No pic no beer!Yeah, the Delanos are super cool!! Cannot wait to hear them... and I do enjoy a nice beer at this very moment: Hertog Jan Bockbier, just no photograph..
(Someone had to say it!)
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Build II - Paradox MJ5 - New design!
- Thread starter roberthabraken
- Start date
(Someone had to say it!)
My wish too
... a bit ill and no time last weekend, working a lot extra too, so the bass has to wait. In the meantime, I'm thinking about how I am going to widen the neck pocket and how to do the fret slot cutting. If there's any progress, I'll let you know!
Not easy or cheap unless you can get its worth in a production environment. 24 slitting saw blades are not cheap, then add into the equation making 23 spacers with a thickness tolerance of a 23rd of your fret to fret tolerance....
I could make one, but i would need to be insane or stupid. Or both, preferably. That would make my reasoning justifiable.
How did we get from engineering to my mental stability? Brrr.
I could make one, but i would need to be insane or stupid. Or both, preferably. That would make my reasoning justifiable.
How did we get from engineering to my mental stability? Brrr.
I believe you.. my request was mostly for fun though
I think, next to the insanity needed to make such a tool, it's a damn scary thing to operate like the guy in the vid does.. I guess I'll use some elbow grease and a not so sharp fretting saw to work my way through the ebony.. :scowl: I would like to buy the miter box from StewMac with a Japanese saw, because I feel that's the ideal way of cutting fret slots manually, but the price tag puts me off actually.
I got the SM miter (previous version) and the japanese saw. If you decide to go for it, check out your fb width, it may not fit the miter. I have that problem so I needed to change the base to allow wider fbs (good thing is that it has bolts to join the walls with the base).
Good point! Never checked, kinda assumed it would fit, but it doesn't. The miter box has an inner width of 76.2 mm and my fingerboard is 76.52 mm at its widest point.. of course, my blank is even wider than that. So that's not an option. I'll make a poor man's version myself
Yeah, neither I thought of it when I bought it.
But the arrange I did came out well (I hope
So.. you are building already?
Yeah, but at a turtle pace. Now a lower back pain is not helping either...
I really admire how fast you progress considering the situations... Not sure if your wife thinks the same though
I really admire how fast you progress considering the situations... Not sure if your wife thinks the same though
Yeah, but at a turtle pace. Now a lower back pain is not helping either...
I really admire how fast you progress considering the situations... Not sure if your wife thinks the same though
LOL.. well, me neither
.. I would like to go a lot faster and consider my pace a turtle pace already.Hope your back feels better soon and you can speed things up in the upcoming months, I would like to see your design coming alive!
Because I think the miter box from StewMac or LMII is too expensive and since the one from StewMac doesn't even fit around my fingerboard blank, I decided to build one myself:
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Resulting in this poor man's fret slot miter box, built in just over an hour from scrap wood:
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Although it doesn't look like so, but it's fully adjustable: if you want to cut deeper, sand down the top of the sides.. if you want to cut less deep, put lots of tape over it
I also decided to mark the fret positions by hand. I do not trust printing, as it always has some deviation, while ordering a plotted drawing takes another week and costs another 12 euros or so (including shipping). I clamped a long ruler to my fingerboard blank, set up an Excel-sheet to calculate the fret positions (+10 cm so I don't have to start with the edge of the ruler) and a sharp knife to do the markings, which is much more precise than a pencil:
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I've made a close up so you can see the markings next to the ruler:
Lastly, I clamp the board in my miter box, align a mark with the saw, tighten the clamps and start cutting. This is the last photo I've made, but I got to 10 fret slots today:
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The slots aren't deep enough, they exactly match the fret tang depth and I will deepen them to the required depth after radiusing. That's also a lot easier, because the board is at full width right now and that'll change after cutting it out.
The saw I have isn't the best there is (I'd rather have a Japanese saw for this) and the Macassar is hard like hell.. if I slip, the saw doesn't even scratch the Ebony.. (I did manage to scratch my fingers a few times though). I just don't like this job like this and I really have to learn playing fretless, or save up for a better saw I guess.
Link Removed
Resulting in this poor man's fret slot miter box, built in just over an hour from scrap wood:
Link Removed
Although it doesn't look like so, but it's fully adjustable: if you want to cut deeper, sand down the top of the sides.. if you want to cut less deep, put lots of tape over it
I also decided to mark the fret positions by hand. I do not trust printing, as it always has some deviation, while ordering a plotted drawing takes another week and costs another 12 euros or so (including shipping). I clamped a long ruler to my fingerboard blank, set up an Excel-sheet to calculate the fret positions (+10 cm so I don't have to start with the edge of the ruler) and a sharp knife to do the markings, which is much more precise than a pencil:
Link Removed
I've made a close up so you can see the markings next to the ruler:
Lastly, I clamp the board in my miter box, align a mark with the saw, tighten the clamps and start cutting. This is the last photo I've made, but I got to 10 fret slots today:
Link Removed
The slots aren't deep enough, they exactly match the fret tang depth and I will deepen them to the required depth after radiusing. That's also a lot easier, because the board is at full width right now and that'll change after cutting it out.
The saw I have isn't the best there is (I'd rather have a Japanese saw for this) and the Macassar is hard like hell.. if I slip, the saw doesn't even scratch the Ebony.. (I did manage to scratch my fingers a few times though). I just don't like this job like this and I really have to learn playing fretless, or save up for a better saw I guess.
If you have a decent tablesaw the power slotting setup from stewmac is less than the miter box setup and does an excellent job in about 5 to 10 minutes. On their website they also have a free fret calculator that can give you measurements for any number of frets in any scale length. I used it to place position markers on a 40.5 inch 3 octave EUB fingerboard and it was spot on.
Me neither. Can't wait to hear how it sounds too
.That would be great, but I don't have one. The fret calculation isn't a problem really, with a simple formula and Excel I can get all scales I want.
So, small update: I finished cutting the initial fret slots. Since they are exactly the fret tang height in depth, and I will radius the board, I need to do another pass; but at least, the positions are marked. The result is reasonable. Deviation is within my tolerance boundaries (one way, up to a maximum of 0.25 to 0.3 mm).
The ebony wasn't a lot of fun to cut with such a little saw, by hand. You can tell it's been done manually, although probably after fretting and finishing it'll be nearly invisible. But I imagine I would get far better results with either a good saw and miter box or a tablesaw configuration...
Now, I need to line up the board, cut it out and glue it to the neck. I'll keep you posted.
Fingerboard's in the works... all slots are cut and I drew the centerline and outline on the 'blank'. I hope to glue it on the neck this weekend, but I'm not yet sure how to keep it in place while glueing:
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The neck pocket seems to fit after some sanding, I got the neck in there succesfully, but it's still *very* tight. So I'll do some more fine tuning... but at least I held the bass for the first time with the body and neck together, feels good!!
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The neck pocket seems to fit after some sanding, I got the neck in there succesfully, but it's still *very* tight. So I'll do some more fine tuning... but at least I held the bass for the first time with the body and neck together, feels good!!
