New Lonnybass: Claro Walnut Edition

[Lonnybass]

Here we go with another build. This one will be a four-string with a PJ setup. The wood combination is going to be a beautiful beeswing burl claro walnut on an alder body, with a maple neck and a birdseye fingerboard that will look smashing with the burls in the walnut.

 

[yoshi]

That walnut top looks wonderful. Lon, what on Earth do you do with all these basses you're building...?!

 

[Lonnybass]

That walnut top looks wonderful. Lon, what on Earth do you do with all these basses you're building...?!

You sound exactly like my wife, my friend! It's just adding to the insanity in my den, really. I just added another row (horizontal) across the top.

 

[Lonnybass]

You sound exactly like my wife, my friend! It's just adding to the insanity in my den, really. I just added another row (horizontal) across the top.

When the next batch is done, I'm going to expand to the open space above the entry doorway to the left of the wall.

 

[Beej]

I just showed this to my wife and she said "that would look great in your apartment when you're single"...

 

[Lonnybass]

I just showed this to my wife and she said "that would look great in your apartment when you're single"...

I love it! Mine actually knew what she was getting into when she married me - I already had a (smaller) Bass Wall in my old place. Expanding it was inevitable. Just tell her it's easier to vacuum when there aren't guitar stands cluttering the floor. And when I say "easier to vacuum," I mean "easier for you as the man of the house to vacuum."

 

[Lonnybass]

And all shop operations have come to a halt as I was prepping the neck billet for glue up. My planer threw out a $2.35 bevel gear while flattening the maple, and now I need evaluate whether it's fixable or decide if the entire machine has to be tossed out. My wife's gonna love the replacement tag.

 

[carl h.]

And all shop operations have come to a halt as I was prepping the neck billet for glue up. My planer threw out a $2.35 bevel gear while flattening the maple, and now I need evaluate whether it's fixable or decide if the entire machine has to be tossed out. My wife's gonna love the replacement tag.

I could have sworn there was a good sized one for a great price on Craigslist last week. In fact, I almost contacted you to let you know about it.

 

[PDX Rich]

Sorry to hear about the planer. Hopefully it'll be a quick fix. Love the claro! I picked some mill ends today for tap handles. Hoping they have some larger chunks that I can mill into bodies/tops someday.

 

[Lonnybass]

I could have sworn there was a good sized one for a great price on Craigslist last week. In fact, I almost contacted you to let you know about it.

No worries my friend. I actually went down to poke around in the sawdust earlier tonight and found the remnants of the gear, which was essentially busted perfectly in half. I wonder how much money the factory in China saved using a plastic gear instead of a metal one…apparently my son's Legos have more impressive components. The good news is that it looks like a conceivably fixable situation. I was able to find replacement parts from Grizzly and ordered up a set of gears and mounts. Assuming nothing dramatic has changed in the specs since I bought my unit in 2009, I'm hoping it's back up and running next week.

In the meantime, it's a good time to do a shop clean-out before the six string bass already underway is back on the bench - I always do a pretty thorough organization as instruments get close to final.

 

[Lonnybass]

Sorry to hear about the planer. Hopefully it'll be a quick fix. Love the claro! I picked some mill ends today for tap handles. Hoping they have some larger chunks that I can mill into bodies/tops someday.

The claro is nice isn't it? I've seen a few really nice boards on tonewood.com and ebay. I've had this particular top wood set for about five years - upon delivery to my house in Minnesota, it twisted up more than any other I've ever had. I had it stickered up under about 250 lbs of weight for several years to get it to stay flat.

Like with most of my previous top woods, I'm probably going to use Transtints on the boards to get them to really pop - in looking at them, I'll probably do a vivid reddish orange along the center flame portion, and then add a very light amber wash to the bookmatch of dark burls along the wings. I'll get a better sense once the body is glued up, but I think this will color scheme will maximize the grain pattern while still looking very natural.

 

[Lonnybass]

Neck billet is glued up. Maple/maple with a 1/4 center strip of purpleheart for a little bit of extra rigidity.

 

[Lonnybass]

The woodpile yielded some beautiful birdseye for the fingerboard.

 

[Lonnybass]

I'm going to do a bit more layout work on the claro as there is currently a lot of unused burl area towards the upper half of the body. A little bit of angled trimming on the book match should bring the burls to lay out nicely atop the left and right horns and really allow the wood grain to match the overall sweep of the body.

 

[Jisch]

Good call.

 

[Lonnybass]

The centerline is moved about 1.75" off the original book match on the neck pocket end.

 

[Lonnybass]

With the center portion trimmed away on an angle, I was able to get the burls matched up with the horns of the body. The top totally came alive this way - lots more yield of wild figure than before, and the orientation really complements the body shape nicely. A huge difference over the original layout with just a careful angle cut on the bandsaw!

 

[Lonnybass]

Headstock is roughed out for a four string layout.

 

[Lonnybass]

Fingerboard is wetted down to find the most birdseye figuring and then milled to rough dimension.

 

[Lonnybass]

Tricky to get any sort of good shot in the workshop but the combination of burled walnut and birdseye maple appears to be a very good one.