A new build!!

[devo_stevo]

I've been working on a jazz bass lately and thought I'd share some photos of the progress with you guys. It's been a while since I had a thread up and going, so it's time.

This is a neck-thru jazz bass with an ash neck and chambered body, maple fingerboard with black dots on the face and the side. Bartolini pups wired vol. vol. tone like a standard jazz bass. Gotoh tuners, hipshot vintage bridge, CTS pots and some other stuff.

The plan for the finish is to dye it red and use a black grain filler on the ash body and neck, then spray the whole thing with a nitro clear coat. It looks great in my mind. I hope it turns out that way in reality.

I'll post some pictures tonight, but right now, I'm out of time. Got things to do...stay tuned.

 

[devo_stevo]

Ash neck blank. I glued three pieces together to help with some stability.

Slotted the fingerboard.

Cut and glued up the scarf joint at the headstock.

Here's all of the bits and pieces that are going on the bass. The goal is to make this pile of stuff turn into something useful.

Got the truss rod slot cut and the neck tapered.

More to come...

 

[devo_stevo]

Here it is.

I got the fingerboard glued on, then trimmed it to the neck on the router table. then got the face dots installed and sanded the fingerboard to a 12" radius.

Rough cut the headstock.

From there, the neck got frets (sorry no pictures of that). Then side dots were installed and the body pieces were cut out. Starting to look like something.

Also got the headstock sorted more and drilled for tuners.

Did some work on shaping the neck. It's nice and thin and comfy.

More soon...

 

[pilotjones]

Looks good! How did you find doing the neck contouring on the ash?
Interesting headstock to go with a J-body.

 

[devo_stevo]

Thanks a lot.

Carving ash is a bit tougher than maple, but not much. It's a lot more fibrous and tends to splinter a lot more. It really isn't too bad though and I love the way ash looks and feels as a neck wood. I've found that it's quite easy to find ash with long straight and consistent grain. It's great stuff.

So far, I'm quite happy with how this one is turning out. It's also the first one for someone besides myself, so it's got to be good.

 

[devo_stevo]

Update time. I got some work on the body done.

There is a bit of chambering to help lighten things up a bit. I didn't go too deep so that I can still do a bit of contouring without having a big problem. Also got the control cavity routed.

Then I glued the tops on.

Then I trimmed the tops to match the back and put a 3/8" radius roundorver on them.

And then worked on the arm contour and did a bit of sanding.

More of that later.

 

[devo_stevo]

After that, I sanded the transition at the end of the fingerboard to the neck.

Then took the router to the neck where the body attaches to thin it down a bit.

The remaining bit of it will be removed later with a chisel and sandpaper.

From here I needed to make the neck thicker at the body. To acheive this, I made a laminate of bloodwood and maple to make it match the thickness of the body.

And I glued that all together.

That's where things are at this point. I'll update when things progress from here.

Thanks for looking.

 

[devo_stevo]

Got some more done on this one tonight. It's been such a fun build. Every night, I can't wait to get some more done on it. I really like this part of the build because it really starts to take shape and I get inspired to work on it more and more all the time. This is it until after this weekend though unfortunately.

Anyway, here is what I got done. I sanded everything on the front and back level and cut off the end of the neck that was sticking out the bottom and sanded that too. Looks like a bass now. Just have to finish carving the neck at the heel and route for pickups and drill a bunch of holes for the hardware and such.

Here are the pics of where we are now.

Thanks for looking and any comments and or suggestions are certainly welcome.

Steve

 

[Hopkins]

Looking great so far.

What are your plans for the finish?

 

[devo_stevo]

Thanks very much Hopkins.

As for finish, the front of the body along with the body wings on the back and the front of the headstock will be dyed red while the maple strip in the back and the back of the neck will be left natural. Then all of the ash will get a black grain filler and finish it off with nitro clear on top of that.

Should look pretty good. At least it does in my mind.

 

[Hopkins]

Thanks very much Hopkins.

As for finish, the front of the body along with the body wings on the back and the front of the headstock will be dyed red while the maple strip in the back and the back of the neck will be left natural. Then all of the ash will get a black grain filler and finish it off with nitro clear on top of that.

Should look pretty good. At least it does in my mind.

Cool, cant wait to see it.

If it were me I would use a dark grain filler after sealing and get do the trans red with a tinted nitro. The problem with dyes is they soak in more on the end grain and leave a line where it looks more saturated.

Im not trying to tell you how to do it. Just offering some free advice.

 

[devo_stevo]

thanks for the advice. I have considered doing it with tinted nitro as well. I'm not committed to the dyes yet as I have not bought anything for the finish at the moment although I will be in the next week or so. The only downside I can think of with the tinted nitro is that it's hard to get a good consistent coat with a rattle can which is what I have to use since I don't have spray equipment yet. So I was afraid the color would be inconsistent.

Could the problem with the end grain be solved by maybe putting an extra coating of dye on the top and back and not on the sides? Just to darken it up and make it maybe a bit more consistent? Just a thought I'd throw out there.

 

[Hopkins]

thanks for the advice. I have considered doing it with tinted nitro as well. I'm not committed to the dyes yet as I have not bought anything for the finish at the moment although I will be in the next week or so. The only downside I can think of with the tinted nitro is that it's hard to get a good consistent coat with a rattle can which is what I have to use since I don't have spray equipment yet. So I was afraid the color would be inconsistent.

Could the problem with the end grain be solved by maybe putting an extra coating of dye on the top and back and not on the sides? Just to darken it up and make it maybe a bit more consistent? Just a thought I'd throw out there.

Ahh ok. When you said nitro I didnt think about rattle cans.

The best thing you can do it to perfect your method on scraps. Your idea with the dye seems plausable

 

[devo_stevo]

Right. I have every intention of testing it all on scrap before it goes on the bass. I think I'll go the dye method and see how it goes.

 

[devo_stevo]

Got some more work done on this. Routed the pickup cavities and worked on the heel transition at the body and neck. Also drilled the holes for the bridge and the string thru holes.

Sorry for the bad pictures. It's not nearly this ugly in real life.

 

[devo_stevo]

Was able to get a lot done on this thing. I've got most of the woodwork done on it. I leveled the frets this morning. Just need to file the ends a bit so they aren't all sharp and pokey. Will get to that tomorrow. I've got to start the finishing on this bass. I'm hoping to get it all ready to start dying tomorrow evening.

Here's where we are now:
Front of body.

back. With the rear cavity cover.

Here are some samples that I made of the finish to try out the dyes and filler that I bought. Ended up going with the Transtint dyes in bright red and black. Also, I bought the Chemcraft filler from LMII.com. It worked really well and it's super easy to dye it with the transtint dyes. I tried it two ways. First dyed the wood red and used black filler and then I dyed the wood black and used red filler. I like them both for different reasons, but this one is going to get the red with black filler. It really stands out and should look cool.

I like the black with red filler too. It's subtle, but it looks good to me.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Hopkins]

I like the red with black filler.

 

[devo_stevo]

Me too. It really stands out well and I think that it will look good on the bass with the nice patterns in the grain. I'd like it to be a bit more red though. I think I'll give it a second shot of color on the bass...we'll see how it looks and then make that decision. I'm hoping to get things to the point where I can put the color on it tonight. Hope I get some time for that.

The black one looks better in person, but you have to look closely to see the difference in the colors. Maybe if the black was a bit more washed out you'd see the variation better. I don't know.

 

[GKon]

This is a fantastic looking build! You make it look so simple

FWIW, I like the red as well.

 

[devo_stevo]

Thanks a lot! You're too kind.

Looks like the red is winning.