Super ambitious First Build, no woodworking experience..!!

[octaedro7]

Good to see you progressing suraj.
I'd never apply finish to a wengue fb, I mean, that's one of the mayor upsides of using such a wood. Even at low grids it gets really smooth at touch, as you mentioned.
I'd sand it up to 600 and you're ready to rock (of course you can go for higher grids but personally I find this it unnecessary)
Now for those chip offs, your best chance is gluing back the exact chip, which likely you don't have, but I could not not mention it.
if this is not an option, the other ways I know are somewhat more radical or scarier if you wish, but if well executed could leave no trace of the problem. Thing is that I'm writing this through my phone as it's painful. If I can find some time later today, and if you're interested of course, I can elaborate some more.

[suraj]

Originally Posted by octaedro7

Good to see you progressing suraj.
I'd never apply finish to a wengue fb, I mean, that's one of the mayor upsides of using such a wood. Even at low grids it gets really smooth at touch, as you mentioned.
I'd sand it up to 600 and you're ready to rock (of course you can go for higher grids but personally I find this it unnecessary)

There are some reasons why I want to finish the fretboard -

1. The unfinished wenge won't match the finished wenge on the rest of the bass. I feel this may look bad.

2. I have sweaty palmicitus , so I do not want to mess the fretboard with grime and finger grease.

3. I don't want the open pore look, I want it to be smooth.

Originally Posted by octaedro7

Now for those chip offs, your best chance is gluing back the exact chip, which likely you don't have, but I could not not mention it.
if this is not an option, the other ways I know are somewhat more radical or scarier if you wish, but if well executed could leave no trace of the problem.

I cant find those chips I thought of an idea which a noob like me is very likely to screw up, but maybe use a chisel to make a irregular chip out a little square, so that a matching chip (that I would have to make) could be stuck to it ? then sanded flush.

Originally Posted by octaedro7

Thing is that I'm writing this through my phone as it's painful. If I can find some time later today, and if you're interested of course, I can elaborate some more.

I can understand the pain and I appreciate the effort Throw me some light when you can i need it !

[octaedro7]

Originally Posted by suraj

There are some reasons why I want to finish the fretboard -

1. The unfinished wenge won't match the finished wenge on the rest of the bass. I feel this may look bad.

2. I have sweaty palmicitus , so I do not want to mess the fretboard with grime and finger grease.

3. I don't want the open pore look, I want it to be smooth.



I cant find those chips I thought of an idea which a noob like me is very likely to screw up, but maybe use a chisel to make a irregular chip out a little square, so that a matching chip (that I would have to make) could be stuck to it ? then sanded flush.



I can understand the pain and I appreciate the effort Throw me some light when you can i need it !

Well it´s obviously personal but:
1# I wouldn´t finish the wengue anywhere
2# I'd consider myself a sweaty palmicitus too and the wengue fb I got doesn´t seem affected by it whatsoever.
3# Those typical wengue open pores show up but the touch is silky smooth anyway.
Not trying to convince you

Yeah, the solution I had in mind are pointing the same direction you mentioned but not precisely with a chisel. I´d use a dremel router with a very fine bit and a fixture that will allow you to cut a perfectly squared section (the cut goes from slot to slot), allowing you to glue in a new piece very tightly and then re-slot. Problem I´m seeing is that the grain is pretty "wild" on your board, so finding a matching piece is not going to be easy, but not impossible. The key here is obtaining a perfectly squared hole, same goes for the "patch" and having good eye selecting the piece used to patch.
After seeing the pictures is not that you have that many options, because a CA+Sawdust filling is not going to look good. The good thing is that you haven´t glued the wings neither shaping the back of the neck so you have good chances with the fixture (basically rails and guides)

[suraj]

Originally Posted by octaedro7

Well it´s obviously personal but:
1# I wouldn´t finish the wengue anywhere
2# I'd consider myself a sweaty palmicitus too and the wengue fb I got doesn´t seem affected by it whatsoever.
3# Those typical wengue open pores show up but the touch is silky smooth anyway.
Not trying to convince you

So is there a way to finish only the maple and ash on this bass and not the wenge ? I mean If I mask off the wenge, say on the neck, and finish the maple, then wont the build up of finish make the maple areas "higher" than the wenge ? I guess it would be weird. Just thinking though, and if this is possible, I will definitely consider leaving the wenge unfinished.

Originally Posted by octaedro7

Yeah, the solution I had in mind are pointing the same direction you mentioned but not precisely with a chisel. I´d use a dremel router with a very fine bit and a fixture that will allow you to cut a perfectly squared section (the cut goes from slot to slot), allowing you to glue in a new piece very tightly and then re-slot. Problem I´m seeing is that the grain is pretty "wild" on your board, so finding a matching piece is not going to be easy, but not impossible. The key here is obtaining a perfectly squared hole, same goes for the "patch" and having good eye selecting the piece used to patch.
After seeing the pictures is not that you have that many options, because a CA+Sawdust filling is not going to look good. The good thing is that you haven´t glued the wings neither shaping the back of the neck so you have good chances with the fixture (basically rails and guides)

This is a very very good idea, the only problem I can think of is - I dont own a dremel *facepalm*(TB should have a facepalm emoticon ) anyways, what I can do is patch it up with glue and dust, level it and see how it looks. If I can live with it, which I guess I wont, then I'll use your dremel idea, only I guess i'll have to use a chisel, and chisel out ONLY the chipped area at a 45 degree-ish angle. And glue a matching chip. Another option is to use my heavy ~6 kg router with an edge guide and my smallest bit, 4mm. But I don't know how consistently square my channel will be if my router runs on a radiused board.

The thing is these chipouts are very small.. I zoomed in a lot for the picture And if I decide to finish the wenge, its all gonna turn black anyways so I could patch it with dust.

Thanks for the suggestions appreciate it.


I tested some finishes on scrap ash, one being clear synthetic varnish, premixed shellac, "french polish" thats what they call is here, and polyurethane modified glossy varnish. The poly based finish really brought out the three dimensionality in figured areas and gave the best look, with different viewing angles the wood "moves" if that makes sense, but there are significant brush marks left. Then again I didn't use any thinner just for the test. The normal varnish was similar, but more of a matte sheen, didn't give the grain any enhancement. The best combination I thought was a coat or two of shellac, brushed, and then the poly varnish. Gave a nice hue as well as grain enhancement. The wenge with finish looks jet black from a distance. Only when your close you see grain.

I feel if I don't like the glossy look, or cant pull it off in the first place, I'll scuff up the surface with fine sandpaper and make it matte.

Some test finish pictures on the said scrap pieces will be put up tomorrow.

Peace out.

[octaedro7]

Hey suraj,
Sorry for the late reply, been busy with my own child. You probably sorted (screwed) this out already
Yeah, didn´t take into consideration your body sandwich.
Applying finish on one wood and not the other may work but it´s not evident. I sort of do that when the body is finished but the neck is natural, Peavey Cirruses come like that too.
Still I don´t think that´s a wise way to go

My experience:
I have my SR5006 satin oil finished, wengue/mahogany with a whitish veneer that seems to be maple, looking perfectly white (I mean it´s not yellowed by the oil).

I have finished swamp ash just with wax:



I´ve left a maple neck´s back unfinished, and applied just lemon oil to get a yellowish vintage tone and no problems whatsoever, in fact it´s super smooth. I don´t have a picture of that one handy though.

Point is, you can oil finish the body an leave the fretboard natural. You will keep the tonal variety of wengue (color wise)

Now, this whole thing started because of the freaking chip out of the fb. Have you decided what to do?

Dremel clones are very cheap, you just need to buy the original router accessory plus a 2 mm diameter bit. Think of it as a good investment. At least I found myself using it pretty often, even without counting inlaying...

So, don´t you dare attempting it with a regular router. The bit is going to be too big anyway.
Going the chisel way is also tricky as if you really want it to be "invisible", your 45ish degree angle is no good. You must take a perfectly squared bite, 90º angled walls and apply enough pressure while gluing to make the joints thin as baby hair. So to achieve that with a Chisel you need to be really good at it, I mean, not only cutting the cavity but also the piece you want to stick in.

Good luck!

BTW: it could be radical but if you have a scrap piece of the fretboard, big and similar enough, you can just recess the whole space in-between the 2 slots. Then you just glue a bigger piece and just re-slot those 2 slots. Am I explaining myself?

[suraj]

The problem with oil finishes is that I can't find them around my area. I do not wish to spend lots of money and import them either. So I just tried some local finishes on scrap and chose the PU modified clear oil varnish.
I could source the dunlop lemon oil for fretboards though.

It definitely wouldn't make sense to finish one wood and not the other, I mean my 7 piece maple and wenge neck would be extremely awkward to finish that way :P

That waxed swamp ash body looks really good btw. But again I want a more durable finish.


About my chipouts, you explained yourself well, but I realized I can't use your dremel idea as I have a sidemarker there which contains a fiber optic filament. If I used the dremel I would route out the marker and the fiber and cover it entire with the new glued piece. I haven't attended to the chipouts yet but I will try the dust and glue first. And if I decide to glue wood chips instead, I can use a chisel to just make that chip square. By that 45 degree angle i didn't mean I would chisel a slope :P It would still have square walls.

The following is an area between two frets, the chipout ( ` ) is at the top left corner

-------
`| o |
-------

So I could cut with a chisel like this -

-------
/ o |
-------

and glue a chip.
(Imagine that '/' line extends till the fret slot effectively becoming the glue line.)

I hope I explained that well..thanks for your suggestions though really appreciated.




Now onto some tiny progress -

I drilled the tuner holes. I got the positions by placing my template and drilling pilot divots.
The first hole I drilled was by just holding the neck against some scrap wood on the table, and doing my best to hold the heavy neck nice and stable. Well the hole began well, but I pulled the bit out and resunk it in, and the bit caught one of the edges and slightly damaged the sides of that hole. Nothing big, the tuner washer covers this.

So for the next set of holes I put together some wood and clamps -





Basically thats a large ~2" thick scrap of ash, two small off cuts of the headstock and a long strip over the off cuts.

This creates a gap exactly the thickness of the headstock. Then I drilled a small clearance hole in the ash and slid my headstock in.



I didn't let go of the neck with my hand. Just held it there (with the left hand) so i don't put too much stress on the scarf joint. Positioned it under the bit, and just held it firmly. Using the right hand to lower the bit. Once I started the hole, I went all the way through. If I removed the bit and reinserted it, there would be a chance the wood moved a little and when I lower the bit again, it would catch one side and damage the area surrounding the hole.

The result -



I also tried my hand at rasping the neck





All this wouldn't have been possible had I not had the right bit. The fact is I didn't. So I bought a spade bit that said 14mm, I needed an exact 14mm hole for the tuners. Now this bit had NO cutting edges, so I had to use files, and make sharp edges, also filed a clearance. Also had to hammer the bit straight, as It didn't spin properly. Made test holes till I got dot 14mm holes. Now the tuners fit snug


I forgot to show how I channeled the fiber optics to the control cavity. So I shall show it through pictures -

[suraj]

Progress -

I shaped the neck, well almost. To do so I got myself a spokeshave.



And by now I guess through trial and error, I have learned how to sharpen blades. Notice the mirror like shine on the blade



Notice how the apparently straight grained wenge starts to show some wild figure as I dig into it



beautiful shavings -





The straight grain that turned figured



The straight grain that remained straight -



The next day after some more shavings -





I could have gotten away with a rasp, but I felt the spoke shave would give me clean "lines" from end to end of the neck. With a rasp, I wouldn't be able to get such a consistent result throughout the neck.



Volute -

I don't really like what I did with the volute, but then again I was not skilled enough to do it in the first place. My TR nut is 2" long, So my volute had to extend far into the neck as a lot of material had to be removed for the nut slot. So I had to use my volute to keep about 6mm of wood under the TR nut. Without the volute there would be only 3mm.

Sorry for the bad picture



Some heel carving -



With a curved chisel -



And followed with sandpaper -




Anti-progress -

Guess who's headstock hit the ceiling fan



As the builder of this bass I should be pretty sad, but I actually found this funny, and I'm glad that it wasn't worse. I guess I'll have to do a repair job on my HS again..Thankfully I saved the HS off cut scraps.

[1958Bassman]

Originally Posted by suraj

Progress -



As the builder of this bass I should be pretty sad, but I actually found this funny, and I'm glad that it wasn't worse. I guess I'll have to do a repair job on my HS again..Thankfully I saved the HS off cut scraps.

Nice job with the spokeshave, considering the lack of experience- wenge can splinter pretty badly and the tips are sharp.

WRT the chip, why not use the shape of the chip at the top surface to define the final shape of the corrected headstock? I think I like that more than the white line.

[suraj]

dont mind the white line, its random. Yes I thought I could just change the shape of the headstock till the chip as option 1..carve the chip out as option 2, but it would look random and bad. option 3 would be to go through the long procedure of repairing it the way I repaired the headstock before..still to think over it.

Oh yeah i have a splinter in me right now :P I've gotten multiple splinters when I handled the wenge in its raw form when I bought it. but from then on I wore gloves. Although I didn't today.

[suraj]

Quick question, is it ok if I carve out my volute and leave only about 3mm, or maybe a hair less under the TR nut. I feel the answer is no, but I would like to know my options.. I don't really like how I shaped it, is it really that ugly ?

[suraj]

Hello TB, so Its been a while since I updated this. Very little progress, but its all I could do for now. I am close to glueing the body wings to the neck, so had to route the chamfers on the front side near the horns, as the router won't reach this area easily after its been glued; the fretboard would come in the way. The rest of the body shaping will be done after its glued up..





And finally my ash is showing some grain
I ran into issues routing the horns as there was hardly any area to support the router. Now If I had a router table, it wouldn't be a problem. So I thought i'll use my makeshift router table, BUT the thickness of that wooden baseplate was too much. The chamfer bit shank was not long enough.
How I solved the problem - when I was routing the horn of one wing I clamped the other wing next to it so that the router got some more support. And I took light climb cuts to avoid any tearout. I know all this may be basic for you'll but it may be helpful to someone else.



I think once I carve the belly contour the wenge accent will look cool.

[lbridenstine]

Originally Posted by suraj

I think once I carve the belly contour the wenge accent will look cool.

That should look very cool. I'm glad you're back to working on this.

[suraj]

Not back in full force but trying my best thank you.. I'm currently building a router fixture to true up the edges of the neck and body sides for glue up.. The same jig that Bruce Johnson had recommended. I don't have enough tools to make an accurate jig but I've been using a hand plane, spokeshave and a sanding block to try and make it as accurate as possible. Pics to follow

[lbridenstine]

Originally Posted by suraj

Not back in full force but trying my best thank you.. I'm currently building a router fixture to true up the edges of the neck and body sides for glue up.. The same jig that Bruce Johnson had recommended. I don't have enough tools to make an accurate jig but I've been using a hand plane, spokeshave and a sanding block to try and make it as accurate as possible. Pics to follow

Nice. I had trouble with getting my edges leveled. I was using a router and power sander.

[suraj]

Behold the beginning of another long post..

So the topic of this post is centered around Jointing mating edges of a neckthrough, followed by a glue-up

Part 1 - Jointing..!!

Atempt 1 :
After days and days of block sanding, scraping and planing, I realized i'm not getting the absolutely perfect join between the neck and the body wings. Even if I got a perfect join, the end result of the join wouldn't be in the same plane. So my first attempt was to build a jig that was recommended by Bruce Johnson.



I really tried to make everything as flat square and straight as possible, but doing lots of block sanding and squaring up, I ended up sanding a "bow" into all the pieces, a large one at that. They weren't straight anymore. Long story short, I scrapped that idea and thought of making the same jig using only the essential pieces of it. Which brings me to attempt 2



Attempt 2 :







This jig is, in essence the same as the last one, but not as "permanent". The wood clamped up inside is scrap ash on which I tested the jig. Test results -





Wow..!! that's a tight join..!! Time to celebrate by stuffing my face with a footlong sandwich..!!



Well when I came back to the workshop I realized the join was tight, but not square.. When I fipped the pieces, the other side showed a gap.



So I realized that even after the jig was checked with a square, the mating edges didn't come together to yield a flat glue-up. I wouldn't dare route my body wings just to get the same result.

My new plan was to get the edges as square as possible, using my drum sander, and then use one of the peices as a square sanding fence on which I would sand manually.

So I squared up the test piece edges by using layers of making tape to close the joint , and then face sanded on my sander instead of touching the flat straight routed edges.







So far so good..!!




I clamped one of the the square edges on my granite table, stuck sandpaper, and started the hours of manual sanding to true up the mating edges..





The body wings were sanded upside down and the neck sides were sanded up side up, so that if the fence is not perfectly square, the angles would cancel out.





The second neck side couldn't be entirely trued up this way as the fiber optic wires were in the way. So the area around the optics was hand sanded and scraped. At the end I scraped wherever require to remove any wobble from the edges, and made sure they would glue up as close to flat as possible. Upon checking the edges together, there was full contact and a very tight joint..!! Success



The glueing preparation -

Since I am overly paranoid about making sure the two body wings and the neck glue up to be in the same plane(0.5mm accuracy), I wanted to clamp all three pieces to the granite table and glue them together.

To do that, first the neck top face had to be routed for the neck angle. The bridge needed to be about 3mm lower.

Routing neck angle taper -










The freshly cut wenge is always much lighter in colour, at least for my piece. And it darkens a lot over a few days.



This area was routed only to 1mm depth. The bridge area was routed down by 3mm. The fretboard end are will have to be hand shaped.



The Glue-up

I clamped the newly routed face of the neck to the granite table. Applied glue to the first surface and its mating surface. Clamped the body wing to the table with the edges touching. And then put the business clamps for the glue-up.





And here is where I made the biggest mistake, there was zero squeeze out..!! I could have undone all the clamps and taken it apart, but I thought maybe its too late, as the pieces were probably already pretty stuck. The glue line -



I had applied a thin film onto both pieces properly, but I guess I took really long to put them together resulting in a starved joint. Even with really tight clamping pressure no glue squeezed out. I don't know what to do about this.

After about an hour and a half, I opened all the clamps and tried to pull the body off the neck, but it was really stuck for good, so I left that alone and went on to glue the other wing. This time I used a little more glue, and did a dry clamp up twice so that I put the glued pieces together as fast as possible.



This time I got optimal squeeze out.





So I have finally finished the main, most frustrating and intense part of this build

The rest of the work shouldn't be as challenging, hopefully

Peace out..!! until the next update

[Big B.]

I wouldnt sweat the lack of squeezeout though some may disagree. I always go for minimal squeezeout when I glue. As long as you are confident you got a good coat on your gluing surface you should go with it.

[suraj]

That is really comforting to hear Yes I made sure both the surfaces were entirely coated with glue, but in thin layers. I'm just scared to be in a moment during a gig, when the top body wing remains hanging from the strap and the rest of the bass falls to the ground

[suraj]

Boring Updates - but since i've been mentioning small details from the beginning, I shall do so till the end

This is what came out of the clamps -



Starting to look like a bass

Also I got the glue-up to end up quite flat, only 0.3mm of light passes through a straight edge.. Will block sand it perfectly flat.



The wenge heel block at the back was to be leveled and flush with the back of the body. Also the excess length was to be trimmed to size.



And a hardware mockup -



The back -

[tZer]

I think it's looking sweet! Nice work!

I admire your attention to detail and respect your concert for getting things perfectly flush and flat and all of that. All I can say is keep it up but don't let the pursuit of perfection become too much of a drag on completion or get you down in any way. No matter how perfect you get things there will always be a detail or two that simply aren't - and as the builder, you will always be keenly aware of exactly what those imperfections are even if they don't impact the look or playability or sound one iota.

All I am saying is - GREAT job man! Keep it up and don't let my 'slacker' attitude about letting little things go stop you from trying to make everything as perfect as you can!

[suraj]

Actually, I really needed someone to say that..I feel i'm spending far too much time in getting everything perfect, and it is really holding me back

But the reason why I'm trying to get good flat surfaces is that under a gloss finish, wont all the imperfections jump out ?? The many builds I've seen here sport some really perfect work, and this is my attempt of getting at least half way there.. If the kind of imperfections I have are not going to show under a finish, or can be leveled out in the finish thickness itself, then I will seriously increase the pace of this build..!!