First build - work in progress

[Gilmourisgod]

I didn't include a "plug" like that for my DA rod, I can't see how it would come loose if it's under any tension at all, and the blobs of silicone effectively glued it in place in what is already a tight fitting slot. Is the plug really necessary? The downside of it would seem to be that if the trussrod breaks, that plug would require removing the fretboard to get it out. Am I missing something?

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Festool in my opinion is over engineered and under built. They are not enough tool for the price.

I tend to trust the tools I see in constant use on construction sites. They dont put up with anything that doesn't work. For a long time it was 90% Makita. Now I see mostly Dewalt cordless and the Dewalt rack and pinion jobsite saws, but Festool is creeping in. We work with a very high-end cabinetmaker, and they use nothing but Festool on the jobsites, and swear by them. Go figure, opinions vary.

 

[Hopkins]

I tend to trust the tools I see in constant use on construction sites. They dont put up with anything that doesn't work. For a long time it was 90% Makita. Now I see mostly Dewalt cordless and the Dewalt rack and pinion jobsite saws, but Festool is creeping in. We work with a very high-end cabinetmaker, and they use nothing but Festool on the jobsites, and swear by them. Go figure, opinions vary.

There is a youtube channel called AvE, he did a tear down on a Festool track saw that really turned me off to them. They are not built near to the specs as a brand like Makita and especially a brand like Hilti. For the money, the Festool had really cheap brushes, it was made of cheap plastic and had undersized bearings and gears

 

[Frederiek]

Thanks everyone! I went with a very thin (1mm) block, just because I thought it would make it a bit neater. It may be unnecessary but I tested the truss rod and it's not in the way either. If it ever has to come out it should not be too difficult - not more difficult than widening the access part of the slot, which is the same size as the rods while the nut is 1mm wider. I went to the store to buy silicone but came home without it so no caulking. It's a press fit so it should be fine...

 

[Frederiek]

ps. About Festool, yes it's pricy. I'm quite sure something better can be found, maybe for less. I can't say anything yet about the lifespan of this router but I know a couple seasoned craftsmen who started using Festool exclusively, even after years. Though this is probably fashion too, sometimes you just see yellow or blue everywhere However, I have experience with very high end tools and with sh*tty ones (guess which end of the spectrum I own) and for what it's worth I find this router particularly solid, steady and silent. Which I like for a machine that can give you some nasty injuries. Some of my other tools are probably visible in the pictures, and I made some rather nice things on machines of the Harbor Freight equivalent But it's nice to not always have to 'make do'.

Link Removed
Everything except the holes, the filework and my logo was done on a 1x30 belt/disc sander. So much for patience

 

[Hopkins]

Porter Cable routers are pretty much the standard. I have been using them for years, they are solid work horses.

 

[Frederiek]

A minor update. I made this small and thin plug thingy that I glued in place with just enough CA glue to keep it in place to be able to carve it flush with a chisel. When I put the top veneer over I will round the access channel a bit. I then masked off the neck to glue in the CF strips. As the slots are perfectly to size I could not test-fit them and I failed to notice that they are a bit bent and therefore should have been clamped in place. I smeared some epoxy in the channels, which then also nicely filled up the bit where I screwed up. What I really wanted to avoid to begin with, sanding the CF, was now inevitable so I did it with vacuum cleaner in one hand and sanding block in the other and of course a decent mask - this is really something you don't want to inhale. Then I carefully lined out the fingerboard to the neck and drilled some tiny holes in the ebony. I lightly hammered in nails that I clipped off and could then press-fit the fingerboard to the neck, leaving holes in the face of the neck too. I used masking tape over the truss rod and almost forgot to remove it, I had it in clamps already but was just in time to take it off. I doubt it would have mattered though, anyone ever left the tape in place?

I unclamped it after a day and it looks good so far. My next step is to take down the sides to final width (it's now 80 and a bit mm and I want it to be 70), which of course I should have done without the fingerboard on. Another note to self. Again, the ears on the headstock are in the way I'd like to do this with the router too but I'll have to build a higher set-up for it. It's critical that I get this right so I'm saving this for another time than a late hour when I'm already tired.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Ha! I DID leave the tape on, realized it after all the clamps were on, managed to quickly pry the fingerboard off, scrape off the gummy half-congealed glue, and re-glue. All's well that ends well, but that was a tense few minutes! That CF rod stuff is nasty, got a splinter of it in my skin, like a metal splinter, I couldn't get it out for days. Looking great, nice piece of ebony.

 

[I-Am-The-Slime]

I'm envious of how neat and tidy your work looks

The fingerboard looks great!
I don't quite follow the 80 to 70 mm width adjustment, is 70 mm the final width of the neck at the butt?

 

[SLivinghouse]

Hi Frederiek,
It looks like the neck is coming along very nicely! I think we all learn the hard way to test fit and rehearse gluing because sometimes even if it seems obvious something will fit, it may not or be imperceptibly warped. I also obsessively measure with a caliper trying to make things "perfect" but then cause problems because I don't leave enough room for expansion and end up with situations similar to you had with the CF rods.

70mm seems about right to me. That comes out to 2 3/4 inches for those of us in the less developed world. I think that is pretty standard for a four string bass. It's weird - metric would be so much easier for woodworking, but I'm so used to inches that I just can't change. Maybe the fractional math is part of the challenge and thus part of the fun.

Is the ebony real ebony or did you use something else and stain it black? I agree with Slime, it's beautiful. It's pretty tough to find a piece that nice with color that consistent where I live. I'm still deciding, but I'm pretty sure I'll use ebony in my build.

 

[Frederiek]

Monday morning update time! Very quickly as I don't have time to write a lot.

Routing the sides to size

Routing the back of the neck to thickness (stupid, shouldn't have done that)

Sawing off a bit of the fingerboard to accommodate for the headstock top

Shaping the headstock (I don't like this saw)

Starting to look like it

More shaping

Some final trimming (actually an unnecessary step)

Because I thought I'd need the extra material I made the fingerboard 2 mm oversized and I'm taking them off now - of course I took away too much but that's fine. Now 38 mm instead of 40 at the nut.

Making the nut blank

Got the top to final thickness and flatness AT. LAST.

Chose nice maple veneer to sandwich

And bought mahogany for the body! Got a slice sawed off of the top for a perfectly matching cover (here already planed to thickness)

Clamping

 

[Frederiek]

Disaster. And thought I should also record that. The top warped so violently from the moisture in the glue that I couldn't get it clamped in anymore. It just got worse and worse and after an hour I decided to rip it all apart. Luckily the top stayed in one piece. But it pissed me off, that's for sure. Scraped and scraped and scraped, pressed the top flat, routed the mahogany back a bit and sawed the rough outline with tape in between layers and then retried gluing.

Sawed out the headstock piece

Thought I'd carve out the truss rod access by hand. Hate to say it got kinda fugly. Luckily it will have a cover.

Kept it clamped for an hour and worked on the nut a bit more

Shaped the top along the headstock. I'm keeping it rather thick so I can take off somewhat more of the back... hope that's wise. Doubt it though.

Made the nut slot (wew, perfect thankfully)

There is a tiny bit of space on one side, possibly a tearout, will get that filled up with some wood paste later if necessary, the slot is undersized still.

Routed the front face of the neck blank so it can protrude trough the top - I really hope I got this lined out properly...

I also routed the back of the neck that will become the body but I totally messed that up... Trying to come up with a cunning plan there. Status right now.

Also... I have a 9 mm thick fingerboard and I want 7 mm final... What do you think, just start sanding with a radius block or is there a better solution? I wanted to try and route it to thickness but I just can't get it properly aligned at all! It would depend on the bridge too of course, but I'm scared of trying to take more off with the router. And I can only take so much off of the back of the neck.

Indeed though this ebony... the nices I ever came across. It was intended for an 8 string bass actually, but it was never picked up. It was grossly expensive but it's truly worth it.

To reply to you more properly I want the part of the neck that will be merged with the body to be 70 mm wide, see the first picture in my update.

Then the headstock thickness, I have to take off about 5 mm to be able to fit the tuners but I think I should really have made the front much thinner - ^$#(&$%. It could have been so easy.

And GLUE. Really the least favourite part of every single thing I make is gluing.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Nice save on the top!

 

[Frederiek]

Quite miraculous right? I almost panicked. Threw all the clamps aside (sorry neighbours downstairs), tried to stand on it but it veered back, put my amps on it, put my granite leatherworking tombstone on it and the dryer on top but it didn't work AT ALL. I sat on the floor and ripped it apart with all I had in me :') My muscles are still sore. I couldn't believe that the walnut actually survived this... I hacked away the veneer (ps. it was 1 in the morning already) and let the glue dry, the next day I scraped off as much as I could with a knife and then sanded. The body pieces were now at least glued together (it couldn't be one piece for I wanted a slab off for the back cover) so I routed it back to thickness. Tonight I will unclamp and see if I finally conquered this wood or if it decides to give me more nightmares.

 

[I-Am-The-Slime]

Nice recovery, indeed. I know that panicked rescue-mode feeling, takes years off your life

I've been at my ebony boards with a sanding block and 80-grit paper in short stints all week, slow and dirty going but getting there, eventually. Be prepared for more sore muscles! That, and nasty black dust all over. Worth it, though, IMO, what a beautiful wood.

I see, you're going for a straight neck through the body section. Looking forward to see how this progresses

 

[Frederiek]

I'll just go for the elbow grease then! Yay black dust!

I'm aiming for a miniscule tilt backwards, I hope to accomplish that by routing the neck pocket with a slight difference in height. The front face of the neck is, as far as I can measure, in line with the fingerboard but the neck is a bit flexible and I can never measure the same values twice. Although I am, too, overly obsessed with my calipers

 

[Frederiek]

Thankfully the body came out of the clamps alright. I wanted to flatten the surface with the router but I ended up taking off a lot more than intended as it kept tearing out. Did the back too, thankfully I kept it a bit oversized there or it would have gotten too thin. A lot of hand sanding did the trick with the top. I sawed out the rough outline using my templates and traced around it with the router. I was extremely careful but still I screwed up big time in the upper horn (needless to say I went crazy and am too ashamed to show you pictures of the actual damage in the wood, it hurts the eye too much). I had to change the profile because of this (so much for the templates), as well as for another less significant tearout in the bottom.

Meanwhile I started profiling the fingerboard with a block and sandpaper. Quite a lot faster than I expected! It will take me some evenings probably but it's not as tedious as I expected it to be.

I did some really rough carving on the body with the angle grinder, I didn't feel like removing so much wood by hand and this was done in just a couple of minutes.

I thinned the front and back of the headstock too (in my super professional set-up with tape, aluminium profile and chair), need to update that truss rod slot still. I angled it so that it tapers a bit towards the top. Will solve the angle with countersunk holes for the tuners later on, if necessary.

Then onto neck carving - yay! I was looking forward to this. I'm aware of all kinds of methods to plan this out but I wanted to see how I would do just by feeling... and so far so good. Although in retrospect this may be a bit too much for my OCD I used some very coarse rasps, a spokeshave and sandpaper. I love this vise by the way. Now, after two nights, everything is more or less to the right thickness and profile - I'm going from a very round oval at the nut to a D shape at the first octave and to almost flat at the heel - just need to get it all straight as it's (visibly) wobbly. In my enthousiasm I rounded over the edges of the fretboard too... woops. Not a big deal I guess but not my intention either. The fingerboard is still a staggering 9 mm thick in the middle so at least it feels nice to have it rounded over a bit. Worked a bit on the volute too

Please let me know what you think, your comments are much appreciated!

 

[Gilmourisgod]

That's looking great! I love the contrasting stripes in the neck, and the body carves look really good. I was too inexperienced to carve my neck by feel, I used the "facet" method of marking out a series of flats approximating a curve and then blending them to a "D" profile, slow process,but it worked really well. I'm in awe of people who can just do it by feel and intuition. You might try putting some pencil marks along the back of the neck and sanding with a long flat piece to even out any high or low spots, but if it feels good, it IS good. I had a lot of trouble getting a consistent flat radiused board using a wood radius block, still not sure why. I think I unknowingly flexed the block a little and "dished" the board in the middle. Double check your board with a straightedge just in case, maybe cross-hatch with a white pencil and sand very lightly to show low spots?

 

[I-Am-The-Slime]

Great progress, that top looks gorgeous!

 

[Frederiek]

Monday morning update I thinned the headstock further and drilled the holes for the tuners. I sacrificed a 14 mm drill bit and ground it to the size of the bushings. They can rotate freely but remain nicely centred on their own. Test-fitted the tuners too, and the nut (which is too short) and the truss rod cover plate. Then to a part I was fearing: making a channel in the body. I used the router to mark the outlines, then carved most material away with a chisel. The fit was too tight, on purpose, so now came the long and tedious job of sanding everything to size. I left a gap between the upper horn and the side of the neck as I'm afraid it will deform from expansion when I'm gluing. Here it is fitted, starting to feel very real now! Some work on the fingerboard too, I had it finished and polished when I knocked a dent in it by dropping my drill on it - I really hate myself sometimes. Sanded it out the next day and polished it again, decided I didn't like it so shiny (didn't feel nice either) and went back to satin with some steel wool. Fitted the side dots, must make a template for this next time. I misaligned one dot, the 12th position, meh. Making the control cavity was incredibly easy after so many challenging routing tasks. I did this in my lovely setup again so that the router doesn't need contact with the body or templates. Just some aluminium profile taped to a board, piece of granite in this case or to the tabletop. I used the same template to make a cover with matching grain in 5 minutes with the same template and still have a smile on my face.

Time to clean

Next up is the thing I'm fearing: gluing the neck to the body. Particularly because of the history of behaviour of the wood. If you have any tips & tricks, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks for watching