I can get another fretboard out of the board this came from, though it would just be 50/50 with a pretty straight line, no wave.That fingerboard is soooo cool! It almost deserves to be hung on the wall by itself
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New Build - Five String single cutaway fretless
- Thread starter Jisch
- Start date
As I mentioned above I did a quick check and found that the bridge was going to be bottomed out so I planed down the wings a bit a few weeks back. After glue up the neck blank was proud by a little over a 1/16". I figured this would be quick work for the orbital sander, and it was, except I couldn't get close to the fretboard part of the neck. I ended up with a little ramp that presented a challenge. I could have brought out the router, but that seemed like overkill and the possibility of a slip which gouged the body was too much for me to think about. I thought about using scrapers, but it's hard to get a good angle that close to another piece of wood.
I came up with the idea of using a router bit in the dremel, while it's far from a precision tool (this base is ridiculous!) I thought I could control it well enough to fix this ramp thing. Here you can see the problem, the dremel and the fence I clamped to the bass to give me a straight line:
The fence probably could have been a smidge further back, but I can take care of this with a scraper easily, and I didn't create any tearouts:
I need to do another check, but it looks like the saddles won't be bottomed out now, I am considering putting a piece of black laminate under the fingerboard, so that would help even more (if needed).
I came up with the idea of using a router bit in the dremel, while it's far from a precision tool (this base is ridiculous!) I thought I could control it well enough to fix this ramp thing. Here you can see the problem, the dremel and the fence I clamped to the bass to give me a straight line:
The fence probably could have been a smidge further back, but I can take care of this with a scraper easily, and I didn't create any tearouts:
I need to do another check, but it looks like the saddles won't be bottomed out now, I am considering putting a piece of black laminate under the fingerboard, so that would help even more (if needed).
Just my 2 cents but I think a less drastic version of the 2nd one you posted would be awesome.
Ok, side dots and lines color selection time. This will be a unlined fretless, but I will be installing fret markers on the side of the fretboard (not visible from the front) and also side dots in the "standard" fretted positions. Honestly this scares me a bit, I haven't played an unlined fretless in years (30 years), it will be like taking the training wheels off.
My idea is to install three different colors - the side dots will be black, the "minor" markers (1,2, 4 etc) will be black walnut and the "major" markers (5,7,9 etc) will be ebony. I'm hoping that there will be enough contrast to see the difference between these two types of wood, but I guess with the side dots installed it's not vital. If I was to use something lighter for the minor markers I worry that the lack of contrast will make them disappear - I had that problem one time before. I wish the "white" part of the cocobolo fretboard was lighter.
Just more musings and wasted electrons
My idea is to install three different colors - the side dots will be black, the "minor" markers (1,2, 4 etc) will be black walnut and the "major" markers (5,7,9 etc) will be ebony. I'm hoping that there will be enough contrast to see the difference between these two types of wood, but I guess with the side dots installed it's not vital. If I was to use something lighter for the minor markers I worry that the lack of contrast will make them disappear - I had that problem one time before. I wish the "white" part of the cocobolo fretboard was lighter.
Just more musings and wasted electrons
More wasted electrons - I pulled out the Alumnitone pickups, one has a date of 3/15 on it, the other has a date of 6/15, the graphics on the boxes are different and one of the pickups has heat shrink tubing over the wires, the other does not. I can't see any other differences between them.
Looking at spacing for everything, starting to get there.
I started working on the volute, needs thinning out, but it's getting there.
It looks like a half inch deep route will be the ticket for these alumitones.
On the pickup route, I think I'm going to do a non-rectangle route. I want to make it as small as possible, there is not much depth to these things and I think it will look better with less material removed. Really except for the ears and where the wires attach there isn't anything under the magnet.
The Alumitone pickups look pretty much like a table and when installed to the correct height you will be able to see under the top of the table. I didn't like the way this looked with a rectangular route (note: I might have been able to make this route slightly narrower and more square edged to eliminate some of the viewable hole:
I looked closely at the pickup and looked for the smallest possible hole that would work with it. I came up with this (you need that big part of the "T" for the wiring harness):
This looks much better:
Of course this was poorly executed using a handheld drill and a dremel with a router bit in it in a 2x4. I'll have to think about how to do this on the bass. I think the dremel is still in play, I'll definitely use a drill press, maybe I'll set up some fences for the dremel, but it's actually not that hard to control manually. I guess I'll do another test and see how close to perfect I can get it, I wasn't trying that hard this time around.
I looked closely at the pickup and looked for the smallest possible hole that would work with it. I came up with this (you need that big part of the "T" for the wiring harness):
This looks much better:
Of course this was poorly executed using a handheld drill and a dremel with a router bit in it in a 2x4. I'll have to think about how to do this on the bass. I think the dremel is still in play, I'll definitely use a drill press, maybe I'll set up some fences for the dremel, but it's actually not that hard to control manually. I guess I'll do another test and see how close to perfect I can get it, I wasn't trying that hard this time around.
I save way too much cutoff wood, I have these tiny pieces in various boxes in my basement, really it's almost to hoarding levels. The problem is that often when I need just one piece of wood for something I find it, which supports my hoarding ways.
I was planning on bookmatching a piece of stripey walnut from the same wood that I have in the body as a laminate for the headstock, then as I was digging around I found this piece of walnut leftover from an earlier build. It's got some pretty good figuring in it. I'll work it to the right thickness and see what I get, but this is the contender for the headstock laminate now:
I also cut off the end of the fingerboard, a bit of overhang:
Next up is side dots and fret markers. I need to some tests for the fret markers. I think the challenge will be cutting to precisely the same depth for each one. I'll use a fret saw so it will go nice and slow, but I don't want any tearout and I want them all to end at exactly the same depth off the front of the fingerboard.
I was planning on bookmatching a piece of stripey walnut from the same wood that I have in the body as a laminate for the headstock, then as I was digging around I found this piece of walnut leftover from an earlier build. It's got some pretty good figuring in it. I'll work it to the right thickness and see what I get, but this is the contender for the headstock laminate now:
I also cut off the end of the fingerboard, a bit of overhang:
Next up is side dots and fret markers. I need to some tests for the fret markers. I think the challenge will be cutting to precisely the same depth for each one. I'll use a fret saw so it will go nice and slow, but I don't want any tearout and I want them all to end at exactly the same depth off the front of the fingerboard.
I used a scraper to get the bass side of the fingerboard flush, then remarked where the fret markers will go along with a limit line, I really don't want these showing from the front:
I did a test run with the fret saw. I free-handed the first one, the second one I used a 90 degree block to hold the saw against as I cut, that's definitely the way to go, I'll cut these at lunch time:
and finally I marked out the routes for the pickups on the body. These will go down 1/2", I have a bit of an issue with interference with the control cavity. I can't take out all the wood from the cavity or I will remove wood needed to hold the pickup in place. I'll leave those as bump outs in the control cavity, should be no problem, but I'm glad I saw it before I started removing wood!
I did a test run with the fret saw. I free-handed the first one, the second one I used a 90 degree block to hold the saw against as I cut, that's definitely the way to go, I'll cut these at lunch time:
and finally I marked out the routes for the pickups on the body. These will go down 1/2", I have a bit of an issue with interference with the control cavity. I can't take out all the wood from the cavity or I will remove wood needed to hold the pickup in place. I'll leave those as bump outs in the control cavity, should be no problem, but I'm glad I saw it before I started removing wood!
May want to re-check the 3rd, 4th, and 5th lines from the end of the board. Double-check 'em all just to be sure.
Indeed there were some bad lines at the bottom of the board, I can only surmise that something moved as I was marking it, glad to have you guys looking out for me! I fixed them, slotted and filled them with black laminate. I'll be psyched to have this step finished, it's been weighing on my mind a bit.
I can't sand the edges back until I get the side dots installed, but it looks pretty good. I'll have a bit of clean up to do - there was a tiny bit of tear out on a few of them, should be easy to resolve. I hate leaving it like this, I know once I sand it the makers will all look clean, but right now they are "blobby" and that bugs me :-D
I got the control cavity routed, going over to the shop to use forstner bits to pull out the majority of the material. Somehow I got a little skip in the straight side, I'll have to see how to address that once I get the cover made.
