First Time Bolt-On Neck Build

[Gilmourisgod]

I've built only neck-through basses so far, thought it might be fun to try a bolt-on neck. My son was given a 90's era Fender MIM "closet bass" by his college music director in more or less unplayable (left in a closet with no case for YEARS) condition. He stripped the body and I repainted it the pale blue in the photo below. The neck suffers from a bad case of classic Fender "ski-jump" which renders it unplayable above around the 13th fret. It just completely frets out. The trussrod still works, but it's maxed out, and has no effect in the upper range anyway. I could try some heroic measures to save the neck, like pulling the frets, planing the board, etc. with no guarantee it won't bend again. It's standard 34" scale and typical Fender P-Bass chunky, not my cup of tea. I thought it might be fun to build a new 32" Jazz style neck for it, bound and blocked, of course. Any advice on techniques for getting a tight fitting neck heel appreciated. I suppose I could use the existing neck and build a template around it? Or just use the existing neck as the routing template?

As far as material, thinking a three-piece laminate of flame maple with a continuous center spine of walnut, like a full "skunk stripe". Modern DA rod, carbon stiffeners, etc. I might try @Bruce Johnson TOW strand backstrap, alternatively.

Any opinions on fingerboard material for this color bass? Either rosewood or ebony, with genuine MOP position markers and "parchment" binding. I've used synthetic Rocklite ebony before, and liked it, but unfortunately unavailable. Not sure Richlite makes sense on a wood neck that's going to move differentially than the fingerboard, and ebony is pretty chippy. Leaning towards rosewood, I guess. What do you think will look better?

The headstock would be painted to match the body. Standard Fender medium jumbo frets, the existing tuners are kind of...meh. Might replace them with Hipshots or the like. All my recent builds are 32" scale, 10" radius board, isn't Fender standard 9.5"? might be fine with that.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Any leads on good quality suppliers for rosewood or ebony fingerboard blanks and genuine MOP block inlays appreciated as well.

 

[HardNHeavy]

Link Removed <-----sell a nice collection of inlays, as well as the usual places like evilbay and amazon, Most those offerings seem to be in other countries, if you want to go that route, but there are a few others closer to home. Nice bass find, too bad bout the neck, and using its current neck heel as a profile is a good idea, since its married to it already, current rosewood looks great on that color imo....good luck....look forward to seeing it when done

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Yeah, it either started out as a real dark rosewood. or just oxidized that way over time. I may try to salvage it eventually. It would be far cheaper just to buy a Jazz neck off the shelf but...where's the fun in that?

 

[Gilmourisgod]

And then there are these ones from DePaule Supply. Pretty sure they are made in Vietnam and shipped here, takes a couple weeks. I used some of the star inlays from them on my Lemmy 4004LK build.

https://luthiersupply.com/block-fret-inlay-4-or-5-string-bass.html

 

[Level5wizard]

Any leads on good quality suppliers for rosewood or ebony fingerboard blanks and genuine MOP block inlays appreciated as well.

Gaboon Ebony Guitar Fingerboard Blank - Exotic Wood Zone

Buy Gaboon Ebony Guitar Fingerboard/Fretboard Blank With Free And Fast Shipping. We Are Selling Quarter Sawn Finger Boards, Which Is A Part Of The Guitar Neck. Inclusive Of Other Guitar Parts, With This Finger Boards, Build Your Own Guitar Kit. Browse Our Website For The Different Wooden...

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[Matt Liebenau]

Gaboon Ebony Guitar Fingerboard Blank - Exotic Wood Zone

Buy Gaboon Ebony Guitar Fingerboard/Fretboard Blank With Free And Fast Shipping. We Are Selling Quarter Sawn Finger Boards, Which Is A Part Of The Guitar Neck. Inclusive Of Other Guitar Parts, With This Finger Boards, Build Your Own Guitar Kit. Browse Our Website For The Different Wooden...

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I was going to mention Exotic Wood Zone. I don’t think they slot or radius the boards but their prices are ok. I’ve bought a couple of things from them and not had any negative experiences so far. I think Bruce is buying ebony blanks from them.

As far as building the neck if I couldn’t use the existing neck to make a template I’m pretty sure Fender style neck templates are easily available online.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

How about using walnut for the fingerboard? You probably already have some, if you are planning on using it for the center neck lamination. Walnut makes a nice fingerboard material. It's strong, moderately hard, machines well, about the same weight and properties as Indian rosewood. Sanded and coated with a few coats of Stew-Mac Fingerboard Oil, it's a medium dark brown. About halfway between Pau Ferro and rosewood in color. Very pretty grain.

Fitting the neck heel to an existing body: Do it the old fashioned way! Hand fit it. Cut the neck a little over width. Then use files and hard sanding blocks to carefully bring the width down until it slips into the neck pock with a little bit of clearance. Take your time and make it fit just right. Do the sides of the heel first, getting the width and taper right. Then round off the heel and the corners. Same process, sanding and check fitting in the neck pocket. When the heel fits the pocket, then do the sides of the neck, blending into the heel and going to the correct width at the nut. Straight and true. Then finish shaping the back and sides of the neck.

No need to mess with router templates for a one-off neck to fit an existing body.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I was going to mention Exotic Wood Zone. I don’t think they slot or radius the boards but their prices are ok. I’ve bought a couple of things from them and not had any negative experiences so far. I think Bruce is buying ebony blanks from them.

I haven't, yet, but Jeremy has. He got a Gaboon ebony fingerboard from them recently. It was a nice quality piece of wood, but it was pretty expensive, took a few weeks to get here, and it came through rough sawn, not thickness-sanded like LMI's were. We're still looking for other sources.

 

[Level5wizard]

I used walnut for the fret board my second bass build

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I love walnut for bodies and neck lams, but I think I want something darker, more like the dark board that's on there now. @Bruce Johnson, you got any dark rosewood boards on the rack you could slot and radius for me? Or should I find a blank one elsewhere and mail it to you for machining? I'm thinking 32" scale, Fender nut style, 10" radius. I typically just use off the shelf pre-cut Fender Medium Jumbo frets, already radiused to 9.5", seems to go in perfectly on a 10" radius board, which is what I'm used to playing Rics all these years. If you or @Freekmagnet can make me one, I'd much rather pay you than some sweatshop in Indonesia.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Duh. Just occurred to me that If I change to 32" scale, I'll probably have to move the bridge, which I don't want to do, since it's all painted and polished. Brain fart. 34" scale it is, then, but definitely a jazz nut width, taper, etc.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

You could use 32” scale if you shorten the neck slightly and go with 19 frets instead of 20. Essentially make a Fender neck with the first fret cut off.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Duh. Just occurred to me that If I change to 32" scale, I'll probably have to move the bridge, which I don't want to do, since it's all painted and polished. Brain fart. 34" scale it is, then, but definitely a jazz nut width, taper, etc.

If you are building a new neck from scratch, you can make it a "conversion" neck. It can be 32" scale, but designed to fit on a standard body without having to move the bridge. We can guide you through the math on how to lay it out. That's what Matt is suggesting.

Yes, either Jeremy or I could radius and slot a fingerboard for you. Just the fingerboard, or glued on the neck.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I have a standard P-Bass drawn up in Autocad, let me see if I can draw it up with the bridge in it's current location and a 32" scale neck. I always work directly from full-scale templates so I don't eff it up. I'll see how it looks, if it ends up kinda awkward, I may just keep it at 34" scale. I'll post a drawing here once I get it worked up.

 

[ctmullins]

32" would work really well here. Since you're making the neck, you have complete control over its dimensions, and you can make it 32" scale with the bridge in its current location. You have more than enough skills for this!

 

[Beej]

I'm not sure what you're finding for woods, but I saw a richlite 'rosedale' fretboard recently that looked really sharp in person. From a short distance, it just looked like a dark board, but up close you see the richlite 'grain', which is more of like a Rorschach blotchiness rather than grain, but quite interesting and was visually appealing.

 

[Freekmagnet]

I like the dark roasted maple boards from Tempered Tonewoods.

https://temperedtonewoods.com/shop/fingerboard-blanks/bass-fingerboard-blanks/dark-tempered-northern-maple-fingerboard-blank-bass/

They're pretty cheap and they look great once you put fretboard oil on them.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I can't recall, is Richlite effectively the same as Ebanol? Based on a recent thread, I'm a little wary of ebanol. It doesn't move like the wood neck will, somebody had a Squire VM fretless with an ebanol board that went wonky on them. I'm bummed that Rocklite isn't available, really liked it on my Hossenfeffer III build. I think it's actually dyed wood fibers and some kind of binder, but it seems to move with the neck.

 

[Beej]

I can still get Rocklite sundari from my supplier up here - not sure on what the cost would translate to shipping to the US, but I can pass on deets if you're interested.