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

[tZer]

You are right to be thinking ahead to how the finish will be impacted. You definitely want to make sure the surfaces that are going to be visible are flat and if your joint seams are going to be exposed, you definitely want to make sure your seams are as seamless as possible.

Carry on, my friend. Your attention to these details will certainly pay off in the end!

[suraj]

Actually the finish i'm shooting for is a clear matte finish. But I want to see how the bass will look with a gloss finish after I've put so much effort into perfection. That way I'll know if my attempts at perfection are still lacking, or just un-required. Once I get a gloss finish and see the results, I can cut the gloss back to matte if needed. Thanks for the tips and the motivation

[tZer]

After my first build I decided to always do a continuous top that covered my neck-thru joins - for this very reason.

[suraj]

Thats a good idea right there..Since I spent a lot of time on this matter, my joints are seamless. Even if I drag my fingernail across a joint, it won't bind. So far so good

[suraj]

A new addition to the workshop



So the beer and bass tradition is alive..!! I don't have any fancy beers



I routed out a recess in the back of the bass for the locking jack. And this is where the bass is at now -

[suraj]

Hello TB-er's, update time..


Firstly,

I used a print out and drilled holes for the bridges. Its quite difficult to center punch exactly in the center of the holes.



Even though I got the holes to be as accurate as possible, the countersinking of the chinese bridges were slightly off, piece to piece.. So some of the bridges are slightly skewed by 0.5mm in places. Not very noticeable. I'd love to know how other people mount their single string bridges.





Then I started to work on some of the carving that needed to be done. So first the forearm contour.



Sorry, no progress pictures. But basically I used a rasp, a spokeshave and a scraper(blade of the spokeshave). And it all just flows

How I went about it was - first I drew the curve on the face and the second curve on the body side. Then I filled the area with pencil lines. So I started rasping at one angle, and then switched to steeper angles to make facets, using the pencil lines as an indicator of how much material is coming off. I alternated between the rasp and the spoke shave to remove most of the material. Then smoothed it out with a scraper.

I did the belly contour in the same fashion, but minus the spokeshave as it was a concave curve.





The belly contour is not a flat chamfer-ey carve. Its quite rounded. So is the forearm contour. Although I feel the forearm is a bit too round







So this is how the bass stands now -









I'm open to any kind of suggestions, criticisms and and questions

[Essen]

I love the jack solution! It's nice to "get it out of the way" so that you don't have to use angled cables The bass is looking nice with the contours in place!

[suraj]

Thank you A couple of things are left before I can start final sanding the bass..

[suraj]

Today I worked on a few details. The back of the body wings is a 5mm slice of ash which I got laser cut to the final shape along with the cavity covers. The mistake I made was, that I got the belly contour line engraved to a very shallow depth just for me to fix its position. What happened was, that shallow line was actually almost full depth.

The line is visible as a black burn line outlining the belly contour in the pictures posted above. So in an attempt to carve out that line, I had to remove a lot of material from the belly contour region and make it a flat carve. Also the cavity cover ledge wall got carved out and the cover got carved along with it. It looks kinda cool So I'm glad I made the mistake and went through the trouble



Also I attached the magnetic cavity covers -



The cavity covers are nowhere close to being a tight fit. So I will be binding it with 1mm wenge veneer all around.

I also worked a little on the volute by shifting it a little towards the headstock and kept only 3.5mm wood under one part of the the truss rod nut..Shouldn't be a problem, hopefully. The heel needs to be carved next and I have no clue how to approach it. I think I may have to blowtorch a rasp and bend it and then use that to carve it.. Ideas ?? I wish I had a dremel like sanding thing.

[T-34]

Originally Posted by suraj

Also the cavity cover ledge wall got carved out and the cover got carved along with it. It looks kinda cool So I'm glad I made the mistake and went through the trouble

It looks cool indeed, nice feature

[klyph]

This is definitely one of the coolest threads on TB, right up there with Beauchene Implements' Homemade CNC thread. Your ingenuity, ambition, and attention to detail are a model for us all. There are a lot of handcarving tools which you could use to shape that neck heel, but I imagine you may not have access to a store that sells gouges (or slipstones for sharpening them). Modifying a rasp is an interesting idea, but teeth that are already cut on a flat surface may distort when you bend it. Since your already using sanding blocks, why not try making some curved ones? You could also bend rebar instead of a rasp and simply glue 40or 60 grit to it.

[suraj]

Thanks for the compliments It really means a lot.. I like the sandpaper on a bent rebar idea. Will work on that soon

The next step is fretboard leveling and installing the stainless steel frets..The first few fret slots are not perfectly square so I may need to fill them with wenge veneer and reslot.

[klyph]

Just thinking that you might be wasting money if the teeth on a rasp don't survive modification. There seem to be plenty of concrete buildings where you live... so you may be able to source short lengths of rebar for free. It would need to have the surface ground a bit before adhering anything to it. I suppose you could take the dust hood off of your sander, put some appropriate paper on it and use it as a grinder, although if the drum is wood you could dent it with too much pressure. I don't know if you have access to a grinder. The other cool thing about rebar is that it would not need to be heated nearly as much as a rasp to bend. With a form and a two pound sledge, it may not need heating at all, depending on the bend you want to make. Just a caution... cutting or grinding rebar will make plenty of sparks... clean up the sawdust and mind the solvents if you do this in your garage. Now that I think about this, maybe you can source 1/2" copper pipe- no grinding needed and can be bent more easily. Lots of it available as waste over here in the U.S.A., but I don't know what common plumbing practices are in India. Again, maybe the easiest thing to do is make curved blocks out of wood. You could even make them with compound curves. Made out of wenge, they would last a lifetime.

[Meatrus]

Really like the look of this build! I love the contrasting wenge outlines on the back. You should be able to pick up a set of chisels for carving the heel fairly cheap. You can also get things called riffler rasps which are small and easy to get in tight spaces, you can also get curved ones. Then finish off with sanding. Thats what I did

[suraj]

I got the idea of bending files from Bruce Johnson. I guess it should work as the teeth on the convex(usable) side would bend outwards. But the minute you said rebar, I thought of a smooth solid steel round rod bend by hammering, which I can source easily. I do use my sander as a grinder sometimes, I used it to sharpen an old screwdriver into a chisel. The sparks are fun I don't feel like making curved blocks too much effort.

I have a curved chisel meatrus, although I don't have the right sharpening stone for it, so I sharpened it with fine files. Although it only cuts when I use it with a hammer. The heel was roughly done with that. I don't have chisel skills

I'm sure I'll end up using the bent bar idea..

Thanks for the ideas and the comments , keep em coming..

[Meatrus]

Originally Posted by suraj

I got the idea of bending files from Bruce Johnson. I guess it should work as the teeth on the convex(usable) side would bend outwards. But the minute you said rebar, I thought of a smooth solid steel round rod bend by hammering, which I can source easily. I do use my sander as a grinder sometimes, I used it to sharpen an old screwdriver into a chisel. The sparks are fun I don't feel like making curved blocks too much effort.

I have a curved chisel meatrus, although I don't have the right sharpening stone for it, so I sharpened it with fine files. Although it only cuts when I use it with a hammer. The heel was roughly done with that. I don't have chisel skills

I'm sure I'll end up using the bent bar idea..

Thanks for the ideas and the comments , keep em coming..

I saw that too when he posted it, I didnt know you could bend them before, definitely a cool idea. Though in this case I'm having a hard time seeing why it would be necessary? You can carve it just like you did the neck, by cutting facets then smoothing them out to make the shape you want. Doing it this way you could just use normal chisels, which you sharpen in nearly exactly the same way as your plane iron. You dont need to worry too much about being proficient with them, just make sure you stay well away from the final shape, which you can get with sanding.

Did you check out Rifflers?

[suraj]

I did check out the riffler's files, and they seem perfect actually, although they aren't available in my area. I may be overthinking the heel carving as I won't get to work on it for a few days Whenever I get a little busy with life I start severely overthinking my next step..!! But I guess I could carve facets with a flat file too as now I have a better idea of the heel geometry that I want/need. It will be similar to these pictures -





I guess I will use a curved chisel, a rasp or a bastard file depending on the amount of material to be removed after chiseling, and then a scraper. During final sanding the shape will come to its final form..

[James Mobius]

very very impressive.

[suraj]

Making very slow progress-

Fretboard leveling..

I started by making a level sanding beam. Luckily I had a peice of wenge longer than the fretboard and pretty good in proportions for this job.

So I started by sanding a precision straight edge on it. When I designed my sander, I made sure I can thickness sand boards upto 5" thick, to allow room for jigs and edge jointing. I clamped two other straight edges to it to make it stable and sanded away.






To provide a steady support for the neck, I used support modules from my face jointing jig that I had initially used with my thickness sander from jointing the neck and body wings. The module is just a piece of wood with lockable wedges for height adjustment -









My fretboard was a constant 16" radius so it didn't require very much leveling. The sanding was done along the string paths. This step may have been unnecessary altogether, as the frets could have been leveled instead, but it just means I'll be removing very little material from the frets for leveling if it needs any leveling at all..



^^ thats how smooth it is with 100 grit sandpaper.



Also today I rough cleaned up the area where the fretboard meets the body. It was quite difficult to do with files and the blade of my spokeshave.



I had some chipouts on the side of the fretboard which I filled with sawdust and CA glue, and they're invisible so That's out of the way too.. No pictures of that. Somehow there are at least 5 one millimeter diameter holes in the body wings that need filling. Could be termites ??



Guess who discovered the sexy side of their bass





I really like how that view makes the bass look super sleek..!!



Ok this may sound stupid, but what should be my next large step..?? I was thinking of installing the frets, after fine sanding the fretboard, but I wanted to put some finish on the fretboard before that. Or can I do it after ?

The thing is I'm gonna finish the entire bass the same way, so is it better to fine sand the entire thing and finish it entirely together. And then start the fretting ? I was thinking of using shellac as a sealer and then use a clear polyurethane modified oil based varnish..Thoughts ??

[Arial Bender]

I don't remember where I heard it but I am a carpenter and somewhere along the line I heard you can use a broken bottle as a scraper. Nice job, Can't wait to see it done. John