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First build bass for my daughter

#121
You're welcome J. I would have not used ebony dust on this inlay though, as the gaps would have been much more visible on such a light wood. I would probably do the same and leave it. It's a bass for your daughter and those are all little stories to be told - "...and this is when the inlay broke...yeah... but my dad took a pint of CA..." "uh? what's CA?" ;)
 
#122
miziomix said:
You're welcome J. I would have not used ebony dust on this inlay though, as the gaps would have been much more visible on such a light wood. I would probably do the same and leave it. It's a bass for your daughter and those are all little stories to be told - "...and this is when the inlay broke...yeah... but my dad took a pint of CA..." "uh? what's CA?" ;)
Click to expand...

thanks for the support mizio! lol I think you're right.

so, right now I'm super anxious, seems as though I'm very close to completing this build.

I drilled the holes for the tuners. I'm not sure wether the tuners will be straight, or tilted towards the body:
006-4.jpg


004-4.jpg

these are gotoh tuners, they are longer than the schallers on my pedulla bass... I had not thought about this when buying them, and these were the only ones available locally, but I would have chosen shorter ones if I had the chance.

Also, I positioned the tuners so as to have the strings as straight as possible, and hence the the E and G tuners portrude a bit more. If the tuners are tilted it seems to me this is not so obvious.

When I first made a mockup of the tuners on the template, this positioning looked fine to me, but now I'm having second thoughts, and on a next build I'm not sure if I'd favour the symmetrical positioning of the tuners over the straight alignment of the strings.

I'm also almost done with the control cavity cover. It was shaped by hand, so it's not perfect, and it's still a bit too tight, so I still have to sand off a bit here and there:
005-5.jpg


004-5.jpg


I think it might have some trouble getting the paper off... I hope sanding does it. I glued a template paper on to the wood to be sure it wouldn't move around...

the cover is made of a scrap from the walnut top. here's the back of it:

sonyxperia051.jpg


I'm not sure if it'll match, but I can always make a new cover out of something else if this one doesn't work.

thanks for watching, any comments and suggestions are welcome, as always!
 
#125
Tribbinator said:
How did you glue it? With just Elmer's glue or some kind of glue stick? Try a rough-ish damp rag, that's how I get my paper templates off.
Click to expand...

I used some of my daughter's white glue, so I guess you're advice will work. thanks!

Darkstrike said:
Definitely tilted tuners, look much better, straight jut look clunky compared to the flow of the bass overall.
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thanks darkstrike, I'm leaning towards tilted which was actually the first thought when designing.

I've grown so accostumed to looking at the headstock with no tuners at all, that when I first put them on yesterday for the pictures, tuners just didn't seem right at all... today, after looking at the pictures for a while, I'm getting used to them, and I'm almost sure I'll have them tilted.
 
#130
thanks Stealth!

Ok, yesterday I sprayed a first coat of lacquer:

DSC_0061.jpg


looked great I think, but I realized there's still a lot of scratches. So next I'll sand it off, and get rid of those scratches, and start again. This coat was actually just for that, and also to get a hang of spraying, since I've never done it before...

finishing plan seems to be a settled to couple coats of lacquer, then finish with shellac... We'll see how that turns out...
 
#132
Thanks Octaedro!

It's been raining locally for almost 2 weeks now, so I was not able to continue spraying... basically I had no progress.

I want this to be string through body, and was looking for golden ferrules, but this are not found locally, so I will try to make them out of brass, I hope to get started on that next week. If I can't manage to do them, next option is black ferrules, which should be ok given that tuners and straplocks are black as well.

This is 3 coats of nitro:

cumplevalentina2012014.jpg


hope to finish this in the next couple of months...
 
#133
To possibly make the ferrule fabrication job easier, consider that they don't have to be just like the commercially available single-string ferrules. Something like this would work just fine and should be relatively easy to make out of brass.

atbJx.png
 
#134
HaMMerHeD said:
To possibly make the ferrule fabrication job easier, consider that they don't have to be just like the commercially available single-string ferrules. Something like this would work just fine and should be relatively easy to make out of brass.

atbJx.png
Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea HaMMerHeD!!!

yes, I'll definitely consider it. That might actually be a lot easier than machining each one separately...
 
#135
last couple of weeks it has been very humid around here so I did not get to spray the bass. I've been slowly progressing on the brass nut and done not much more really.

I gave up on making my own ferrules, i'll just put some black ones on.
I did get to throw another coat of nitro today. I must be around 6 or 7 seven coats now, I lost count frankly.
Anyway, this is what it looks like so far:

DSC_0112_zps6a1c6a8f.jpg


DSC_0109_zpsc40793de.jpg


The plan is to have 2 more coats on, then set the bass up, make the final touches on the bridge and nut, take the hardware off, last couple coats of laquer, finla buffing and then I'm done... sounds easy enough! :hiding:
 
#136
Yesterday I almost finished the brass nut, and strung the bass up to check string height.

I still don't have the bridge, so I stuck some pieces of wood as saddles. Unplugged the bass had quite a voice, which is good I think, but I could instantly notice that the neck is quite chunkier than that of my pedulla's. Funny that at one point I thought I had carved too much off...
the shorter scale was really comfortable, but to be honest, my pedulla's neck feels so nice...
strings were really high though, still needed to file the nut quite a bit, hope bringing the action down might help.
so I still need to work on the nut, and finish the bridge, then I'll fine tune that, and then get over with the finish.

I just might get the neck a bit thinner... don't know if this might be a problem since it's already fretted... I'll have to refinish it afterwards of course...

DSC_0138.jpg


DSC_0154.jpg
 
#137
Jmorbita.. you've built a beautiful bass.. and I'm sure you'll get "your" use out of it, until that day your daughter plays. =P

My favorite is the neck entirety, then the grain of the wood you've chosen. Then the fact that you 'made' an instrument for your daughter, that is quite cute.
 
#139
neebs said:
Jmorbita.. you've built a beautiful bass.. and I'm sure you'll get "your" use out of it, until that day your daughter plays. =P

My favorite is the neck entirety, then the grain of the wood you've chosen. Then the fact that you 'made' an instrument for your daughter, that is quite cute.
Click to expand...

Thanks! yes, the idea is that my daughter gets to play a well "road worn" bass !

Big B. said:
Very nice man! I do the same thing with my first sprayed on coat. I use it to check for scratches and once sanded out (if needed) I will continue spraying coats from there.
Click to expand...

yes, this has been helpfull. and stringing it up after so much building time has been refreshing!
 
#140
Big B. said:
Very nice man! I do the same thing with my first sprayed on coat. I use it to check for scratches and once sanded out (if needed) I will continue spraying coats from there.
Click to expand...

I do this with tru oil. Apply first coat, sand level. I'm not using the cool spray on stuff though. :p

Jmorbita.. if I had that bass. My daughter too would be receiving a road worn. Hey, that thing gots a story. I love it too.
 

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