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Carbon fiber fretless four-stringer
- Thread starter MPU
- Start date
2k urethane rigid foam. I don’t remember the brand and labels are not in readable condition anymore.
At this time my pics are just boring. Today I sanded the top and back seam, leveled the neck top and cast epoxy/microballoon mix to the truss rod slot for 9mm depth.
Acrylic strips needs thicknessing to 9mm. I’m waxing the strip and putting it in the slot while gluing the fingerboard. After curing I’m pulling the strip out and see if there is need for truss rod.
Next I have to slot the Richlite fingerboard edge, superglue white fret marker strips and position dots and taper and thickness the fretboard.
I marked the fret position markers using a fret saw template.
I used hacksaw to saw the slots.
Slots sawn.
I scraped white ABS binding 1mm thick and glued the markers with ca. I trimmed the markers with sharp chisel and drilled and glued side dots. I positioned the fingerboard with pins under the fingerboard.
I scraped the truss rod slot to 9mm depth, put a 6mmx9mm waxed acrylic strip in the plot and filled the remaining gaps with wax to prevent strip gluing in the slot.
I removed masking tape and brushed a thin coat of thickened epoxy on both fingerboard and neck.
And then light clamping. That’s it for today, maybe taking off the clamps later.
Attachments
After a bit of gentle violence with a small hammer and wood block I got the acrylic strip out of the slot.
Then I mounted the bass in MPU neck jig and radiused and leveled the fingerboard. The neck is very stiff, most likely stiff enough for not needing a truss rod. While waiting for the pickup I’m going to make the headpiece and nut. Then I can mount bridges and test the neck.
From what I know of resin impregnating and/or stabilizing from the woodturning world (turners do it with punky wood all the time), it really wouldn't work correctly. You generally need to put the piece in a chamber, vac out the air, then release the vacuum before the stabilizing liquid has "set" and repeat that process a few times. The vacuum will pull the air out of the piece and then when the vacuum is released the stabilizing liquid will fill in the air pockets that were evacuated. The process is generally repeated a few times until no air bubbles are coming out of the piece, just to make sure. So you really would need a bucket/pot for the piece to reside in with the stabilizing liquid submerging the piece, your bucket/pot then goes in a chamber and your bucket/pot needs to be tall enough that the piece is submerged without overflowing when you vacuum out the air, because it will foam up like the head on a beer.
All that to say, my very limited knowledge leads me to believe it's a completely different rig.
Also, your work is stunning and amazing. Your skills with these materials is inspirational. I've been silently watching this one the whole time.
From what I know of resin impregnating and/or stabilizing from the woodturning world (turners do it with punky wood all the time), it really wouldn't work correctly. You generally need to put the piece in a chamber, vac out the air, then release the vacuum before the stabilizing liquid has "set" and repeat that process a few times. The vacuum will pull the air out of the piece and then when the vacuum is released the stabilizing liquid will fill in the air pockets that were evacuated. The process is generally repeated a few times until no air bubbles are coming out of the piece, just to make sure. So you really would need a bucket/pot for the piece to reside in with the stabilizing liquid submerging the piece, your bucket/pot then goes in a chamber and your bucket/pot needs to be tall enough that the piece is submerged without overflowing when you vacuum out the air, because it will foam up like the head on a beer.
All that to say, my very limited knowledge leads me to believe it's a completely different rig.
Also, your work is stunning and amazing. Your skills with these materials is inspirational. I've been silently watching this one the whole time.
The process for resin infusion of laminates is different then when stabilizing wood.
The setup is similar to what was done for this build, with some additional hardware involved. I'm not an expert on this, so I'll let the experts do the talking:
This morning I got the bridge units mounted.
I made a jig for nut slot and headpiece slot routing. CA trick and hot melt glue works fine for this kind of one off jigs.
I made a nut out of Richlite. I started to make the headpiece. After I have it finished and mounted it’s time for first test playing!
Band name.
Or song title.
We covered that pretty well over on the thread about synthetic ebonys:
Rocklite: The Latest Synthetic Ebony For Fingerboards
Although that thread is mostly about Rocklite, we did talk about Richlite. Several of us went over the pros and cons of Richlite in comparison.
Here's my post where I routed and slotted a Richlite fingerboard, and described it:
Rocklite: The Latest Synthetic Ebony For Fingerboards
Thanks Bruce. I took a peak. Good to know about clogging blades like acrylic.
How would you rate the weight and stiffness?
I'm also curious about how it holds frets and if PVA or epoxy would be preferred for sticking it to a neck.
Really, it behaves about like a piece of Plexiglas. It's heavier than maple or ebony. Stiffness is close, but a little less. High damping; it's dead. A big issue is that it has very low shrinkage due to temperature and humidity, as compared to wood. That can be a problem as a fingerboard on a neck. The wood neck needs to be very stable and really well sealed up.
I got the headpiece finished and mounted.
I test strung the bass with Status strings. I have LaBella flatwound double ball end strings to test. Neck is so stiff that it doesn’t need truss rod. Pickup template is on MM position. I like the looks a lot!
I played the bass for some time and it has clear acoustic sound with looong sustain. Hopefully the pickup arrives soon and I can finish the bass. Some cavity routing and sanding left before spraying finish.
There's a great old punk song called Violent pacification, Slayer did a very good cover of it.
Yes, black burst on the sides and clearcoat.
