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Back with something a little different.
- Thread starter Will_White
- Start date
To start I layed out the pickup mounting holes, string holes, and F-Holes in the top, drilled location holes and cut the F-Holes.
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After that I cleaned up the F-holes and cut the neck pocket in the top. If I do another one of these I'm going to pay to get the top and back CNC laser cut. Filing the corners sharp, and the neck pocket into tolerance was a time consuming pain in the butt.
Day 3 I finally cut out the body plates with a bandsaw. It wasn't too hard. I taped a template to the top, taped them together and got to cutting. The only tricky part was the waist, where I had to make some relief cuts in order to get it to turn tight enough. After that I sanded it to the line and pulled them apart.
Day 4. @cdlynch your question will be answered.
I used an aluminum MIG spool gun to weld the top and back plates too the center beam. I used small fillet welds on the top.
And plug welds on the back.
I'm not a fan of the spool gun but I was dumb and bought round corner tube instead of square corner tube so I couldn't TIG weld it. The first set I let it get a little hot and burned through a little on the front so had to go back and fill them and sand them flat.
And I did the same to the plug welds on the back.
To finish the day I drilled the string through holes.
I used an aluminum MIG spool gun to weld the top and back plates too the center beam. I used small fillet welds on the top.
And plug welds on the back.
I'm not a fan of the spool gun but I was dumb and bought round corner tube instead of square corner tube so I couldn't TIG weld it. The first set I let it get a little hot and burned through a little on the front so had to go back and fill them and sand them flat.
And I did the same to the plug welds on the back.
To finish the day I drilled the string through holes.
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- Jul 1, 2005
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- CataldoBasses: Designer/Builder ThunderBuckerPickups:Consultant
Sweet! Looking forward to this
As to future fabrication, CNC water jet cutting is generally cheaper than laser.
As to future fabrication, CNC water jet cutting is generally cheaper than laser.
I haven't looked into that, I have a friend that works at a place with a laser so I might get a discount. If I do it, it will be a full 4 x 8/10 sheet and I'll build a few to sell.
It's a tiny Alcoa? But flat?
As for the burn-though, this is (an example of) why you make use of the scrap to practice on before diving right into the instrument, whenever possible. Any process you are doing for the first time on the actual instrument is likely to be not as good as the processes you have tuned on things that don't matter...
As for the burn-though, this is (an example of) why you make use of the scrap to practice on before diving right into the instrument, whenever possible. Any process you are doing for the first time on the actual instrument is likely to be not as good as the processes you have tuned on things that don't matter...
Oh I did practice quite a bit, I just messed it up when it actually counted. I really hate spool guns.
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You’re right, it’s ruined. Finish it and send it to me immediately.
Seriously, interesting build. I’m looking forward to seeing you see it through.
Gonzo metal fab weirdness with bass strings and molten metal. I love it.
Reminds me a little of this Resonator bass. Hard to tell from a recording, but, it seems louder than your typical ABG, presumably because of the resonator itself, but maybe the aluminum body contributes?
