Don't have any pictures-- don't have a digital camera. I might be able to borrow one. So far, I have the rib garland complete, up through linings and neck mortise. The front is arched and purfled, but not graduated-- the back is not done at all, as there were some specific things I wanted to attempt that I wasn't ready to try, yet.
This is my fifth complete instrument, but my first bass. Very different, and a little tough to get used to. Some of the problems in the Chandler book I recognize, simply because I have built other instruments, using more traditional methods. Those kinds of pitfalls I can pretty easily avoid.
Things should go a little better now-- I cleaned out part of my tractor shed, so I had a bigger place to work. (My small instruments I built on a workboard in my lap, for lack of a proper workspace.) I had begun with the bass garland balanced on my little tractor, and rushed it outside to work atop sawhorses, whenever the weather permitted. But I finally got a proper worktable, and got rid of a lot of junk, and it feels much more hopeful.
The scroll is nearly complete, as well as the rest of the neck. I have not yet fit the tuning machines, though I have drilled the holes-- they are tapered, but are made to go only partway through the far wall of the pegbox, and the pegbox design is narrower than they were evidently designed to fit-- so I need to trim them, finish reaming the holes, etc. then I'll be on the home stretch on the neck assembly.
Anyway-- it is for the son of a friend, who is a promising young bassist. He has been limping along with a cheap plywood bass (CCB, I think you fellows call them?) for several years. I have kept it alive with heavy repairs (neck got broken off twice-- big hole another time....) But his dad decided it was time for a real bass... I hope I can cut the mustard, so to speak.
