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First bass build - piezo fretless

#21
I just had some 1/4" maple cup on me. How thick is your top? I read up on this and found the cupped area (where your coin is) is dryer than the other side (top side) of the board This usually happens due to storage. Stored flat on a flat surface the wood will dry faster on the top than the bottom.

I sprayed (lightly misted) some water on the cupped side of my maple, put it wet side down on a flat surface and in the morning the cupping had reduced greatly. The reason for putting it face down it to kind of "trap" the water.

An alternative method is to heat the opposite side to try and dry it, but I didn't try that.

Maybe you don't even need to worry about it, but I just thought I'd pass this on. Hopefully others with more experience will let you know for sure.
 
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#22
rwkeating said:
I just had some 1/4" maple cup on me. How thick is your top? I read up on this and found the cupped area (where your coin is) is dryer than the other side (top side) of the board This usually happens due to storage. Stored flat on a flat surface the wood will dry faster on the top than the bottom.
Click to expand...

I might try that. Let me see what the laser etcher is capable of. That's really the main constraint. The warpage really isn't that bad, but if the laser being used to etch the top requires a very uniform surface, then I might need to make some adjustments.

This particular top I'm using is around 1/4" as well.
 
#23
JLW said:
My walnut top is cupping. The cup is about 1/16" high, roughly the height of a nickel coin (as you can see pictured). Anyone have advice for how to deal with this? Or should I just leave it alone? View attachment 948216
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I've found this before. The trick is to try and flatten out the timber before you glue it down. Put one halves on top of the other on a flat surface and weight them down with a thick, sturdy plank on top. Put as much weight as you can get on top of that plank and leave it for a few days. The timber should flatten out. I've done this with all manner of nasty twisted Australian timber and it works well enough.
 
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#24
Looking forward to seeing how this works out.

I must ask, for your first build why are you going with a hollowbody. I would have thought that it would add a lot of work and complexity compared to a solid body although what I know about building basses could fill a thimble.
 
#25
BAG said:
Looking forward to seeing how this works out.

I must ask, for your first build why are you going with a hollowbody. I would have thought that it would add a lot of work and complexity compared to a solid body although what I know about building basses could fill a thimble.
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I ask myself the same question all the time. I think I secretly enjoy making my life way harder than it needs to be.

Honestly though, I like the hollowbody sound when it's coupled with piezo pickups. It has a very open and airy sound. I think hollowbody vs. solid body makes a way bigger difference when you're using piezos.
 
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#26
I tried the wetting method but this piece of wood is being a bit stubborn and it didn't really work. At least on the bright side, it didn't get worse.

I measured the warpage. It is happening width-wise (perpendicular to the direction of the grain), and it's about 3mm at the highest point.

I can press it down flat with maybe 20-30ish lbs of weight. There will be a center area on the chambered body to attach it to. Think it will still be clampable? @ctmullins
 
#29
JLW said:
I can press it down flat with maybe 20-30ish lbs of weight. There will be a center area on the chambered body to attach it to. Think it will still be clampable? @ctmullins
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I do. But I'm not the pinnacle of knowledge or experience here.

If you're okay with a thinner top, and if you have access to a planer, you could plane the cup out of it.

But if you don't, I expect that TiteBond is more than a match for a bit of cupping.
 
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#30
Update: I got the cupping down a little bit. It was 3mm and now it's down to 2mm. For those who are curious, instead of wetting the concave side, I heated the convex side. That seemed to work better for some unknown (to me) reason. Maybe as the wood continues to settle and dry out more it will flatten even more. Fingers crossed.



If it doesn't flatten out more, I will do a bit of planing. I don't have a power planer so it will be by hand. That will probably take a really long time, but considering it's only about 2mm of material I need to take away I don't think it will be the end of the world.

Really comes down to whether I want to spend $100 to get the job done in five minutes (buy a power planer) or spend 1-2 hours doing it by hand. I'll decide later.
 
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#31
BAG said:
Looking forward to seeing how this works out.

I must ask, for your first build why are you going with a hollowbody. I would have thought that it would add a lot of work and complexity compared to a solid body although what I know about building basses could fill a thimble.
Click to expand...
I was debating that with my build as well and it really doesn't make for that much more work if your using a top anyway, and with a top and back it really isn't any harder then a solid body as you can use a jig saw to get the bulk of the chambering done and then clean it up with the router if you want. I went a little close to the edge so I did limit what I could do as far as body contouring goes but overall it's not too hard just one more step.
 
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#32
Wow, this top is really giving me a lot of grief.

So I pretty much managed to flatten out this top to within 1-2mm by using a combination of carving and wetting. I glued up the sides together and a week later there was a HUGE cup in the wood, probably almost 1/4" (the wood itself is only about 1/4").

Mind you, this was literally one day before I was about to get it laser cut.

I tried ironing out the huge cup (literally, used an iron/steam) and that flattened it for about 2-3 hours, but then the cup came back.

I'm thinking about just getting a new piece of wood. What do you guys think?

I kept the wood stickered, and this piece of wood has been in my house for like 3 weeks now, so you'd think it would be acclimated by now. I'm kind of surprised this has happened.
 
#33
Did you keep it in clamps after you ironed it? I had a really bad cup on a bookmatched walnut top on my last build, I wrapped the pieces in a wet towel and heated it up with a plumbing torch, once the wood was warmed up I put it in clamps for 48 hours until it was dry (summer so it was hot in my garage). I clamped it by putting on my workmate with a piece of 1x2 wood in the middle, then I used clamps to pull the edges over until it was just past flat. The wood stayed flat after I pulled it out.
 
#34
Jisch said:
Did you keep it in clamps after you ironed it? I had a really bad cup on a bookmatched walnut top on my last build, I wrapped the pieces in a wet towel and heated it up with a plumbing torch, once the wood was warmed up I put it in clamps for 48 hours until it was dry (summer so it was hot in my garage). I clamped it by putting on my workmate with a piece of 1x2 wood in the middle, then I used clamps to pull the edges over until it was just past flat. The wood stayed flat after I pulled it out.
Click to expand...

No, I didn't clamp it. Let me try that. If that doesn't work I think I'll just buy a new piece.

Just so I'm understanding, you made the wood go past flat, in the direction that was opposite to the way it was cupping earlier?
 
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#36
Okay, so remember that walnut top? It's completely warped beyond repair. I tried a couple things but in the end gave up on it.

I bought a Master Grade western red cedar top that I intend to stain. The lighter wood will contrast nicely against the laser engraving anyway. I'll probably keep the center light and the edges darker. What's that type of stain called again?

I also added a laser engraved border to the edges too. I think it looks better. Note, in this rendering the laser engrave is a little bit crooked, but obviously in "real life" it would be perfect. It's just a little glitch I'm having with my rendering software.
firstbass.381.jpg
 
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#38
IMG_9987.JPG
IMG_9992.JPG


I hollowed out the body with the router. I just free-handed it, no template, since it will be covered by the top anyway. .

I did some routing around the edges to rough out the outline of the main body as well. However, my router bit isn't long enough to go past about 1.25", so I had to flip the template and the body upside-down and rout from the bottom to the top. It was very difficult to match the template up so it's not quite perfect. I'll probably hit it with a spindle sander when I have time to even the outline up.
 
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