Stunning as always
Thank you Suraj. BTW, I'm following your build and it looks great. You are very skilled and creative.
That's thin!! interesting what you say about making it "feel" thin by keeping the thickness consistent
Hey jmorbita. Yes, I have thought about this a lot. Allow me to bore the heck out of you with those thoughts
I suppose one of the reasons why necks get thicker towards the heel is to counter the strings tension especially in that area. (I once read that that is where the strings tension is stronger. is it true?
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Is that still necessary? After we have learned how to laminate woods for stiffness, after the introduction of double action truss rods and carbon fiber reinforcement spars, do we still need the low part of a neck to be thicker?
That increment in thickness is what I always found most uncomfortable about necks in general. Right where my hand would need less constrain, not only a neck gets wider, it gets thicker too.
Paradoxically, thickness at the nut doesn't bug me as much as at the heel area. Of course I, like many, just got used to it and forgot all about it. This build has reminded me of that.
I have also observed that, as I shape my necks by feel, they tend to feel right as the gap between two ends narrows. So they end up being rather consistent in thickness - whatever the chosen thickness is. Like, say, 20mm at 1rst fret and 21mm at 17th.
20mm thickness is not very thick anyway, therefore the impression of thickness must come from somewhere else. It seemed to me that, to remove that feeling the only viable alternative was to remove the extra thickness as the fretboard widens.
This build has thrown so many interesting question at me. I hope I found the right answers.
Still awake?
The concern I'd have re the thin neck and truss rod is when you put tension on the rod that it make break through the back of the neck. I've seen this several times and strangely they all had purpleheart as the center strips. It may not happen right away. I saw one that didn't break through for a couple months after it was built.
Indeed I have given a lot of thoughts to that. When you think of it however, 19mm is not such a thin neck. Some make it 20mm, even 19.5mm.
Based on my calculation there are 3mm under the truss rod, which should be enough. Adding to what I wrote in my previous post re. wood combo, the strings on this bass will be in the super light gauge territory - think .30/.100 or less - therefore the tension the truss rod needs to counter isn't that much really. I would have not ventured in this territory otherwise.
For this bass to be a true slap machine we needed to step into uncharted territory. Of course I might have miscalculated the amount of wood the router or the scraper has taken off. In that case... well... I'll get drunk. That I'll build it again
Looking neat!
How are you pore filling this one Maurizio?
Hi, the woods in this neck are not porous. I will sand the neck to 240 grit then spray a first coat of lacquer, maybe two. If any filling is needed I will do it after that with epoxy finish. The body is a lot more porous and I will fill the pores with epoxy finish after a first coat of lacquer.
The owner and I have put together a lot of ideas to make this bass a slap machine.
