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Build II - Paradox MJ5 - New design!
- Thread starter roberthabraken
- Start date
Ah, but you said that 5 hours later.
Not to worry, I can see them now (11.30 Monday morning).
Ah, but you said that 5 hours later.
Not to worry, I can see them now (11.30 Monday morning).
LOL!
And you can always hide the glue line behind the headstock with Alembic-like veneer. Gives extra strength too.
Marko
Ah, but you said that 5 hours later.
Not to worry, I can see them now (11.30 Monday morning).
Yeah, it usually takes 5 hours for the pictures to travel from the Netherlands to France... so that's quite common.
But I always check my pictures after posting, could be that my personal site that's hosting the pictures went down for some time (maintenance or an issue), it's just basic hosting, no guaranteed uptime. Glad you can see them again
.
Thank you, but I would not so much describe my skills as in terms of woodworking, but rather as being precise and patient, supplemented by the ability to look things up on the world wide web.. I do not have lots of expensive or heavy woodworking tools, so, as far as I consider, almost everyone can do this..
The link broke when I moved the content to a new site template, but to be honest, it wasn't very good, being unplugged. I'll promise to upload a decent one of this bass when it's finished, now that I have a very nice Eden combo.
I've made the simplest jig ever, but very effective. I needed to route the truss rod channel and carbon rod channels, both of different width. On my previous bass, I've made a sled with guides to route parallel to the edges of the neck blank, but since I wanted to route the carbon rod channels at an angle, I needed something else. So I came up with this: make a template containing a 17 mm wide slot, use a copy bit (17 mm wide) and I'll be able to clamp it onto the neck in various angles, route in a straight line and use different sized router bits:
Routing a test channel for the carbon rods into MDF:
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That worked like a charm:
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So I proceeded routing those channels into the neck. I may put a little piece of wood into the end of the top channel, being a little bit too long, but overall I'm satisfied:
And a close up:
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I hope to route the truss rod channel tomorrow...
Routing a test channel for the carbon rods into MDF:
Link Removed
That worked like a charm:
Link Removed
So I proceeded routing those channels into the neck. I may put a little piece of wood into the end of the top channel, being a little bit too long, but overall I'm satisfied:
And a close up:
Link Removed
I hope to route the truss rod channel tomorrow...
Super Nice Rob. Thanks for sharing that gig, it's definitively the simplest you can possibly use. You align it using the drawings on the blank right?
octaedro7 said:
Yes indeed, I've made marks on the blank and on the template and simply aligned them. I made the template with some straight edges and a copy bit.
So, same story for the truss rod. First, a test run:
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Then for real. This is a test fit (I know it's upside down, but I did not create the access cavity at the nut yet, so the rod doesn't go in all the way, and this way I can test fit the widest part of the rod):
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A close up of the rod configuration at the body end:
And one at the nut (now, I flipped the truss rod over so I could see how it'll fit when there's room for the adjustment nut):
Now, I'll first glue on the headstock veneers before I create the truss rod access / adjustment cavity.
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Then for real. This is a test fit (I know it's upside down, but I did not create the access cavity at the nut yet, so the rod doesn't go in all the way, and this way I can test fit the widest part of the rod):
Link Removed
A close up of the rod configuration at the body end:
And one at the nut (now, I flipped the truss rod over so I could see how it'll fit when there's room for the adjustment nut):
Now, I'll first glue on the headstock veneers before I create the truss rod access / adjustment cavity.
Thanks
Nice! And it's a lot quicker too, than having to route two overlapping channels with a 6 mm bit to get a 10 mm wide channel, needed for the U-channel truss rod I used on my first build. I like this setup. Only disadvantage is I need to use clamps to keep the template in place (using tape doesn't align well). Since you need to replace the clamps a few times, you cannot route the channel in one pass. Maybe I'll come up with a better jig in the future..
Time for another very small update.
I glued the headstock veneers (0.6 mm Wenge and 2 mm Flamed Maple) on today, using a lot of clamps:
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I did the alignment Drake-style, and I liked it! Spot on alignment and no shifting at all:
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So, this is the neck in progress as I have it right now:
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Not sure if I'll make some progress next week, because I have to learn for a Microsoft exam on Friday, but I now only need to clean up the joint under the nut, file in the truss rod access cavity and then, I'm ready to cut out the neck!
I might glue in the rods before I do that, but it's going to be fun .
Learning for the Microsoft exam goes well, so I treated myself with some shop time tonight 
.
First, I cleaned up the endings of the veneers with my router, the part that will go under the nut and the fingerboard ending:
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That looks better. So I measured like five times and drew the final headstock outline on the 'blank':
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One thought crossed my mind before I was ready to start cutting up my blank... I didn't test fit the tuners yet, only made the drawing on my computer.. what if they do not fit in the end? Better do a test fit first, so I used the master template for that. Looks good, tight, but I like it:
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Cutting with a jigsaw is scary at this stage, no room for mistakes. I didn't dare to cut closer to the outline than this, so I'll do the last millimeters with a rasp before I'll route the headstock to it's final shape. The rough cut headstock now looks like this:
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And a sideview. The veneers came out perfect, the scarf joint reasonably well, maybe a bit better than I expected and almost in the same direction as the grain, which helps hiding it in the end:
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That's it for today. One question for y'all: due to the slow pace of building I find myself posting a lot of pictures displaying only small steps; if this is too much, please let me know, if you like it better to see less frequent posts with more progress and less pics, I'll change my ways. Thought I'd ask, because I can imagine I'm a bit tedious sometimes...
.First, I cleaned up the endings of the veneers with my router, the part that will go under the nut and the fingerboard ending:
Link Removed
That looks better. So I measured like five times and drew the final headstock outline on the 'blank':
Link Removed
One thought crossed my mind before I was ready to start cutting up my blank... I didn't test fit the tuners yet, only made the drawing on my computer.. what if they do not fit in the end? Better do a test fit first, so I used the master template for that. Looks good, tight, but I like it:
Link Removed
Cutting with a jigsaw is scary at this stage, no room for mistakes. I didn't dare to cut closer to the outline than this, so I'll do the last millimeters with a rasp before I'll route the headstock to it's final shape. The rough cut headstock now looks like this:
Link Removed
And a sideview. The veneers came out perfect, the scarf joint reasonably well, maybe a bit better than I expected and almost in the same direction as the grain, which helps hiding it in the end:
Link Removed
That's it for today. One question for y'all: due to the slow pace of building I find myself posting a lot of pictures displaying only small steps; if this is too much, please let me know, if you like it better to see less frequent posts with more progress and less pics, I'll change my ways. Thought I'd ask, because I can imagine I'm a bit tedious sometimes...
