Fantastic...
This is one very good looking bass...
Them dutch dudes...crazy, yet brilliant..

Thanks, I'm not dutch though.

Originally Posted by francotedescoga

This has got to be one of the best looking Single-Cuts I've ever seen.

Truly appreciated

Originally Posted by pilotjones

Nice work, and that has to be one of the nicest pieces of zebrano ever.

It loks like the top is thicker in some places, and thinner in ithers with more layers behind it. How does that work, and why?

There's really no other reason than aesthetics, I just thought of giving it a try. Just had to do some fairly precise thicknessing with the router (I believe I posted a pic of it before) in order to match the thickness of the top-only side with the the top-veneer-sapele side. I lack of a planner so the router is the only way to go (and it worked fine... still want a planner though ).
Well that's the short story.
I may be interpreting your question wrongly, if that's the case let me know.

[octaedro7]

I've put together in PDF format a couple of articles I found thanks to Drake regarding Wiped Poly Finish. I'm not the author, just did the pdfs, bookmarking and corrected the links.
Hope you find them useful.

[roberthabraken]

Wow, nice work Gonzalo!! That poly really makes the bass pop! Can't wait to see the finished bass as a whole and hear it. Very, very nice work for a first full scratch build!

[octaedro7]

Originally Posted by roberthabraken

Wow, nice work Gonzalo!! That poly really makes the bass pop! Can't wait to see the finished bass as a whole and hear it. Very, very nice work for a first full scratch build!

Thanks Rob.
I'm also very anxious to put the whole thing together.
I need to finish it this month, coming months are going to be hectic...

[octaedro7]

It has been a pretty hectic time lately as I anticipated. I spent around a month travelling in a 2 months period, which slowed down my progress. That plus the finish... F**cking finish...
But I survived.

Here are some pics of the finished body with its cavities shielded. I used satin poly but ended up fishing it with Glossy Acrylic.





Also the TR cover





Here´s how the Preamp fitted (notice too, how I increased the # of magnets) :




Now the finished thingy

Narwhal 6 Specs:

• 6 strings, BEADGC 34” scale, 24 medium frets. Bolt On.
• Black Tusq nut. 55 mm width.
• Pao Ferro fretboard with Brass/Black dot inlays. Brass side dots.
• Multilam Wengue-Padauk Graphite reinforced neck. 19.7 mm @ 1st fret / 23 mm @ 21st fret.
• Dual action Truss Rod w/ Magnetic access cap.
• Hipshot Ultralite tuners.
• Chanbered Sapelli body. Zebrano Top.
• Hipshot Style A Brass Bridge. 18,5 mm string separation (@ center position, adjustable)
• Delano SBC 6 Quadcoils
• Audere 3ZB Preamp @ 9v
• Controls: Vol/Bal/Bass/Mid/Treb + 3 position Z mode switch + 2x Series/Single Coil/Parallel switches
• Aluminium knobs
• Magnetic Control Cavity access cap
• Dunlop Flush strap lock pins

Before going any further I´d like to thank many people here, (I´m surely forgetting many but at the end this goes for all this awesome community):
JC, Rob, Andrew, Bruce, Pete, JD, Maurizio, Meatrus, etc. and of course all of you who just dropped a nice comment. You really don´t know how much they helped.

Sound wise, as intended, this thingy is super versatile. Without touching anything but the balance and the coil switches you can dial a broad variety of quality tones. On top of that you have the EQ and the Z-Modes of the preamp.

Some clippies ASAP.

I have planned 3 more builds after this one. I almost got everything needed , so I´ll try to post those builds too, whenever I find the time to start them...

[roberthabraken]

Very nice work Gonzalo! Finish looks good too! It's a gorgeous bass . By the way: what's going on between the pups? There seems to be a hatch that wasn't in the earlier build pics of the body and appeared in the (almost) finished instrument pics on the previous page. What's it for?

Oh and very cool to hear your aiming for another three soon!

[Musiclogic]

Wow, Nice job, that is an absolute beauty, so glad it came out so nice, while small, that truss rod cover is awesome loooking, love the logo! Absolutely awesome!

[BarkerBass]

looks amazing! I am very jealous, a 5er version of that beast would be pretty close to my dream bass.

quick que, what is the shape on/in the body between the pickups for?

[octaedro7]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it!
The oval depression between the Pups is where the -not so sure I´ll be making- ramp goes.
I wanted it to be slightly different from the classic squared block. So the plan is (was) that it´ll have a protruding surface, like a belly, that will fit on the depression. The shape of the ramp itself will be oval but with the sides having a roundover to make it more organic and better flowing with the bass shape. Did I make any sense? I guess that a drawing would have saved me the embarrassment

[RedMoses]

Very Kool!

[El-Bob]

What does the Z mode thing do?