Looking for some quick feedback on my first fretboard

[Fynn]

What did you cut those slots with?

Fret slots should be 0.6 mm wide, not every saw blade (japanese or not) is thin enough. A fret saw is one of the few specific tools you can't realy build without.

A small hacksaw. Very small teeth and it is pretty damn thin, but also a little too dull probably. Not very easy to use anyways. Atleast when you are as inexperienced as I am. Which is why I'm going to get a new saw tomorrow. But the slots that were straight looked fine and I could push some fretwire into it by hand without it immediately popping back out, which made me assume that it's probably fine if I were to actually hammer the frets in afterwards, especially with a little bit of glue and sawdust maybe.
I saw that there are specific fretsaws that you can buy online with thicknesses of 0.5 up to like 0.64mm or something like that. I was going to make sure that the new saw wasn't thicker than that!

 

[Fynn]

Quick update:
Today I checked all the fretslots again and I'm within at least 0.5mm for each fret. Some are pretty bang on, but none are horribly wrong and everything looks straight and tidy.
I decided to leave the fret slots for now and buy a better saw online. The hardware store didn't have any good saws. However, the saw that I used before is actually 0.53mm thick. So, it would surely suffice, if it wasn't so dull. Hence why I'm just going to buy a proper fretsaw online.

I did however plane the neck today and cut a truss rod channel.

I cut the slot with a table saw set very very low. The truss rod doesn't quite fit yet, but it's like 1mm off, so I was thinking I'll just take the rest out by hand slowly and carefully. I did a bit with a square file that fits pretty well in the slot, but I'm not quite done yet.

Cut the angle where the headstock will go as you can see in the above picture. It's not perfectly flat, but I'll glue the headstock to the back anyways. Just like Carl does it. Although Carl puts the truss rod deeper I think. I'm not entirely sure, but on all the pictures it looks like the truss rod on a Carl Thompson is almost right in the middle of the neck. I don't think I'll bother with that aslong as this more simple method works fine.

 

[Fynn]

I'm done gluing the fretboard to the neck. The glue joint looks pretty solid to me. At least I'm proud enough for my first ever attempt!

Now I'm trying to figure out the headstock situation. I believe I said before that I want to do a sort of Carl Thompson style headstock too.
I'm trying to cut a middle piece from some of the mahogany that I have left. Then I'll cut two wings for the headstock. The sort of scarf joint from the back of the neck.

I have yet to cut the frets, but I have a proper fretsaw now. I also bought a hand router that is for freehand use, but has an addon piece that makes it easy to rout from the top down.

 

[Fynn]

Very quick update:

It's beginning to look alot more like a bass!

The body is a bit short (the bridge does fit comfortably, but I think it's a bit stubby looking), so I'll glue a piece of mahogany to the bottom of it. I imagine that'll look quite neat, and it will look a little less like the typical Carl Thompson.

 

[Fynn]

For those who're interested, here's some more of my progress.
I'm quite proud of how well I got the shape of the headstock done. I'm still thinking about whether I want to put a veneer over the headstock, like CT basses usually have, or if I just don't bother with it.
I do like how it looks so far, so maybe I'll just pass on that.

Here's the neck to body joint

And all the shaping I still have left on the body

 

[Fynn]

I've been putting in some more work. It's a slow process, but I'd say I've gotten quite far recently.

I'm still going to make that control cavity a bit smoother, but that's the beginning of me making room for all the hardware and electronics.
And I still have to spend more time in making the upper horn a bit smoother. It's real finicky work in-between the neck and the horn

 

[Beej]

Looks good - what will your bridge string spacing be?

 

[Fynn]

Looks good - what will your bridge string spacing be?

The nut width at the moment is 41mm and the fretboard at it's thickest point is about 58mm. Whatever that'll amount to, when I get the strings spaced as far as I can, without the risk of pulling them off the fretboard by accident
I never really considered that you could go for a specific string spacing. I never felt it made much difference to my playing. I mainly care about the neck profile. Though when I find that it's not quite working right, I will slim the neck down some more.

 

[Fynn]

It's coming to an end. Still need to find some good screws for the cover and need to find the pickup spacers that I bought some while ago. Then hammer in the frets, put in the tuners, and make everything neat and tidy

 

[Fynn]

Sadly I don't have any pictures of today, because my phone died hours into building. I do have two questions, and a couple of updates though.

First of all, I finished installing all the frets, tried to make the fretboard as level as I could, made the neck fit perfectly into my hand, cut the nut roughly (not final dimensions, I just cut the nut so it would hold the strings in the correct positions), and recut the spot for the bridge a bit.
I found out that the bridge in it's lowest position, is still too high for the action that I wanted, or that was really playable to be honest. I saw that some people on some basses would put the bridge into a sort of cavity exactly it's size, so it would be a bit lower. I considered doing that before, but I thought the neck and the fingerboard were far enough off the rest of the body, that it would not pose a problem. Well, that didn't work, so I ended up removing the bridge again and cutting a little pocket for it, so now the bridge is the correct height.
I also cut off the very end piece of the fretboard, because as you can see in previous pictures, there was a small corner missing. That broke off at some point, so I cut off a straight piece and glued a piece of walnut into it's place. Rounded that piece, and now it looks and feels better than before.

Now to my questions.
I found some Osmo wax oil, which apparently can be used for the finish on my bass too. Would that be a valid option? It's meant for protecting furniture and hardwood floors, which some people on the internet said also made it suitable for instruments. I don't doubt that it will work, I would just like to know if someone had any experience with something similar before?

My second question is about the frets. Despite my best efforts to make the fretboard as straight as possible, I can see a sort of valley in the fretboard. When I put the straightedge on it before putting the frets on, it looked perfectly fine. I couldn't really see any light going underneath. I checked the frets now, and they are definitely not all level. I don't have the trussrod tightened at all and I didn't have any strings on while checking if they were level. I did order a file for leveling all of the frets, but I fear that there might be too much of a discrepancy between some frets, and I would have to grind them down too far.
What's the correct procedure? I thought about just removing the frets that pose a problem, and sand down that bit of fingerboard. I have enough fretwire left for maybe 7 new frets, if I were to damage any of them beyond repair.
If I pull any of the frets, do I definitely have to refill that slot, or get a fretwire with a bigger tang, or should the fret technically fit in that slot again? The slots are very tight and the fretwire sits in there very very tight. My assumption would be, that I could probably just remove it and put a new one in atleast one or two times, before the slot gets too big. Is that assumption reasonable?

 

[Beej]

I've used Osmo and I love the feel of it. It's not a super durable finish, but it's also easy to touch up. I applied it over an epoxy grain fill on this bass: Winter Build Off 2022 - The Crook

Regarding your fretboard - I always try to completely level the board before fretting so that after the frets go in, there will only be a few touchups and little leveling and crowning is needed. The more uneven your fretboard is, the more that unevenness will have to come out of the frets during the leveling process.

In your case, I'd probably see if I could level them as-is and if they ended up being ground down too much, then I'd remove all of them and true up the fretboard before re-fretting. I don't find it fruitful to try to level the board with just a few frets removed. It's honestly not that much more work to pull all the frets and re-level the board to get it true. You can put frets back, but they often get dented, twisted and warped when being removed, so I would not count on reusing them. Fretwire is cheap and it's worth getting clean fresh wire for fretting.

I would also advised gluing in your frets to help seal up the wood in the slots. It doesn't make them much harder to remove when they are glued in.

 

[Fynn]

I've used Osmo and I love the feel of it. It's not a super durable finish, but it's also easy to touch up. I applied it over an epoxy grain fill on this bass: Winter Build Off 2022 - The Crook

Regarding your fretboard - I always try to completely level the board before fretting so that after the frets go in, there will only be a few touchups and little leveling and crowning is needed. The more uneven your fretboard is, the more that unevenness will have to come out of the frets during the leveling process.

In your case, I'd probably see if I could level them as-is and if they ended up being ground down too much, then I'd remove all of them and true up the fretboard before re-fretting. I don't find it fruitful to try to level the board with just a few frets removed. It's honestly not that much more work to pull all the frets and re-level the board to get it true. You can put frets back, but they often get dented, twisted and warped when being removed, so I would not count on reusing them. Fretwire is cheap and it's worth getting clean fresh wire for fretting.

I would also advised gluing in your frets to help seal up the wood in the slots. It doesn't make them much harder to remove when they are glued in.

Cool, thanks for the tips!
That finish on your build looks exactly like what I was going for!

I checked how far the frets are off, and some of them are a tiny bit off. It's very close to how far the frets on my Warwick were off, and that bass is factory built. The bass is actually playable as is right now, with only a couple of the very last frets causing any problematic buzz. I will level them tomorrow with a file that I ordered, and then check if it works out.

I'm wondering how I would level the fretboard, if I had to remove all the frets again. As I have said before in this thread, I have a handheld electric planer. But I fear that thing would splinter the wood to pieces along the fretslots. Should I maybe fill all the fretslots up again, or should I just try to sand the fretboard level by hand?

 

[Beej]

When leveling the board, I remove the nut, and I use an old level with a very flat face and stick a strip of sandpaper on it. It's important that whatever you use to sand it, is long and true. Mine is 24" and works really well to true up the board. I use a long piece of sandpaper from a beltsander and stick it to the level with double sided tape. This permits a very flat long surface so that long strokes will produce a flat surface. I sand the whole thing roughly to the radius of the board, and then I run the long sanding block down the string paths themselves to make sure they are all flat and true. I check it with a straightedge and then install the frets.

Hammering in frets is just fine (and has literally worked for centuries) but many of us find that installing with a fret press helps to increase consistency of the installation.

Side note, I'd keep that handheld electric planer away from instrument building. Those things work great for creating an inconsistent surface.

 

[Fynn]

Well, I used it to get a rough start. It's definitely not easy to work with, unless you maybe have alot of experience with one. But yeah, it's really easy to mess up with a handheld planer like that.
I used that planer to make the electronics cover too. I had a piece of Wenge, that was about 2cm thick. Took the planer to it on it's most extreme setting, and it took care of thinning that piece out within a couple minutes. Got to about 5mm. I was actually considering just buying an extra piece that already had the correct thickness, but I wanted to experiment and was pleasantly suprised with the result.
Also one of the few tools that I cannot use without ear protection. Generally you want protection for alot of powertools, but that planer is so incredibly loud, it starts to hurt your ears within a few seconds. Definitely need protection for that.

 

[Fynn]

For the few people that care, heres another quick update.
This picture is right after I applied the first coat of Osmo wax oil. I leveled the frets and got the action pretty low. I can still cut the nut a bit more, and probably get a tiny bit lower on the bridge too, but it's pretty playable as is.
I will test it a bit now, and if the frets become a problem, I will remove all of them again, sand the fretboard flat again, and put in new frets.
Besides that, I think everything it pretty good right now. It's a little rough around the edges in some places, but I didn't expect to make everything perfect first try.

It took me quite a long time to do the final sanding on the body, because there were plenty of deeper scratches from when I filed the body to its final shape. Got a bunch of blisters on my hands now, but atleast there's no real visible scratches left.

 

[Videojunkie]

It's looking fantastic!

 

[Fynn]

I ended up putting three coats of oil on it now. Since I took the last picture, I took care of the fine adjustments. Intonation is good now, battery is in, got a Levy's strap for it, and noticed one more issue. Some of the last, and I believe the 11th fret, are still a tiny bit high. It's so little, that a quarter turn on the saddle would eliminate all buzz, but I'd rather have it as low as possible, than compromise by making the action higher.
I could also probably go a bit lower on the nut, but I'll see if that's needed.

It's actually a bit heavier than I expected for being a 32" bass, but I guess that's what you get for installing a Kahler bridge.
Balancing however is near perfect. It sits pretty straight on my knee without me holding onto it, and it doesn't move at all with a strap on.

As you might be able to see, the G strings end is at a quite big angle. I tried to put the bridge on as straight as possible, but I probably shifted it a tiny bit to the right, while drilling the holes for the screws.
That wouldn't be a problem at all if I would've gotten the more expensive Kahler, but 200€ extra for adjustable saddles, wasn't worth it for me...

All in all, it turned out better than I expected, but still not without any trouble.