Four string single cut through neck

[Jisch]

A mountain bike friend's son asked if I could help him build a bass. I guess you'd call this a commission, except I'm really just charging for parts. We went back and forth a few times on the design over email, and we have his rough plans shaping up. Hopefully we'll get together this weekend and settle on wood and get the glue up started.

I'm offering advice, but I am trying not to pollute the design other than that which impacts playability, everything else is his.

We talked about the low end of pricing, but we'll figure out the right parts based on his budget, probably a bit of a budget build with mostly China direct parts.

 

[Jisch]

We met yesterday to discuss options, we settled on a three piece neck (maple/walnut/maple) and simple ash wings. He has a little extra cash but wants to spend it on the electronics rather than on wood, a practical decision!

We discussed a thousand other things (frets/fretless, CA/no finish, round wound/flats, radius, neck profile), I might have been a bit overwhelming, but there's plenty of time to discuss those as they come up. We looked at the design in a cardboard mock up, the front strap button is a bit inside the 12th fret, but he's willing to chance neck dive for the aesthetic.

He wants to be engaged in every step of construction, which is cool, but will mean this is a slow build as progress will depend on our schedules lining up. On my own builds I tend to do a lot of work in short bursts before work, at lunch and after work, that won't be possible on this one.

Anyway, it's shaping up to be a good build, I'm excited to get moving. I don't have any walnut in stock that's long enough, so that's the first order of business.

 

[James Collins]

If neck dive is a concern, install the bottom strap button off center...may help some.

 

[Jisch]

Good point, we'll consider placement once we have the body done.

 

[Jisch]

I have today off, and trying really hard to not do too much, I know the owner wants to be involved in every step, but I planed down the ash and cut the walnut stringer. I feel like those are really simple things and the operation will be repeated anyway.

I was at the wood place earlier this week, they have a throw away pile and I found some strips of maple. I'll see if he wants to split the walnut and put it in the middle.

This ash is heavy, if it was mine I'd split it in half, chamber it and put some kind of laminate between the halves. I'll offer that up, as an option. The un-planed ash seemed like the color was consistent (though hard to see through the saw marks) after planing it there is some variability in the color, which I think looks cool. We didn't talk about body thickness, but I guess this one will be about 1.5" thick, which is good for heavy ash too. If we chamber maybe we can add a little thickness, though it's not necessary. The neck will show through the front, so these are just wings.

I guess the way I look at this build is that I won't charge for any labor, so doing chambering and adding that maple strip doesn't cost anything, but it adds time to the build. The owner's coming over tonight so I'll have more pics later on.

And you can see the remnants of the great coffee spill of 2018. Hint: don't have a full cop of coffee on the bench while you're working on long pieces of wood.

 

[Jisch]

The walnut was not playing along last night, we ended up going with the single piece. It's nice and straight, but when I tried to cut it lengthwise to put the maple strip it sprung out and the cut was crooked. Rather than try that again, we went with the one piece. It looks good, I'll know more after we clear off the glue. I had a bit of a revelation last night, as excited as I get about building, this is his build, I'm not going to do anything more without the owner, he should get to scrape glue etc.

 

[Jisch]

Ok, starting to get into the flow now. We spent a couple hours working on the bass.

We got the neck blank out of the clamps, squared up and the truss rod slot routed - it looks great. He's going to use two toned cocobolo as the fretboard (on the right here). He hasn't decided on fretted or fretless yet.

We got the side orientations done and split them in half to chamber them. The young dude has never used a router before, he did a good job free handing the chambers

Then we glued the upper wing back together

 

[Jisch]

We got the control cavity routed out tonight. Next we'll cut the cover out and then glue the two halves back together.

 

[Jisch]

I don't seem to be documenting this build as well as I usually do. We've been making surprisingly steady progress considering we don't have much time. I guess the good thing is that when we are working on it we are both doing different things so it's been fairly efficient. We got the neck blank roughly shaped, with the thickness and back of the headstock angle cut done (wow that's a bad picture!).

And we got the control cavity cover cut out and the lower wing glued back together.

I loaned him one of my fretless basses as he hadn't really played one before, it looks like this will be a fretless with a single Seymour Duncan P-Bass pickup and probably an Audere preamp. The neck dimensions will be similar to a Kiesel four string neck (a bit wider than a Fender neck). He wants to run flat wound strings so we'll not be doing any CA glue on the fretboard, which is a relief. I really like CA boards, but I don't enjoy the smell or the process to get a board looking good.

Next we'll start talking neck profiles, he said he likes a fat neck and we'll have to figure out body drop to accommodate fretless and the ziricote fingerboard he picked out. I remember now how much I hate ziricote, it blocks up sandpaper like nobody's business. Good thing someone else will be doing the radius sanding :-D

Funny we haven't really touched CA glue, scrapers or sandpaper yet, considering those are staples of my build process - I'm sure he'll be plenty familiar with them by the time we're done. We've pretty much been doing just the major stuff. This should start getting fun now when we put stuff together.

 

[Jisch]

We got together last night to work on this one. I cut the fingerboard to rough size then the owner sanded in the radius, this was the easiest radius I ever sanded, because I didn't do any of it.

After that we cut the drop in the neck blank to account for string height and cleaned up the wings for glue up. Next we've got to work out the body/neck connection and then it will start looking like a bass. It will be fretless after he borrowed one of my fretless basses. He said the neck was too big on my bass, so that will give us a starting point for the neck profile. He doesn't have a lot of experience with lots of basses, so making those kinds of personal decisions are not easy. I have enough different neck styles here that we'll work something out.

 

[Jisch]

Ok, I think I figured out the right combination to get things done on this one. I spent a half hour getting tools set up and steps written out, we cranked through a bunch of stuff, wiring channel, head stock cut, figured out body, etc. He's going to use a rickenbacker style bridge off an old bass, which changes the body a bit. Anyway, we're got a lot done and it's in clamps, pretty psyched.

 

[Jisch]

Out of the clamps

 

[Jisch]

We've had some scheduling difficulties, but we got together last night for an hour, we got the side dot holes drilled, and that's about it. Doing things only when he's here really highlights how long things take, measuring and setting up the jig takes a lot of time. We'll get some time this weekend and I'll take some pics. It's looking good and the owner was playing a little pretend bass with the glued up body last night, it was good to see him excited about it.

We have to thin the neck down a bit based on his neck profile preference, so that has to happen before we can glue up the fingerboard. He got a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder and an Audere Preamp, so that's the electronics that will go into this build. I dislike routing for split pickups, it just seems to be extra complexity in the whole thing, no big deal I guess.

 

[Jisch]

We got a lot done today:
- rough cut body shape
- routed for the bridge (we checked for string alignment, but there's some wiggle room)
- routed for pickups
- cut the base of the fingerboard
- finalized the bottom of the finger board
- glued the finger board on

Things are looking good!

 

[Jisch]

I just realized I didn't take any pictures, but we got the last of the big stuff done last night - drilled and cut the headstock, rough shaped the volute and rough carved the neck. There's a lot of sanding to do, but it's coming along nicely. I'll take some pics when we do some work this weekend.

 

[Jisch]

This thing is coming together nicely.

We're got a couple of hours in the shop today, at this point it's all finalizing things and fixing little things. I guess it's somewhat slow stuff, but those little nips and tucks really make the whole thing come together.

Still a lot more to do, but it's coming together.

 

[Jisch]

Given that the owner takes the bass after each session I haven't taken as many pictures as I normally would of a build. We are almost done now. We strung it up temporarily last night, resolved some minor fingerboard issues then polished the fingerboard. The last few sessions have all been centered around nips and tucks. I guess I've ended up doing a lot of the finer work while he watches, I feel a bit bad about that, but I also feel like I can do it more quickly and accurately, he doesn't mind, but I do feel a bit awkward having someone watch me like that. I think we'll have one more of those sessions then we should get to applying the finish. I am bit unsure how we'll manage that, but we'll figure it out. The owner goes back to college the week after next, so it's crunch time now. If we can start applying finish this week then I think we'll be ok (barely).

The owner has been very engaged in every step, I really haven't been doing anything when he's not here, but I did make some knobs, and I'll make the nut today as well. Lining up free time has been challenging for sure.

I think I've perfected my knob making operation, I got four good knobs out of six that I cut. These knobs are straight and centered, proving out the process. I need to get some set screws for them.

 

[Jisch]

The owner (I hate using that term but out of respect of his privacy it just seems to be the best thing to use) is due to go back to college the week after next. He's going away this weekend and it's my wife's birthday so it was unlikely we'd get any serious time in the shop. Rather than risk an unfinished bass he left the bass with me to do the finish on it. I am somewhat relieved as I was stressing a bit about finishing it in time.

He sanded in a chamfer all the way around the bass, it matches well with the angular shape. I did a bit of clean up on the pickup holes, fixed a chip out and dug a broken bit out of the headstock (argh!). Took one final look around and fixed up a few tooling marks

I fixed that little wobble in the line on the top after I took this pic

Then wiper her down and put on the first coat of Tru Oil. This marks the first time I've used up a whole bottle of Tru Oil before it turned into a gooey mess in the bottle, I must be making the right number of basses.

I'll get another couple coats on today and do a slurry coat in the morning, we should be ready to build by Monday, hopefully.

 

[Jisch]

I'm about 8 coats in now. I'll let it dry until the morning, sand it with 600 then do another 3-4 coats. It's looking really good.

 

[Jisch]

Yesterday was a good day. I spent the morning with a friend I don't see often working on the fretboard for the bass VI and spent the afternoon finishing up this bass. Unfortunately due to the issues we ran into with the CNC the afternoon got a little rushed, but we got 'er done. The owner leaves for college in a few days so it's just in time.

As seems to be the norm with this build, I didn't take many pictures but what I got are below. The bass sounds really good, surprisingly bright (but not harsh) considering the mute built into the bridge, the flatwounds and the uncoated fingerboard. The owner walked out psyched and proud, it was very rewarding for both of us, I think. For about $300 all in, he's got a unique bass that sounds and plays great. I am not a fan of this bridge (I think it's some Rick rip off or something - I'm not familiar with Ricks at all), but it has this built in mute and required way too many routes and holes. Anyway it's done and everyone is happy so all is good.

We gave the neck the standard treatment - knock down the shine with steel wool, then coat with wax.

These tuners look wonky, but boy are they smooth.

Tapering in the finish to the oiled fingerboard