I knew that! Er, yeah...
Actually I don't know HOW many times I've told myself what I would change if I built another. Could do some things faster and better, that's for sure.
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Ricodyne Bass #2
- Thread starter Wademeister63
- Start date
I knew that! Er, yeah...
Actually I don't know HOW many times I've told myself what I would change if I built another. Could do some things faster and better, that's for sure.
So the name Ricodyne has been wearing on me a bit. Kind of a silly name and this project merits a real name instead of something meaning a mashed together copy of some existing stuff. I took inspiration from the complete binding job and decided to call the design Nazca. Individually, I made the cherry bass the Nazca Hummingbird and the mahogany one is the Nazca Spider. I put a lot of time into this inlay job and really appreciate my CNC machinery for this kind of work. Turned out as good as I had hoped. 
I like your designs but being peruvian now I like them much more.
Edit: Is there a reason why you chose the nazca lines designs?
Edit: Is there a reason why you chose the nazca lines designs?
I like your designs but being peruvian now I like them much more.
Edit: Is there a reason why you chose the nazca lines designs?
I've always been intrigued by those glyphs and with the complete binding job on these basses it seemed appropriate. I drew these from pics I found online and kept them very accurate out of respect to the original artists.
Here are a couple pics I used for reference. I can't get enough of this kind of stuff
WELL!!!
Some progress again at last. I've been distracted working on a different kind of project for a while now, check it out..
Meanwhile, I had someone take care of the finishing for me. I wasn't doing such a hot job with that and it was sort of bringing me to a stalling point in the project. Since I gave the basses to the guy I've not been too interested in the whole project to be honest. Maybe I just needed a diversion for a while but I'm back on the bass project now.
I cut the frets by CNC machine as you might expect. Drew them into my bass CAD file and went according to plan. I think they came out looking great and the lengths worked out as well as I could hope for, extending just barely past the fretboard onto the binding. Feels terrific! Made a black delrin nut and glued it on with black epoxy so it looks great next to the black binding. Pretty much all I have left to do on this bass is solder up the electronics and make a cover for the control cavity.
Here's how she looks right now
Some progress again at last. I've been distracted working on a different kind of project for a while now, check it out..
Meanwhile, I had someone take care of the finishing for me. I wasn't doing such a hot job with that and it was sort of bringing me to a stalling point in the project. Since I gave the basses to the guy I've not been too interested in the whole project to be honest. Maybe I just needed a diversion for a while but I'm back on the bass project now.
I cut the frets by CNC machine as you might expect. Drew them into my bass CAD file and went according to plan. I think they came out looking great and the lengths worked out as well as I could hope for, extending just barely past the fretboard onto the binding. Feels terrific! Made a black delrin nut and glued it on with black epoxy so it looks great next to the black binding. Pretty much all I have left to do on this bass is solder up the electronics and make a cover for the control cavity.
Here's how she looks right now
Beautiful!
Can you give any tips on producing, polishing and seating those frets with spherical ends? I've always liked the look of them, but they must present some challenges.
Can you give any tips on producing, polishing and seating those frets with spherical ends? I've always liked the look of them, but they must present some challenges.
Sorry I don't really have any tips of my own for that. I might be able to give you some pointers on lowering the front of a '65 Galaxie though, since I did that while running fret ends on the CNC machine, lol.
My method was to draw a fret end in Mastercam and put a toolpath on it with a very fine stepover so when I ran them on the CNC machine they came out bright and smooth. They aren't polished but close enough for me. Here you can see the fret model in blue with the light blue lines representing the center of the ball end mill used for the cut. The yellow lines represent rapid tool movements to and from the part. CNC machinery sure isn't a requirement though, and there is a lot of good info for shaping the frets by hand if you google "semi-hemispherical frets".
As for installation, since the finish was already complete I just had to make sure the fret slots weren't full of sanding dust, then tap the frets in and call it done. I just used a small hammer on the end of a little maple scrap and drove them until they sounded nice and solid. As for special considerations doing this type of fretting, the only thing I could point out would be that you have to know exactly how long the frets need to be and get them deadly accurate before installing them. I was able to use the binding/fretboard seem to line up the ends of the frets and that worked out great. If you're not doing binding you may want to make a guide line with masking tape or something to keep it all going nice and straight.
It's been debated but I like it for a couple reasons. In my case, since I built it all by CNC machine, putting the 0 fret slot in along with the others ensured accurate positioning regardless of what happened with the finish and nut after the fretboard was made. Also, since the fretboard was done as a single surface and the 0 fret is made the same as the rest of them, the height was established along with the rest of the frets. That pretty much automatically put the height right on the money. The actual nut in this case is basically just a spacer to keep the strings from sliding around sideways at the end of the neck.
Thanks for the explanation.
What do you mean - using the seam to line up some part of the fret while cutting? pressing?
I used cad drawing to find the lengths, then cut and rounded them to finished length on the milling machine. The cad file makes it easy since all the geometry is already there and I can just check it to see what I need. It doesn't have to be that technical though, any way you care to measure them would work. After the frets were made I carefully aligned the end of each fret with the binding/wood joint. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well but you know I love to take pix... I just used the seam as a guide to position the ends of the frets when I put them in. Got em lined up pretty well I think
I guess I got em pretty much finished up. Been playing them and they both sound and feel great! The one with the chrome hardware and witch hat knobs is the super lightweight at only 6.53 pounds. I was trying to not get too heavy but that was a little overboard. The fact that the mahogany board I found was super light really helped, but with the maple and bloodwood neck the bass is very resonant and has great sustain in spite of the light weight. The cherry one is also pretty light at 7.37. I'm really happy with these guys!!
Both of those basses are gorgeous. You definitely have some major skill. You'd never know those weren't from a major company.
