de afwerking mk4-4++ - blablas has that building itch again

[Morten_B]

Good point with the reference to rosewood fretboards... And a large front/back like in this case has a big gluing surface with no stress on it, so it should be even less of a problem. Woods like cocobolo, pau ferro and a few others should be worse to glue than actual rosewood as you use here. All seems good (and I guess I can use titebond for the front/back on my up coming project as well, these epoxies for oily woods are expensive).

 

[blablas]

Need I say more!

 

[blablas]

Made a set of knobs now that I've got leftovers from to body to make these from.

The knobs for the stacked pots are not yet at the right height, I'll determine this size once the pots are mounted in the body.

 

[blablas]

Done more work on the body, sanded the outer contour and routed the roundover.

 

[Jonny5bass]

Damn that looks good.

 

[Morten_B]

Amazing..! Have you decided on what kind of finish you will make on it?

 

[blablas]

Solid matte black paint.


Either Danish Oil or Shellac.
I've got no experience with shellac but after seeing the result you got on your CT/Prometeus tribute I'm intrigued by this stuff.

 

[Morten_B]

Matt black will be great..!

Tough call on the finishes... Personally I would be worried that the rosewood would be too dark with an oil finish, but oil finishes are really nice..! The shellac is intrguing for sure, and it does not color the wood as much as oil finishes. It could be interesting to try it out, and you got several color options to choose from, some are very dark, some are almost clear in color.

 

[blablas]

I really like the ease of use of Danish Oil, what I've read about shellac is that it's rather time consuming to apply (lots of layers), but I'm going to order some shellac and give it a try on some leftovers.

 

[blablas]

Done more body shaping.

 

[Morten_B]

Yes, it does take a lot of layers, but it dries ultra fast, so you can do several layers a day... It's recommended to use de-waxed shellac types if you want to put a clear coat on top, but if you want the shellac as the finish then it's recommended to use the ones with the natural wax in them.

 

[blablas]

And some daylight pictures.

There are a few funny marks in the plywood, they are really in the wood, you can see them but you don't feel them.
It's a pity but I'm not going to do anything about them.

The belly cut.

I need the refine the transition to the upper horn a little bit but that's something I'll do once I'm going to sand the complete body.

 

[blablas]

That transition kept bothering me, I could not resist the urge to fix it now.

It's not yet fully 100% perfect but now I can simply correct it while sanding the rest of the body.

 

[Morten_B]

Beautiful..! And I really like your use of plywood, I have not seen this before, but it works very well in your designs (even if it has tiny imperfections here and there)..!

 

[blablas]

Thanks. Those imperfections a part of the charm and I have seen worse imperfections coming out of seemingly solid blocks of wood.

For the neck I'll be using two strips of this plywood as well.
I'm going to use padauk for the center and fingerboard, two strips of this 4 mm birch plywood and the two outer sides will be wenge, for the headstock I'm going to use merbau with a thin rosewood top (the same as used for the body top).

 

[dblbass]

I really like the ease of use of Danish Oil, what I've read about shellac is that it's rather time consuming to apply (lots of layers), but I'm going to order some shellac and give it a try on some leftovers.

Danish oil is easily my favorite finish. I've used it for 8 years and even though I've tried some other finishes, I always go back to Watco Danish oil. It's super easy to use and super easy to repair. I usually do a lot of coats over the course of a few weeks, and wet sand and steel wool when appropriate. With enough, you get a gorgeous glassy look.

 

[Morten_B]

I'm from Denmark - but I have never seen any Danish oil around here Looks beautiful dblbass..!

 

[blablas]

Today I've spent a couple of hours of quality time at my workshop (at work).

Milled the cavities for the pickups.

And the cavities for the battery box and the controls.

Once the neck is finished I'll do the neck pocket.

 

[blablas]

No real progress to report on this build, a few weeks ago my server computer crashed on me and since that time I've been busy with tuning and filling a new main computer, and after that setting up my old main computer as the new server computer.
Everything is working as I want now and no data was lost during this accident, the build will resume soon.

Last week I've been busy with fabricating some new pickguards for several of my basses.

For my F(ake)ender Jazz V.

For my OLP MM2.

And one for my Squier Precision.

A detail shot of the last one.

 

[wraub]

Yep, those are pickguards, alright.

Looks good from here...