New Bass in Progress Thread - Single Cut 6 string for myself!

Hey All,

Just starting a new thread for a bass in progress. After much deliberation, I've decided on the woods and specs for a singlecut 6 string for myself. Of course, it'll be my SC-1 Design with the following specs:

Neck:

- 5 Piece neck through. Center of Cobo Bolo, two maple stringers, then two pieces of Padauk
- Ebony fingerboard, 34" scale
- Thin strip of Maple between fingerboard and neck blank
- Black Limba headstock (11 degree scarf joint) with Macassar Ebony overlay and thin strip of Maple bewteen headstock and overlay

Body:

- Black Limba (Korina) body wings and back
- Highly Figured Walnut top
- Thin piece of Maple between the Limba back and Walnut top

Hardware and Electronics:

- Hipshot ultralight tuners and "A" style bridge. Haven't decided yet on either gold or black hardware
- Two Bartolini Pickups with two Aguilar OBP-1 pre-amps, wired for stereo outputs

Here are the pics of the wood that shipping today from Gallery Hardwoods (once again exceeding my expectations!):








I've had this walnut top for a while, and a different neck blank that I thought I was going to use it on, but decided instead to go this route.

I'll give the wood a while to acclimate to the climate here, then dig in with the tools and follow up often.

I've got two other basses in the works right now that I'll get out here soon as well.

:^)~

 

Yes, I always have Larry at Gallery Hardwoods glue up the neck blanks for me. It saves me a ton of time, and as a one man shop saving me time saves me money and helps me keep my costs down. And, of course, Gallery always does a great job!

There is a really simple scarf joint jig for a table saw. I made one, and the plans are at:

http://pweb.jps.net/~kmatsu/htmlpages/scarfjig.html

I had to replace my 10" blade on my table saw with a 12" blade to get all the way through a 6 string (or more) neck blank, though.

Also, the body shape on the walnut isn't mine, it's a Nordstrand (Larry puts the outlines on there so you can see how the grain patterns might look on a body... I'll see if I can send him an outline of my design for future use...) My singlecut design is:



:^)~

 

For what Gallery Hardwoods charges me to glue up and mill the neck blank to my specs is less than I'm willing to figure in for my labor time. It is not that much more to have them glue it up and mill it than it is for me to just order the wood for a laminated neck through and do it myself. I figure it would take me about an hour total to do it myself.

I was fortunate with my table saw (nice Craftsman one), in that it has enough clearance for the 12" blade. Of course, I had to make a new zero clearance blade guard insert thingy (the actual name of the darn thing excapes me now...). I only needed the blade to end up out of the table surface an extra 1/4" for 6 string neck blanks. It was close, but I got it to go without any metal shavings flying around.... just make sure you get one to fit the arbor on your saw. Some are 5/8" and some are 1" arbors.

 

With the 10" blade, mine gives me almost but not quite 3 3/8", and I order my 6 string neck blanks at 3.5" wide.

 

After allowing the wood to acclimate for about 2 weeks, I started taking tools to it to bring the bass to life. Here are a few additional pics of the wood blanks, and the scarf joint.


The macassar ebony headstock overlay and maple highlight to go between headstock and ebony overlay:



The Pau Ferro fingerboard and maple underlayment:



... and finally, the 11 degree scarf joint cut, glued and clamped.



It is starting to take shape!

:^)~

 

Yes, I do have it in my possesion.

Here is a pic I took of it on my work bench along with the other wood parts pictured above.



You can see if you compare the two pics that there are some slight differences between the two sets. The origianl pic, which I used originally was from Gallery Hardwoods, and is a pic of the set you have. I was using that picture because it had been wetted down to show the grain, and I already had the pic so why take another one as the two sets are almost identical?

Larry did tell me when I bought the walnut that they had been able to cut two sets of tops form the same log so there was another set out there that was almost identical.

:^)~

 

Cool! As soon as I saw the pic of the walnut I ordered it right away. It is such beautiful wood, I can't wait to get this baby finished!

:^)~