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Latest build

Y

Yvarg

Mar 10, 2007
837
53
Lake Forest, CA
#1
It's been a while since I worked on my first build because I've been busy with getting all sorts of miscellaneous things done (leaving myself with no free time :rolleyes: ). Anyway, however-many months later I'm out here, living in Phoenix with the incredible opportunity to attend Roberto Venn! :hyper: All the good things I'd heard about this class are definitely true; I love it! For my electric project there I've decided to build a four string that is loosely-based on a Rickenbacker 4005 (I say loosely due to some of the limitations the instructors put on what you can and can't do for your first two instruments). I'll be posting my progress here as often as I can, and without further ado, the pictures:

Ebony fingerboard all slotted (the white strip is masking tape with a center line drawn on it):
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Top being glued to the body:
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(once again, that line is a drawn on center line, not a poor glue joint)

Pictures were taken on my phone because that's my only camera right now. Oh yeah here's the specs so far:

Four strings
34" scale
20 frets
Maple set neck
Ebony fingerboard
Ash body with burled maple top
Tortoise binding
Kahler tremolo
TV Jones Thunder'tron pickups with a separate volume and tone for each and a series/parallel switch (wiring may change)
 
#2
Finally made some progress on this one:

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gluing the fingerboard to the neck

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a rough neck taper cut, ready to be cleaned up on the router

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a shot of the headstock cap; a burl bookmatch from the body scraps

More to come on this one soon! :)
 
#6
Hey RV!
I went there in fall 2003.
What instructors are there now?
You've got to try and get them to let you do a tighter radius on your FB. That 12" to 16" compound sucks for bass.

Is this stupid sander still there?
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H Group was all bassist. We were awesome...
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Joe Vallee rules!
 
#7
XylemBassGuitar said:
That's really cool that you're attending Roberto Venn Yvarg!

Do you plan on becoming a professional luthier after you are finished?
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i would love to be a professional luthier, but i don't know how things will play out after the class. if nothing else i plan on building instruments alongside a job with a steadier income. i'm really just waiting until the class comes to an end to see how things play out. :)

Noah, The instructors here right now are Kris Olson, John Reuter, Bart Applewhite (is he considered an instructor, or just staff?), William Eaton, Joe Vallee, Troy Bolton, Matt Baker, Jason Kostal, and Don Windham.

That sander is probably still there, but in a slightly different form. They've got about four of them, but none have the motor mounted above like that. it looks to me like the school has had the same power tools for ages, but they rebuild them with whatever parts they have lying around when one breaks. Hence why one of the bandsaws has a power lever that has a "reverse" option (looks just like one from my high school's old planer). XD i'll take a picture of what all the sanders look like now tomorrow.

That's awesome that all the bass people were together! There are only two other people making basses in my class and one of them has never played bass. is that bass on the far right chambered? They won't let me put an F-hole in my bass for my first instrument. :hmm:
 
#8
The bass on the right IS chambered. That was old Beardy Matt. Which reminds me... Don't forget to put side dots in!! They let us choose 3 options for tops. 1/8" "drop top" ala fender, or a 1/4 flat top for binding or chambering. I'm having a hard time remembering all the rules... I do remember the no FB binding on electrics rule. I think they may have had even more rules long ago. I used to work for Terry McInturff and he went to RV in like '77 or something. He told me they had to wind their own pickups and that he got some gibson humbuckers somehow and secretly installed them and Bob Venn yelled at him. Ha! Is that old classical guitar still hanging in the lecture room? Oh RV... They said it wasn't guitar fantasy camp... they were wrong. Ahhhh... Good times
 
#9
Haha, awesome. i don't know if the classical guitar you're talking about is still there, but there's a crapload of guitars (or more correctly, parts of guitars) hung up everywhere and such. i took a picture of one of the sanders for you, but i'm having a bit of computer troubles right now (hence my all lowercase "i"s) so i'll have to upload it later. Maybe i'm snap a few pictures of the place for you and upload them while i'm at it. Lol, Roberto Venn is definitely MY guitar fantasy camp; i'm loving it so far. :bassist:
 
#10
I've been working on this one a lot, just not taking a lot of pictures, but here's a few blurry ones for those interested:

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Neck pocket

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Ebony inlaid into the body to imitate a 4005 f-hole

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Headstock pretty much finished

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Control cavity with magnets epoxied in

Noah, I was looking around the other day and I found that sander you have a picture of; so yes, it is still here, but no one uses it. XP
 
#12
Yeah, I've heard that there have been quite a few changes over the years. There is a guy at the school right now who is a graduate from the 80's and is using Roberto Venn's equipment to build a few bass bodies for about two weeks and he's mentioned that the techniques we're using are pretty different from when he was in class and a few teachers had to show him a couple methods for gluing that the school uses now.

A few more pictures

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Cheesy bass clef inlay at the twelfth fret (I had to figure out something to do with this pearl . . .)

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Bridge pickup and tremolo cavities routed

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Tortoise shell pattern binding glued in

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Some of the hardware arranged to get an idea of how it will look when assembled

I promise to get some real pictures of this bass once it's finished instead of these crappy cameraphone ones. :)
 
#15
Cool looking binding. Although it looks in the one pic like the ledge was deeper than the binding thickness. Maybe it's just the picture? If not, how are you going to deal with that?



I was surprised this past weekend when I saw a similar Ric guitar. It had a generous roundover on the front edge, and binding on the back.
 
#17
Pilot at roberto-venn they teach the students to route the ledge a bit deeper so the wood can be sanded away in order keep the binding thickness consistent around the perimeter. Rather than scraping the binding and risking an inconsistent thickness.
 
#18
gfried84 said:
Pilot at roberto-venn they teach the students to route the ledge a bit deeper so the wood can be sanded away in order keep the binding thickness consistent around the perimeter. Rather than scraping the binding and risking an inconsistent thickness.
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Thanks. Shows how little I know about binding. So, when you sand down the wood to the binding level, I imagine you can't avoid scuffing the binding a bit, so then maybe it gets glossed up again when you polish the final finish? Or, do you mask the binding when sanding the sides? Or are you just ridiculously careful when sanding?
 

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