Neck through p style build

The body is going to be a P style.
Body wood:
Ribbon mahogany with a spalt maple top with black binding. Haven't decided to whether use plastic or wood binding.
Neck:
Five piece laminated flame maple and genuine mahogany neck through.
Pickups:
Two home made dual coils.
Electronics:
Two Uncle Fluffy clone Sting Ray pre amps. Each pickup will have it's own treble and bass control.
Hardware will be all black.

I have the wood thickness sanded and ready for gluing.



Thought I would add my score of some bees wing bubinga.

 

Don't know how to kink a post but,
I got the idea from the posts in "PCBs for DIY clone 2-band Preamps" threads starting at Post #117 page 6.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the body will be chambered with an "F" hole.

Tedward

 

Did some more sanding on the mahogany and drew out the body on the mahogany.
My thickness sander in action (best tool I built).

Getting ready to draw the chambered areas. I needed to make sure that I left enough wood to mount the pickups.

With the chamber and control cover cavity located I can hog it out.


Tedward

 

Got the wings chambered and ready to clean up.



Tedward

 

I hope I didn't get carried away with the chambers.
I'm going into new territory with this bass like dual pre amps, heavy chambering, and carbon fiber Tow for stiffening the neck. Carbon fiber Tow is thousands of carbon fiber strands running parallel to each other in a bundle and when soaked with epoxy and dried in a strip it becomes very stiff. I ordered 6K Tow (6 thousand strands).
It comes in 1K to 80K bundles. I think 80K would be over kill. Well, it's Friday night and time to relax with the wife.

Tedward

 

Here's what I have so far.
The top glued and sanded

Cutting the wings

Cutting the neck



Looks like I need a new blade.

Tedward

 

I have been able to get some more work done. After cutting the neck wrong and trying to salvage it I decided to start over and build a new neck. This time I did all the measurements and marked the blank and took a break for about a half hour. I rechecked everything and did the cutting. This time everything turned out right.
The truss rod channel has been cut and the two slots for the carbon fiber tow.

When I ordered the tow I told the tech what I was going to do with it she said the I should to put the tow under tension so, I had to think about how to install it. Thinking about it for a while I came up with a system. I filled the slot with slow curing epoxy, tied the tow to a screw at one end and wrapped it around a small brad at the other end and back to the screw and over to the other side for the same thing. The blue tape is to keep the epoxy from running out the end of the slot.




Tedward

 

jmorbita, as I mentioned earlier I'm doing things different on this bass. I decided to use Tow when I read about Bruce Johnson using it. The shipping is about the same. Instead of a 24" rod it comes on a spool. I don't know if it is stronger than a rod. With the Tow you can get from 1k to 80k. Meaning that k stands for 1000. So 1000 strands to 80,000 strands. Each strand is a continual length in the Tow and in a rod the pieces are short and laid out so that they are all parallel to each other and then glued. As to Tow being stronger than a rod would depend on what the comparison is. Say, 1k Tow to a 1/2" x 1/2" rod 24" long I think the rod would be stronger. Now, I'm talking in terms of tensile strength. I'm using two rows of 6k so, that is 12k. In stiffness I'm not sure which would be stronger 12k Tow or 1/8" x 1/4" rod. Both are 24" long and the Tow is "wetted" with epoxy and tensioned to dry.

I'm using the Tow to stiffen and stabilize the neck. I have noticed that when I use carbon fiber dead spots are eliminated.

I was able to get the fret board cut yesterday. I'm not sure what to do next, though. final shape the body then glue the top on and use the body as a jig to rout the top. Or, shape the top glue it to the body and use it a the jig to rout the body.




Tedward

 

rubis, I decided to think out side of the box. My builds seam to start with finding a nice piece of wood for the top and then I go from there. Thanks for the best of luck.

Binding time. I chose the black plastic for this one, mostly to stay within the budget. The channel was routed with the Stew Mac binding router guide. As you can see in the pic I attached a wood block to the base to make the base larger so that it wont rock. I love this attachment!

I used the gap filler super glue because it dries slower and gives me time to get the tape on before it sets up. I run a bead of glue about three inches long and then tape about two and a half inches and run another bead and so on.

After a couple of hours to dry the tape is removed and a scraper is used to remove the tape and glue residue. Now it's ready to be glued to the body.


Tedward

 

Was able to squeeze some time in to have fun in the garage. The fret board is slotted and shaped.



In orde to keep the fret board from slipping during glue up I use pins. 1/2" x 19 brads will do the job. The first thing to do is to drive the brad in about half way.

Cut the brad about 1/16" tall.

The brad is pulled out and inserted upside down with the point up.

Now the fret board is lined up with the marks on the neck and pressed down to set the brads into the board and then pulled off. The board will now stay in place while being clamped

A shot of the head stock.

I did get the body routed to final shape and ready for sanding. I must say that I do like the look.

Tedward

 

More progress.
Got the neck shaped. Went with the Jazz neck dimensions.


Mixed up some epoxy with black powder to fill the voids in the head stock plate.



Tedward