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Black limba single cut

Harry Cahyadi

Harry Cahyadi

Guest
Commercial User
Apr 11, 2013
343
131
Clayton, VIC, Australia
facebook.com
Disclosures
C Basses Owner & Builder
#1
G'day,

I'm doing a new build for in-stock product. It also happens to be the first single cut for me.

The model is called "Uma" (portuguese). In english it means one, which associates to the one cutaway (single cut).

The specs are pretty straight forward.

- 2-piece black limba body, no top.
- 35" scale, 24 frets
- Could be either bolt-on or set neck, still not sure.
- Ebony fingerboard, 15" radius
- Still deciding on the neck materials. Could be plain maple or 5 piece neck (thinking of maple-purpleheart-Tas Myrtle-purpleheart-maple).
- Gotoh black tuners
- Hipshot type A bridge black
- Delano soapbar set
- Mike Pope 4-band preamp

Some pictures:

The plan

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Black limba body blank

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Until next time.


Harry
 
#6
StarbardGuitar said:
I love the pieces of black limba you are using! I just recently started my first bass build and am using black limba for the body too. It's a very pretty wood
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Thanks for the compliment.

Unlike the usual black limba, the orangy streak got me interested in this piece.

It is quite an easy wood to work with, isn't it?

All the best for your build.


Harry
 
#7
More updates...

As I mentioned before, I'm going for the 5-piece (maple|purpleheart|tasmanian myrtle|purpleheart|maple) neck instead of the plain maple.

Instead of doing straight/parallel style, I dressed the sides of the middle laminate (Tasmanian myrtle) with angle, and glued everything together.

Below is the result

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I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Not sure whether you can see it in the image, but the Tasmanian Myrtle is actually pink-ish. The colour will show up more with finish on it.

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The combination will be

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Thank you for stopping by.


Harry
 
#14
More updates...

The fret slots has been cut and the black limba binding has been glued in.

Initially, I would like to do the "invisible fret end trick" (cutting some ebony strips from the fingerboard and glued back in later when the slots are done). However, this time the fingerboard is not wide enough to do that. So, I decided glue in some black limba strips.

Here is the result

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Very happy with the result.

Truss rod and carbon fiber rods are in, but I don't have the picture for it, sorry.

Routed control cavity using stewmac template.

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I will clean up the forstner bit trace later.

Just put this picture up for fun, to give an idea how the black limba binding blends very well with the body.

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Next up will be gluing the fretboard, radius it, and install the frets.

Thank you for stopping by.


Harry
 
#15
Cleaned up the forstner bit trace in the control cavity route and rounded the edges.

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Routed the cavity cover route using an mdf template copied from stewmac acrylic template. The acrylic one is melting as soon as the ball bearing rides it.

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I have prepared the wood piece for the cavity cover as well. However, I didn't take a picture. I will post it tomorrow.

I also routed the battery boxes cavity. I'm using the 18v battery box (2 boxes grouped into one) from bestbassgear. I got the routing template from them as well.

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While uploading the photos to this post, I realised that there is a small patch in the battery box route, needs to be cleaned up. I will do it tomorrow.

The neck is roughly cut, and the fretboard is gluing.

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Thats it for today. Next up will be cutting the cavity cover, trimming the neck and routing the neck pocket and pickup cavities.

Thank you for reading.


Harry
 
#16
Finished all of the body routing works. I also did the joint contour to give comfortable access to the higher frets using different size of chisels.

Results:

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Very unfortunate that I couldn't match the grain for the control cavity cover, because I have only got limited off-cuts this time and none of them match the body grain.
In fact, it is 2 pieces joined together, because none of the off-cuts is wide enough.
However, as usual the black limba hides the glue line quite well.

There is a long worm hole (about 2 cm) on the back side. I filled it out with mixed sawdust and super glue.

You might notice that the battery boxes route is eating into the neck pocket route. However, since the neck extension is pretty deep plus this is a set neck construction, it will not affect anything.
The neck pocket is super tight, even before it is glued. I will show some picture next time.

I actually planned to finish more stuff this morning, but as always, I got distracted :)

Thats it for now. Next would be neck works, and it should be ready for testing.

Thank you.


Harry
 
#18
balzac said:
Looks great, Harry - love the body shape
Click to expand...

Thanks Balzac. Really appreciate the compliments.

More updates from this afternoon.

The neck has been trimmed to size. I have the heel transition glued in.

I'm using Jarrah for the heel transition.

Some photos:

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The heel transition

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I fitted the neck into the neck pocket to just in case it is too tight. It fits perfectly in the pocket.

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The transition heel will be thinned down a little bit and carved away to achieve a smooth neck joint and easier access to the higher frets

Here is the photo of the current rough, uncarved joint

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The front side of headstock and the neck extension will be covered with black limba veneers.

The extension is still too long at this moment. It will be trimmed down later.

Here is her overall look so far

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I'm still unsure whether I will cover the back of the headstock with black limba veneer to match the body, or jarrah veneer to make it a feature and match the heel transition, or even leave it uncovered to reveal the laminates.

Comments are most welcomed.

Thank you for looking.


Harry
 
#19
All,

Finally, I have got some time to post some updates on the build.

I have been busy with my new day job.

Anyway, I have managed to glued the headstock and neck extension black limba cap to match the body.

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I have also radiused the fretboard and sanded it to 2500 grits.

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It is very smooth. In the picture you can see the reflection of the shelf in the fretboard. :hyper:


The frets are installed. Technique wise, I did something very similar to http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f57/d...nge-burled-maple-sapele-1038173/#post15354822. The credit goes to Drake Custom Bass for posting the step-by-step process.
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Invisible fret ends.
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The neck has also been carved. As mentioned by other builders on this forum, neck carving is truly the most enjoyable activity throughout the build.

Technique wise, I'm doing "facet carving" very similar to the guy in this video
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The neck thickness is 18mm the same across the neck.


Finally, I glued the neck to the body, and carved the neck transition contour.
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Overall look so far.
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Thanks for stopping by.


Harry
 

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