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First Build - "Lucifer"

#942
Flying B said:
Do it man! I think everyone encounters a build-stall on their first go, mine sat in a cupboard for a good year before I dug it out again and finished it.

I've got some luminlay to use on my current build. I've been nervous about using cutters to trim it, I was worried about squishing or deforming it, but it looks like you didn't have that problem?
Click to expand...
Nope, it cut pretty cleanly. It kind of snapped off at the cutters.
 
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#943
Oh yeah, I forgot! Before disassembling Lucifer, I set it on the bathroom scale. Dead on 10.0 pounds. I think that’s a fairly good indication of what it will weigh upon completion. I don’t have much left to remove and 99.5% of the hardware was on it. I feel like that’s a reasonable weight for a 5 string too, it was actually a lot less than I assumed it would end up through this whole build. So I’m happy with that. :cool:
 
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#944
TerribleTim68 said:
Okay this needs to get back on track!

So Where Are We?
Let's revel in this shot of it all pre-assembled first (yes I've posted this before, but it's been like two months since I touched this build or something) -
View attachment 4448672
Then let's get to work! I still needed to drill the screw holes for the pups. I had some concerns about plunging an electric drill into the face of those pup covers, so I broke out the mega old egg beater hand drill -
View attachment 4448673
I like tools that move slow. Added bonuses; it's rather quiet, it's kind of relaxing and it's a bit therapeutic. If you've never worked with old hand tools, try it, you might like it. :cool:
After that I took it all apart and put all the hardware away -
View attachment 4448677

Nothing Like Re-carving A Neck!
For those who remember, I left off at a point where I got it all preassembled and realized my neck was not really a baseball bat, but more like a softball bat. Back to the neck carving! I had shaved down the center to a point where I was happy with it, but the shoulders were still fat. I held on to this quick little clamping jig I made when I carved it the first time, so I threw it back on there. Clamp the jig to the bench, then clamp Lucifer to the jig -
View attachment 4448678
Back at it with the shinto to round over those shoulders on each side, then come back over that with a finer file to smooth that out some. I had to do some work to my heel carve because after bringing the neck down to a realistic, playable thickness the heel had a funky lump in it. Go figure. :meh: No worries, I got this. Break out the Dremel with that Saber bit and carve away, then move to the RoS with some 150 grit on it and a 1" thick foam pad and smooth that out. No pick of that tho, sorry.

DID SOMEONE SAY GLO-IN-THE-DARK?!?!?!?
okay, if you've read this thread you might recall my attempt at using gun sight paint as glo-in-the-dark fret markers. We're not putting fret markers on the face of the fretboard, only on the side of the neck. I don't look at the face of the board when playing, so why disrupt the beautiful wood grain? Okay, so the gun sight paint didn't work at all. Plus, I dropped the bottle and it shattered all over my garage floor, so I no longer have any. So, I ordered up some Luminlay from the Amazonians. Let's get Lucifer in the bench end vice -
View attachment 4448682

Then redrill my holes -
View attachment 4448681

Then grab my weapon of choice, Starbond Medium and Accelerator -
View attachment 4448685

I chose the medium because I wanted to make sure my holes were full with no gaps and I had concerns about the thin running all over my neck wood grain and that would not be cool man, not cool. Drop of CA in the hole, stick the stick in, hit it with the accelerator -
View attachment 4448684

I chose to cut it with a pair of side cutters (dykes for you old timers), then move on to the next hole -
View attachment 4448686

Just continue that method all the way down -
View attachment 4448690
When I got to the last hole I was left with this much Luminlay -
View attachment 4448689

Barely made it, whew! :nailbiting:
Okay, we gotta test this out, right? Shine a flash light on it for a bit (I have a nice 20v DeWalt that really puts out some light) then kill the lights -
View attachment 4448693

Hard to get a good pic with my shaky hands, but I think you get the point. :cool: Seriously, I couldn't be more happy with it.

Where Does That Leave Us?
Well, the neck is carved. The side dots are installed. I still need to route a pocket for the battery box. I still need to route the control cavity cover recess. I still need to drill a hole for the barrel jack. I'm not done shaping the nut yet. Those are the last of the major operations that I can see. From there it's a lot of sanding, then some more sanding and when I get done with that there's a bit more sanding. Eventually I can think about finish, but I'll need to do some sanding first. I think I need to go back and do some more work on them fret ends, clean that up and smooth them out a bit more. I also want to go back and open up my wiring hole from the pup cavities to the control cavity. Currently it's kind of tight with all those wires trying to fit in there together. I could use a bit larger hole.
But, I think we're getting there. I just need to find my motivation and focus and just get this thing done. I've been way too busy with woodturning projects, the racecar and nursing my fear of messing this thing up at this point in the build. If you never finish it nobody can say you did a crappy job. The down side is, you also can't play it. :meh: I gotta focus on getting this thing done.
Click to expand...
Looks really good Tim! I take it the redrilling for the side dots was to make the holes slightly larger? I tend to like my side dots larger than a lot of companies use.

I always face the dreaded "fear of finishing" on any project I really care about, so at least you have company in the face of the dilemma! Maybe not good company, but you know...

I am going to suggest one really out-there idea for you, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Have you considered doing maybe some sanding? I know, it's crazy, but I think maybe a bit of sanding could do the project some good.
:roflmao:
 
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#945
RodRy said:
Looks really good Tim! I take it the redrilling for the side dots was to make the holes slightly larger? I tend to like my side dots larger than a lot of companies use.

I always face the dreaded "fear of finishing" on any project I really care about, so at least you have company in the face of the dilemma! Maybe not good company, but you know...

I am going to suggest one really out-there idea for you, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Have you considered doing maybe some sanding? I know, it's crazy, but I think maybe a bit of sanding could do the project some good.
:roflmao:
Click to expand...
Yeah, the redial was mostly just to clean up the holes and make them one size bigger to fit the Liminlay.

Haha, yeah, sanding sounds like a good idea! :roflmao:
 
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#946
TerribleTim68 said:
. So, I ordered up some Luminlay from the Amazonians
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip.
I had no idea that the fine fine folks at Luminlay have made their products available via the Amazon's.
I've always ordered direct from them in Japan, because...that's the only source I could find.

I just pulled out at the stuff I ordered for Astaroth... (a year ago.) Which I need like next week....o_O
And discovered I miss-ordered (black tube)... for an ebony bound board. Oops... I needed white.
Sure enough... I logged into Prime.... yup.
It'll be at my door in 2 days.
Godz bless you... and Jeff Bezos.:confused:
 
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#947
Okay, More Work -
I wanted to get a lot more done today, but as usual, my day got away from me. I started my Sunday with a solid hour and a half drive to go pay a friend for an engine I purchased from him for the racecar. That was the engine I borrowed earlier this year. Rather than pull it to bring it back, I asked if he wanted to sell it and he made me a great deal on it. Saves a ton of work getting ready for next season. Then another half hour drive to another racer's shop to purchase a big pile of shocks, more parts we need for next year. I think we now have everything we need, so I can start putting the racecar back together now.

Enough With The Bulls#$t Talk, Let's Get To Work!
I snuck out to the shop to get something done after dinner. I was hoping to get the last of the major drilling, routing and cutting done. First up was that pesky jack plug hole! One of the cool things about owning a ShopSmith is that it does a few quirky things that other machines can't do. I know most of you would just clamp the body in some sort of vice and grab a handheld drill, but I looked to my ShopSmith to be a horizontal boring machine! Yup, it worked! First thing to do is set it up with a drill chuck on it, and then clamp Lucifer to the table and get it all lined up -
20211024_194517_HDR.jpg


20211024_194531_HDR.jpg


20211024_194526_HDR.jpg


I know, it seems a little weird. But trust me, I was way more comfortable doing this than anything else I could think of. When all was said and done, I had a nice little jack hole that this barrel jack fits snugly in -
20211024_195608.jpg


Yeah man, that'll work! :cool:

And Then The Wheels Fell Off -
The next thing I wanted to tackle was the recess for the battery box. I did a LOT of mapping it out, trying to find a place it could live without interfering with everything else. Proper planning would have been a great idea here! But good ol' Terrible Tim doesn't work that way! After a lot of mapping, drawing, sketching, measuring and scratching my head, I finally found a place that I think it can live where my recess won't bust through the pickup cavity, or the bridge saddle recesses or leave it hanging off one of those bevels I carved without thinking this whole thing through. Proper planning people, proper.....planning. :meh:
So I set up some router guides and stuck them down using "the trick". I didn't want to build a full on template for a small square, so we went the easy way here. Then I grabbed a forstner bit and hogged out some of the waste. Then.....I started searching for my cool little template router bit I bought for this.......now where did I leave that......it should be in this drawer.......huh, that's weird.......what's with the empty router bit packaging? I have no clue where it got off to, I can only find the empty package it came in. So I do have proof that I once owned one. So now I have Lucifer clamped to the bench, router guides stuck on and no router bit. I'm kind of at a standstill for now. I placed another order for yet another router bit and it should arrive Tuesday. Until then, not only is my build stalled, but my shop is parked too because I have everything spread out all over and I'm NOT cleaning up just to redo all this later this week. :meh:

sometimes things go so well and I think "Man, I'm gonna pay for this somewhere......there it is!" :banghead:
 
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#954
Gilmourisgod said:
As an adult with functional ADD (I have work-arounds that… work) I feel your pain. Important objects regularly vanish from my hands, to re-emerge in odd locations. I “lost” a bit for a while, it turned up still in the router I leave in the router table, neatly lowered out of view. D’oh!
Click to expand...
SON OF A!!! @Gilmourisgod wins, guess where I just found my router bit? :meh: :banghead:
Oh well, now I will have two so I can lose them both. :thumbsdown:
 
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#956
So, as I really start to approach the finishing stage of this project, I'm totally baffled as to what I want to do for a finish. My wife insists this one be left "natural", and I'm okay with letting this wood grain shine. MY question for "the brain trust" is, what are you guys using on natural wood builds that you don't want to change the color of the wood? And by "don't change the color of the wood" I mean beyond the typical "darkening" that most every finish does. I'm aware that it will get slightly darker if I put something like Danish Oil on it or whatever (just an example, wasn't actually gonna finish it in Danish Oil). I can rub denatured alcohol on it and see that it will get a bit darker, and that's fine, I think I prefer that.

Here's my dilemma. What I don't want is something that has to be reapplied in a few years or whatever. I see a lot of talk about hand rubbed oil finishes that only last so long before it has to be redone. I don't want that. I want a finish that I apply this one time and it's good for the life of the bass (relatively speaking).
I could just do a tru-oil finish, I already have it from past projects.
I'm also kind of interested in maybe, possibly, topping whatever finish with a 2K poly clear so I can wetsand, buff and polish to a nice shiny smooth finish. I have concerns about 2K over the top of pretty much any oil finish, does it even bond to oil?

So what are you guys using on a natural finish build? I'm sure there's a thread somewhere specifically on finishes that Bruce probably started, huh? :roflmao:
 
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#958
Jon Clegg said:
Varathane Ultra WB Polyurethane -- it is crystal clear and doesn't add any ambering.
Click to expand...
Yeah, see, that's the thing. I think I kinda want some tinting. Here's a shot of my raw wood, before finishing -
20200914_200057.jpg

And here's one I found online that I really like -
alfa_zebrano01_400B.jpg

Will the Varathane get that look, or is it just gonna be a glossy clear with it still the same color as my pic? Also, can I get that in a spray can? I don't have a gun setup or the smarts to do that. I'd like to, but I don't......yet.
 
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#959
TerribleTim68 said:
Yeah, see, that's the thing. I think I kinda want some tinting. Here's a shot of my raw wood, before finishing -
View attachment 4450146
And here's one I found online that I really like -
View attachment 4450145
Will the Varathane get that look, or is it just gonna be a glossy clear with it still the same color as my pic? Also, can I get that in a spray can? I don't have a gun setup or the smarts to do that. I'd like to, but I don't......yet.
Click to expand...
You could always use a light stain to pop the grain and add a bit of color, then use the Varathane. If you have scrap, I'd try some combos and then pick the one you like the best.
 
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#960
TerribleTim68 said:
Yeah, see, that's the thing. I think I kinda want some tinting. Here's a shot of my raw wood, before finishing -
View attachment 4450146
And here's one I found online that I really like -
View attachment 4450145
Will the Varathane get that look, or is it just gonna be a glossy clear with it still the same color as my pic? Also, can I get that in a spray can? I don't have a gun setup or the smarts to do that. I'd like to, but I don't......yet.
Click to expand...
You can tint it with TransTint. The burst here is done with Honey Amber and Vintage Maple on the edges:
20211006_165441.jpg
 
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