Lets start this build again 5 String 35" Maple

[josiah goldfish]

Very nice, love the originality

 

[Snort]

Just weighed it, comes in at 6.6 Lbs so maybe 7.25 with hardware.

 

[Snort]

Thanks Josiah, I am making a lot up as I go along.

OK question,

How do you sand inside contours i.e. between the neck and the upper and lower horns, I would love to know of a good tool to help with this?

 

[lbridenstine]

Thanks Josiah, I am making a lot up as I go along.

OK question,

How do you sand inside contours i.e. between the neck and the upper and lower horns, I would love to know of a good tool to help with this?

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You could get one of those and use it on an electric drill. I had to wrap duct tape around it before putting the sand paper rolls on so they'd stop falling off.

 

[Snort]

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You could get one of those and use it on an electric drill. I had to wrap duct tape around it before putting the sand paper rolls on so they'd stop falling off.

I have a similar set of those for my drill press, and they work great for the inside curves, but I am looking for something that will conform to the roundovers without putting flats on them. I saw some inflatable ones today in the Lee Valley catalogue, has anyone tried those yet?

If this makes any sense I need a sanding drum shaped like an apple core to fit the nice round over on the inside curve.

 

[Snort]

Tonight I drilled out the pup routes, then realized my dremel router base wont go into the recess enough as the end of the fretboard gets in the way, I may have to dremel this front one out freehand. I so need one of those mini router bases for dremel from stew mac.

 

[Snort]

So this week ive made some progress, the pickup routs have been completed

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The bridge has been tried on for size and the mount holes drilled the ground wire will go under some aluminium tape which will then be covered with walnut veneer


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Today I cut some paper templates so that i could then cut the walnut veneer

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The first piece of veneer was steam ironed on

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The second piece being cut to fit

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And the second veneer steam ironed on, there is still some trimming to be carried out

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So the walnut will hopefully become darker with a few coats of poly, I will most likely put on a few sealer coats soon and then I need to make a false scratchplate out of 1/4 maple which will be left natural colour. The idea will be to surround the pickups so you dont see the screw bulges, I need to come up with a few ideas for this before committing to it.

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After reviewing these photos I am not so sure I like the veneer! at the very least I need to make the edge distance symetrical as well as trimming the veneer on both upper and lower horns before I go any further, lol next week it may all be stripped off again.

 

[Snort]

Well it took me 2 hours to get the last trace of glue off, but at last the veneer is gone, I think at this stage I will just use it for some highlights.

 

[Snort]

So its back to the drawing board, removal of the veneer also took all of the dye off, so that will need to be re applied, in the meantime I put some hardware on and tried some strings on it to check the layout for the nut

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So now I am in the process of making a maple scratch plate to go around those ugly pickups

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The bridge pieces are held in with only one screw, hence they look a little unaligned in the photo, I noticed tonight one of the grub screws is missing from the saddle adjustment, does anyone know if they are easily sourced?

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The nut is not fitted yet but it is on my list of things to do very soon. this is a piece of brass, I ordered some brass nut blanks online but they were a little uncharismatic, so this piece is actualy the bolt of a brass gate bolt, shaved and filed down it should make a good nut.

I took the oportunity to weigh the bass with hardware on tonight it comes in at 8.6 lbs, who would have thought pickups tuners and strings would weigh so much

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Yep, my latest bass went from about 6.5 to 9 lbs after the electronics, hardware ad strings were installed.

Looks great! Good source for your brass nut.

 

[Snort]

Thanks Geoff appreciate the comment. Any suggestions as to how I could reduce the weight at this stage? I havn't added electronics or scratch plate yet so its about to get even heavier. Maybe 9lbs at completion!!!!

I played an Ibanez 5 string at long and Mcquade the other night and it instilled in me the beauty of a thin neck and how much material I might still shave off of my neck. There is a varience in thickness I have to address it goes from 1.007" at the body join to 1.017 at the nut. So I will even that out with the scrapers tonight. Do you think I could safely take much more off? I guess it is all dependant on the truss rod depth?

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Yeah, depending on the truss rod depth you could go much thinner. I normally shoot for between 0.75 and 0.875" for the bench depth, depending on the carve profile I'm going for. That would shave some weight, but likely not a lot.

Weight reduction ideas would be lighter hardware, chambered body, thinner body, smaller body, etc. These are not all easy to do on a completed instrument.

 

[Snort]

So Ive been off sick for a while and not able to do much in the way of physical work on the bass. So last weekend I stained the wings, and tidied up some routes, plus a couple of initial coats of poly on the wings.

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I have taken the bridge down 2 mm to compensate a little for the metal tape and the walnut veneer that will go onto there soon.