SBO 2022 - Cheaper by the Dozen - 12 String Bass

[GMC]

I have split top workbench envy again.

You and me both.

Tricewise!
I love all the square Dog holes, the centre channel for clamping and the vices...oh yeah! Very Sweet indeed!

I used to have a bespoke workshop, but nothing as exotic as yours. I never got around to building a decent work bench either. After my move to Wiltshire a few years ago, I've been operating out of a much larger garage space, which unfortunately is being used for a lot of different roles. It'll need a lot more investment from me to get my workshop to state where I'm happy with it. However, it's still fit for use to build a bass or two every year. Here in the UK, with the spiralling costs of basics like MDF, I wonder if I'll ever be able to built something nice! It seems that sheet materials are insane prices at the moment. Oddly, structural stuff like 4x2 seem to be quite stable.

 

[Gary_M]

I have split top workbench envy again.

You and me both.

Tricewise!
I love all the square Dog holes, the centre channel for clamping and the vices...oh yeah! Very Sweet indeed!

I used to have a bespoke workshop, but nothing as exotic as yours. I never got around to building a decent work bench either. After my move to Wiltshire a few years ago, I've been operating out of a much larger garage space, which unfortunately is being used for a lot of different roles. It'll need a lot more investment from me to get my workshop to state where I'm happy with it. However, it's still fit for use to build a bass or two every year. Here in the UK, with the spiralling costs of basics like MDF, I wonder if I'll ever be able to built something nice! It seems that sheet materials are insane prices at the moment. Oddly, structural stuff like 4x2 seem to be quite stable.

Thanks, guys. That bench is definitely the most valuable tool that I own. It hurt the bank account a lot when I built it, but I'm really glad that I did it. Lots of valuable woodworking techniques learned, and it's something that has been used on every project since then.

It's nearly time to do a little maintenance on the top... I need to clean off the odd finish and glue drips, check the top to be sure that it's still flat and get it sanded back to more of a medium grit finish. Probably 150 or so. After a lot of use, it sort of burnishes the surface and it gets a little slick. I'd rather it be just a touch on the "grippy" side.

 

[Gary_M]

Last night I spent some time refining the glued up neck beam. I used a #3 plane to start knocking down the glue and high spots. Once I had one side flat enough, I was able to run it through the drum sander.

The glue-up came out great, nice and crisp, very happy with it.

Today, I had big plans as the spousal unit was going to be gone and I would pretty much have the run of the place. Well, things didn't go according to plan. At 7:00am I woke to the sound of a raging storm. I stumbled into the bathroom to... well, you know. While doing my business I looked out the window and noticed that the trees were really whipping around. In my half-asleep state, I thought, wow, we should really get off the 2nd floor, maybe even head to the basement.

About that time, it sounded and felt like something very large hit the house. I mean I nearly p!ssed all over myself. (I said nearly ) It turns out that nothing actually hit the house, whew, good news!! No, the sound and vibration that I experienced was just the electrical service being ripped off the side of our house.

Our power comes in via an overhead line to a weatherhead/mast, down to the meter base, then into the house. Yeah it is all no longer connected to the house. OK, the service line going into the house is still going into the house, but nothing else is connected any longer.

A large, dead tree at the back of my neighbor's property fell onto the power lines, which broke off the top of the adjacent utility pole. When the top broke off (along with the transformer), it yanked our service right off the house. We're the last house at the end of this power line, so it had a lot of leverage.

I can't seem to get new pictures to upload to Imgur from my phone right now... but I'll keep trying and post some here. The progress pics above were uploaded last night, so that was no problem.

Anyway, I was able to find an electrician that started making repairs today so that we can be ready for the electric company to tie back into the house as soon as they set a new pole. (it could be days before that happens) Until then, I'll be relying on generator power around here and won't likely make much progress.

More soon.

 

[Reedt2000]

Last night I spent some time refining the glued up neck beam. I used a #3 plane to start knocking down the glue and high spots. Once I had one side flat enough, I was able to run it through the drum sander.

The glue-up came out great, nice and crisp, very happy with it.

Today, I had big plans as the spousal unit was going to be gone and I would pretty much have the run of the place. Well, things didn't go according to plan. At 7:00am I woke to the sound of a raging storm. I stumbled into the bathroom to... well, you know. While doing my business I looked out the window and noticed that the trees were really whipping around. In my half-asleep state, I thought, wow, we should really get off the 2nd floor, maybe even head to the basement.

About that time, it sounded and felt like something very large hit the house. I mean I nearly p!ssed all over myself. (I said nearly ) It turns out that nothing actually hit the house, whew, good news!! No, the sound and vibration that I experienced was just the electrical service being ripped off the side of our house.

Our power comes in via an overhead line to a weatherhead/mast, down to the meter base, then into the house. Yeah it is all no longer connected to the house. OK, the service line going into the house is still going into the house, but nothing else is connected any longer.

A large, dead tree at the back of my neighbor's property fell onto the power lines, which broke off the top of the adjacent utility pole. When the top broke off (along with the transformer), it yanked our service right off the house. We're the last house at the end of this power line, so it had a lot of leverage.

I can't seem to get new pictures to upload to Imgur from my phone right now... but I'll keep trying and post some here. The progress pics above were uploaded last night, so that was no problem.

Anyway, I was able to find an electrician that started making repairs today so that we can be ready for the electric company to tie back into the house as soon as they set a new pole. (it could be days before that happens) Until then, I'll be relying on generator power around here and won't likely make much progress.

More soon.

Neck looks killer

Glad you're OK

 

[Gary_M]

Finally got a few pictures to upload.

Well there's yer problem!

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Oh man, that stinks. I’m glad you and the family are ok.

 

[boxerrider]

Wow - glad it didn't crush and/or burn any structures, and I hope your repairs go smoothly!

 

[TFM94]

I'm glad that the tree didn't fall on your neck blank, because that looks amazing.

Kidding aside, glad you're ok and hope you can get it fixed soon.

 

[Gary_M]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. We are safe and sound. We're running the house on our generator, so we're sort of "roughing it".

The electrician was able to repair all of the infrastructure on/in my house yesterday, so we are ready for the power company to tie back in when the new pole is installed. I am so thankful to have found an on-call electrician that could make it happen so quickly. I know the bill won't be cheap, but I wanted to have our side repaired and ready to go... I don't want to allow the power company to come up with excuses to delay hook up.

 

[ctmullins]

Very glad you’re all okay, and very glad you are able to get repairs done so quickly!

 

[AK4570]

As others have already said, I’m glad you and the family are all ok… and that neck blank is crazy gorgeous!

Best regards,
John

 

[RichterScale]

I'm just glad it wasn't something serious, like your internet connection!
Seriously though, assuming this went through home owner's ins, were you able to upgrade or replace any part of the service?

 

[Gary_M]

Thanks again, everyone. Yeah we were fortunate to get our side of the electrical repaired quickly. We did have to run on generator power all weekend. The utility company finally made it to our location on Monday around noon. They had the old pole replaced and power restored by around 5:00 that afternoon. It was a pretty amazing process to watch. I haven't received any bills for the repairs yet, so I don't know if they will be high enough to justify turning it in on our home owner's insurance or not. The electrician did "upgrade" some things, but that was all due to meeting current code.

As for internet, yeah... it's toast for now. Cable company estimates 7-10 days for line to be restored... as it was yanked it out of the junction on the side of my house in the storm. Incidentally, it took 3 calls to our cable company before I was able to convince someone on that end to put in a line repair ticket... SMH

Me: Hello, my internet is out due to storm damage. The utility pole is broken in half and your cable line is currently on the ground in my back yard.
Cable Company: Yes sir, I understand that you cannot access the internet. I'm having trouble seeing your modem from our side. I'd like you to unplug your modem for 15 seconds, then plug it back in.
Me: I'm not sure that you're hearing me... your cable has literally been ripped from my house and from the utility pole by a severe storm.
Cable Company: Sir, we've found that power-cycling your modem fixes 90% of all connection issues.
Me: Sighs and hangs up. Calls back 2 more times until somebody actually listened to me.

During the storm there was another tree next to our shed that split in half. One side was drooping into the yard, but it didn't fall until the following morning when we got more rain. It made a really loud and awesome cracking sound as it let loose. I wish I could have recorded it.

Utility pole replacement activities on Monday.

We were able to finish cleaning up the remaining tree last night. We have a pretty impressive pile out by the street.

 

[Gary_M]

Not sure if I mentioned it or not, but currently I'm hot-spotting my phone for internet access. This is normally pretty good, but when half of the town is without internet, they're all using cell data as well.... so things are pretty slow right now.

 

[RichterScale]

Yeah, the power companies are usually on it. If you're not using electricity, you're not paying for it. So they want you up and running.
The cable companies? (At least around here) the bill is the same whether you have service or not. And their phone support is outsourced to people with cue cards.
I don't think "cable was ripped off the house" is on their cards.
Pretty much just, "have you tried turning off and on again?"

 

[Gary_M]

Yeah, the power companies are usually on it. If you're not using electricity, you're not paying for it. So they want you up and running.
The cable companies? (At least around here) the bill is the same whether you have service or not. And their phone support is outsourced to people with cue cards.
I don't think "cable was ripped off the house" is on their cards.
Pretty much just, "have you tried turning off and on again?"

Yeah, no doubt. The funny thing is, I didn't really even get that mad about it. It was so surreal that it just became funny; like a scene out of a movie.

UPDATE: I'm happy to report that a nice tech from the cable company was here about an hour ago. He terminated the damaged cable and got me hooked back up. The cable is laying across the back yard for the line crew to put back up later, but hey, at least my internet is up and running now! Woot!

 

[RichterScale]

The cable/internet services should have to run through a meter like the utilities.
Should only pay for what flows through the meter.
Thankfully you had the hot spot and could still post pics of your work.
Oh well, eventually we'll all have chips in our heads, wear HUD face shields and everything will be wireless through satellites.

 

[Gary_M]

Now that that things are pretty much back to normal around here and most of the storm damage has been repaired, I spent a little time in the garage tonight working on my build.

Nothing very exciting. I finished the neck outline template. I aligned and mounted it, then flush trimmed the neck beam at the router table. The neck beam is now nearly final size and it's nice and square.

More soon.

 

[definenredefine]

Yeah, the power companies are usually on it. If you're not using electricity, you're not paying for it. So they want you up and running.
The cable companies? (At least around here) the bill is the same whether you have service or not. And their phone support is outsourced to people with cue cards.
I don't think "cable was ripped off the house" is on their cards.
Pretty much just, "have you tried turning off and on again?"

 

[Gary_M]

I made a little bit of progress this weekend. A lot of it is unseen, decisions about truss rod placement, drop top step cut depth, etc. That stuff requires a lot of pencil on paper, boring and tedious, but it will make later steps go much easier.

Here are some things that I could actually photograph.

My wing cores will be made from alder. I already had a chunk roughly cut to length. I had planned to get both wings our of that piece. I went to the bandsaw to resaw it and get it closer to my desired thickness and discovered several large cracks on the end of the board. Cracks at the end of a board aren't unusual, but these weren't visible from the outside at all, even from the end grain.

So, I cut another chunk and resawed that one as well. This one has a knot on one side that prevents getting both wing cores from the same piece.

So, I'm getting one wing core from each piece. I hate wasting that much material, but there was nothing that could be done. I have to work around the defects.

I got my fretboard laid out on my cocobolo and cut the fret slots.

I roughly tapered the board and got it radiused to 12" at the router table. This board is going to look cool!

More soon.