New first build thread. Second build?

[kuso]

Since my lack of planning caused my first build to turn into nicely-ish routed firewood, I'm starting another one. Let's call it build 1.5.

To make things easier on myself, I will be making a ever so slightly modified copy of my old Galveston 5-string design and rough dimensions.

So, 5 string, 35" scale length neck-through design. Body was originally going to be pine with a cherry top, however I had to plane the pine much thinner than I anticipated, so it's now a cherry top, pine middle and mahogany back. Didn't have enough cherry to do the back as well.

To offset the darker body, I'm going to attempt a three-piece maple/oak?/maple neck. Not 100% on the oak, but something darker in the middle.

Hardware is slightly budget-friendly. Didn't go for the bare cheapest hardware, but didn't spring for any Hipshot bridge or Schaller tuners. Single soapbar-esque pickup (guitarpartscentral has one on markdown from $25 to $12. We'll see how it does. Single volume, single tone, top-mounted jack (similar to [This invalid link has been removed]). Bought a pre-slotted graphite nut.

Here's a few pics of the progress:

Mahogany dry

And wet

Cherry dry, with some body shape sketch and my name so no one steals my wood

Aaaand wet

Pictures of model bass coming soon!

 

[Musiclogic]

so far you have some wood pieces and an F clamp....you are much further than many first build threads, my compliments for not going 7 pages without as much as a first piece of wood...LMAO (yes, this has been done recently)

 

[Rickett Customs]

^^^ Yeah, what he said

 

[SDB Guitars]

Looking forward to seeing more...

 

[mikeyswood]

so far you have some wood pieces and an F clamp....you are much further than many first build threads, my compliments for not going 7 pages without as much as a first piece of wood...LMAO (yes, this has been done recently)

QFE

Legit Thread! Keep it up.

 

[kuso]

Heh. Actually, I have about eight F clamps on one half of the body while the glue settles (I figure 24 hours of clamping then two days of drying with only two or three clamps). In a few hours, I'm going to remove most of the clamps from the one drying and glue up the wood in the photos above. Just didn't have enough clamps for both at once!

 

[Musiclogic]

Exactly what we are talking about, We are looking forward to this, congrats on the clamps, one of my favorite types of clamps, multitude of uses.

 

[kuso]

Quick update. Body blanks have been glued, sawed and mostly sanded to shape.

I noticed after jointing the edge of the blank and lining up/tracing the design onto it for cutting, that I had quite a bit of room. So much room, infact, that I managed to get two sets of wings from each blank. So I now have two almost identical bodies for the price of one!

Here's a quick pic I snapped before leaving for the day:

I'm hoping to get the neck glued up this week so it can dry over the weekend. I'm still a little hung up on what wood to use. I have maple, pine, mahogany and oak (I think). I was originally thinking a three piece neck maple/mahogany/maple, however the mahogany that I have isn't thick enough to be only one piece. I may do maple/mahogany/mahogany/maple, or I may do a five piece, same as above, but with maple between the two mahoganys. Mohoganies?

I was hoping to avoid anything more than a three piece neck. Decisions, decisions.

Also, my bridge, pots, nut and tuners came today. The nut is THIN, and I may attempt making one, though I'm not sure at this point. I just feel like it should be twice as tall as it is.

 

[Greenman]

I noticed after jointing the edge of the blank and lining up/tracing the design onto it for cutting, that I had quite a bit of room. So much room, infact, that I managed to get two sets of wings from each blank. So I now have two almost identical bodies for the price of one!

I think you should build an identical 5 string and 4 string. Then you will be at build 2.5.

 

[kuso]

That's what I was thinking. The body may be a bit on the narrow side with a thinner neck-through section.

Although, I've seen neck-throughs that the wood that was the neck is significantly wider in the body section vs the actual neck. Maybe I'll tackle something of that sort.

 

[knucklehead G]

Or one fretted and one fretless?

 

[dave-chaulk]

Or one fretted and one fretless?

+10,000.
that would be the coolest thing ever.

 

[kuso]

I thought of this as well. I was originally going to make a lined fretless because to be honest, fretting scares me. You have to get it pretty damn accurate. And I don't have a fret bender or press or any kind.

 

[kuso]

Alright, it's been a while. Didn't have much time to work lately, but I've got one neck all glued up:

I wiped most of the excess glue off, for the record.

Took the clamps off today. Either tomorrow or next week I'm gonna plane it, joint it, and get it glued on the body. I need to route the body edges first, though, just to make things easier. I'm thinking a 1/2" roundover on the edges, then some heavy shaping for the arm and belly contours. Doing those still makes me nervous, but I'm sure it'll be ok.

I'll post a pic of the hardware a little later. My trussrod didn't come in the mail. It was backordered. So I'm ordering a new one from StewMac. I don't think I'll be ordering from gutiarpartscentral anymore - they took a couple weeks to get my order to me and not even an email before that saying that the rod was on backorder!

 

[kuso]

Oh, by the way, that's maple/walnut/maple/walnut/maple.

The center maple has a very, very light spalt to it, so I'm hoping it will look interesting once shaped.

I'm going for a thin profile neck, btw.

Also, I think I'm going to try a flat fingerboard and see how it feels. This bass will be fretted, though I may string it up fretless first and see how I like it.

I'm going to go for some non-traditional sidemarkers/inlays as well - here's what I'm thinking:

Obviously not red. I'm thinking a darker fingerboard, with lighter maple inlays. It seems like it would be an easier way to do inlays, and take care of the side and top all at once.

Also, fear my MSPaint skills.

 

[kuso]

It's been well over a month, got a little caught up in work. Back to the bass..

Today I ripped the neck, rough shaped the headstock and neck shape, routed the truss channel, routed the body edges (1/2" roundover), and glued up the neck and body wings. I also learned a few things:

Here's pics:

I was a little concerned only being able to fit three clamps on there (didn't have the cutout of the shape to use as cauls, someone threw 'em away Oh well. I flattened the sides of the neck and body pretty damn well, I'm not too concerned with the glue joint.

The neck also came out shorter than I originally hoped for. One of the neck boards had a split in it so I lost a few inches from the total length. The headstock is now smaller than originally intended and the bridge is going to have to make love to the very end of the body.

I'm going to make a cherry top for the headstock so the truss channel doesn't show quite as much.

I'm also still on the fence for a fingerboard. I have a ton of hard maple so I may just use that, unless I decide that a darker wood would look better.

You can also see that I messed up the truss channel some. One half of the fence wasn't tight and started to slip, so in the middle the channel is 2x as wide as it should be for a few inches.

Thanks for the wealth of knowledge, support and information on here! It's helped me out quite a bit!