First build in progress

My name is Eduardo and I live in Granada, Spain.

I wanted to give special thanks to my friend and clasical guitar builder Mario Aracama for allowing me build in his shop (plenty of tools and pro advice).
I´d like to thank everybody in LC for the best threads in bass building I´ve found in the internet.

I also wanted to ask apologies for my bad english.

So here we go:

5 strings
Fretless
Neckthru
Singlecut
Three piece quartersawn maple neck
Ash wings
Ebony lined fingerboard
Single string bridge 18mm spacing
Bartolini 59cbjd in thumb bass position
Volume Volume Tone
Series-Paralel switch


Thats what I call start from the begining:


So here we have a beautiful piece of quartersawn maple the left top will be stored as fingerboard


The neck blank:


Three pieces with reversed core:


Time for clamp, I use titebond and prepare the room at 40% humidity when gluing


Preparing to cut the scarf joint:


Ready for cleaning:


Clamping the headstock:


So now we can place the nut, and route truss rod


Marking fretboard and bridge:


This is a good moment to remove some wood


I made some routing on the wing to make easier wiring


Its time to glue the wings. Dont worry if you dont have big clamps I got a solution for you


So I copied my design with pencil and ready to bandsaw (Yes, I´m ugly as a f**k and its hot in the shop in summer)


The curves arent really smooth so it needs some work


I forgot gluing the headstock veener


I didn´t decide the headstock shape till the last moment, maybe you can guess what was my inspiration


Comments and sugestions are welcome.

Saludos desde Granada!

Thanks for the comments

I´ve made some adjust in the headstock to fit the tuners


Rough cut the fingerboard, I choose a 9mm with 28 frets


I put some silicone on the truss rod to avoid rattle

Thanks for comments!

Fingerboards are a real pain in the ass
This is my first try on a fingerboard here we go:

The FB was rough cut. I finish this way and I´m sure its 90 degrees


The next time I´ll mark the fret slots before cutting fretboard.
I traced a middle line on FB and used a square.


4mm Avalon markers


I glued Brazilian rosewood sapwood with CA to line the FB.



I made some sanding, then the FB ir ready to glue



Let it dry and cut the remanent of the neck


The neck was 31 mm thick, and not even. I used spokeshave and rasp to make a straight line on the back of neck. 22mm on 1st, 24mm on 12th. It was great oportunity to feel the spokeshave on the hand without risk of screw the neck.


Carving this part is also a real pain


Wow! start to look like a BadASS

kuso said:

Looks great! Do you think it's easier to glue the body wings, then bandsaw? Or in retrospect would it have been easier to saw each wing, then glue?

Click to expand...

I know most people do the second.
I have no big clamps so I had to improvise a little...
I found the second more accurate, of course you can rough cut and then finish when glued.
Gluing first also let some improvisation margin, I mean I had a full scale pattern, but when I saw the curves on wood I changed a little the shape.
To cut the whole shape I need to move the band saw

I dont know I think is a matter of taste, but I love this
piece of wood:

Thanks guys for the enthusiastic comments
Ive finish the neck shape
I carved an asymmetric contour with the middle line displaced 1cm to the bass side, 21mm on 1st fret and 24 on 12th.

Rough shaped with spokeshaw


Then some heavy rasp


Some fine rasp and 100 sanding block



I found inspiration in the volute of my double bass, Its placed in the middle of the first fret. It needs some carving, I´ll tell you.

You are lucky!
I got some hot pictures for you

Making the nut


So I got a nut, a fantastic body and the headstock is finished. I decided mark the bridge. This single string bridges are preety cheap and allows almost any string spacing. But you need to be careful placing the holes


I put the 1st and 5th strings to check everything is in its place


Pickup routing


Artistic shot, I wasnt sure how to place the pots so I placed the stuff, looks good


I made pilot 4mm holes to the end to figure out the dimensions of the rear cavity draw it and routed, the deeper spot is for a dpdt switch

gnarlyopossum said:

You obviously have put a lot of thought and time into this.

Click to expand...

Thanks I put over 90 hours of work to get to this point.
Also Im lucky for working in a classical guitar shop, and just looking is a constant lesson, I mean the guitar maker works perfect:
http://www.guitarrasaracama.com/
I´m doing all the stuff by my self but always keeping in mind the highest standard of guitar building cause the guy is building two guitars at this time.
Another point maybe more important is not to rush, I can figure if doing the same alone and making mistakes for having no patience.
Last this guy has some of the best and sharped tools you can imagine.

Thanks for comment!