SBO 2022 - The Tailgate Trifecta

[AK4570]

Well, here we all are again!

By way of introduction, I will potentially be working on 3 semi-synchronous builds:

- A 5-string, passive, double reverse P (scratch build)

- A 4-string resurrection of a mid-80’s Samick P-type with salvage wood body in a Stingray/Precision mashup and Alaska license plate pickguard for my youngest daughter (partial build potentially using everything except the 10-ton plywood body and vomitous pickguard)

- A BassVI (scratch build or partial build depending) that I am anticipating will NOT be finished by the deadline due to parts/funds availability, the war in Ukraine, gas prices, recent Supreme Court decisions, fly-fishing seasons, water levels on the local rivers, a dissertation in process, elk season, the moon phase, squirrels, and any other excuse I can think up before September 21.

So here’s the official kickoff picture!

Oops! Looks like I follow directions about as well as I read them! Here’s the “actual” official kickoff… with the proper announcement phrase this time.

As I mentioned when this build-off was first being discussed, I’m working off of my truck’s tailgate, out of a 12ft cargo trailer, and on a variety of makeshift supports/sawhorses… there may actually be a workbench build for the trailer incorporated into this whole rigmarole as well.

Many of the woods for these have some sort of story behind them.

The ash that will become the main body portion of the 5-string stood in my father-in-laws front yard for as long as he’s owned the house in NE Ohio. The body wood for my daughter’s bass is virgin-growth pine that we estimate was cut over a hundred years ago, and was recovered from one of the myriad abandoned mines from the last century that are scattered over public and private land throughout the western states. (big stick on the left)

Check the growth rings!

The BassVI is probably going to get another chunk of the ash while joining the 5-string in getting a walnut cap in the ½” – 5/8” thickness range, walnut that came out of the clearance bin at Keim Lumber on our last trip to visit her folks.

Depending on which direction I go with the BassVI, it will either get a newly constructed neck, or one from the stack of neck blanks that were made up from scraps and offcuts while we remodeled our house and prepared to leave Alaska in the fall of ‘20

They are cherry/red oak/maple/red oak/cherry or maple/red oak/maple/red oak/maple.

Next to them in some warped walnut droptops (hiding under that wenge top) that may or may not become fingerboards.

The 5-string and BassVI will be getting a body of my own design. Templates are in the works; we're going for the double-cut on these builds.

Long story short, I've got lotsa materials, a couple of scatter-brained plans, limited time to work on them, and yada, yada, yada; whine, whine, whine!

So, with introductions out of the way, let’s begin.

 

[AK4570]

I’m starting late… but life.

At any rate, the first day consisted of getting the main portion of the 5-string’s body trued and glued.

By the by, what is the official name for this portion of the body? The backside? The hindquarters? The hinderhalf?

Oh, that’s right… this is the “tone wood!”

Anyway, a small dosage of clamping ingenuity affixed some lovely (but heavy) ash to the trailer’s fenders, and a Craftsman (Sargent) 619-3743 (commonly referred to in the Stanley number system as a No. 5) made short work of squaring it up.

And glued.

Setting that aside after cleaning up semi-ridiculous amounts of squeeze out, I turned my attention to the Samick neck for the partial build. The first order of business is removing the approximately 15lbs of Schaller tuners and bushings...

oooooo... that's blurry

Anyway, working on the tailgate necessitates some workarounds in work holding, but by holding my breath, gritting my teeth, and invoking only 2 of the forbidden words, the headstock was placed within reach of the saw.

Sometimes you just gotta stop for a quick look out the shop “window” and to rest your arms a bit.

Ok... back to the grind

There we are.

Rummage through the scraps in the back of the trailer and find a maple offcut, plane them both to fit, place some anti-slip staples...

...and, bother!

I’m not sure if you can tell from my mad photography skills or not, but I didn’t use the square when fitting the prosthetic. They fit together well but are at an angle approximately 5 degrees from square, thus creating a slight (very slight) “V”. The add-on is a full ¾” thick and overhangs both front and back of the headstock equally. so I may be able to dodge a bullet. If not, I was planning on a veneer plate front and back anyway… this may simply force my hand.

 

[Killing Floor]

squirrels

squirrels? Need the back story, also can’t wait to see the vi. Subbed.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

That, sir, is some creative viceing. Kudos.

 

[Flamingo21]

This should be interesting. Also, over the years I've built stuff under a variety of primitive circumstances, the least primitive being a foldable workbench in the back yard. Only recently have I moved into an actual workshop. What I mean is, all of this is very relatable to me.

Good luck! I'll be reading.

 

[ctmullins]

Love it! You had me at “double reverse P”, but I am certainly enjoying the creative “workshop” conditions!

I wouldn’t sweat the headstock prosthetic too much. There’s no rule that says it has to be coplanar. That’s one of those situations in which you first convince yourself, then everybody else, that it was an entirely intentional design feature all along!

 

[NKBassman]

I'm not normally into single-cut bodies, but I like where your design is at.
Following

 

[AK4570]

@NKBassman , when I saw my first single-cut, I initially thought, “wow, I need one of those!” As time wore on though, they kinda paled on me a bit. I started working on this body design almost 3 years ago and as I drew, modified, re-drew, and re-drew ad infinitum, it dawned on me that by dropping the curve of the upper horn back into the neck, I could make a not-completely-unpleasant single cut. They’re still not my favorite thing, but I’ll eventually build at least one, probably a fretless… even though exactly 0% of the music I play calls for fretless bass. But that’s no impediment to the building bug, right?

At any rate, back to what’s currently on the bench… errr… tailgate.

The clamps came off and everything looked good, so it was on to sketching potential headstock shapes.

There. That’ll do. And more importantly, it met with approval from “she who commissioned the build,” otherwise known as my highly selective (picky) and strong-willed (stubborn) younger daughter.

Dropped the clamps off of the 5-string’s body blank and tossed the body template on to find the best layout.

My router planning jig will never match the precision engineering of @Bruce Johnson , but it’ll scrape the high points off of some chainsaw-slabbed ash.

…making progress…

And we’ve got the back flattened.

Somewhat unexpectedly, this is a nice piece of ash. (Clears throat uncomfortably…) Really nice!

We're headed out of town for the next couple of days... I wonder if I could sneak some tools into the luggage?

 

[Bruce Johnson]

My router planning jig will never match the precision engineering of @Bruce Johnson , but it’ll scrape the high points off of some chainsaw-slabbed ash.

Nice job on the router planer fixture! A good simple design built up from leftover straight wood strips. Any of you who are thinking you need to build a router planer fixture should look at how he made this one.

 

[AK4570]

Thanks, Bruce! I'm honored.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Bruce got there first but I was going to say, the router planing jig seems to work. That’s the most important part. You can paint it and make it look purty later.

 

[AK4570]

Random thoughts and question on neck reinforcement:

Purchasing the requisite amount of carbon fiber neck reinforcement rods would put me over budget for these builds… at least until the price of dino juice gets a bit more reasonable!

The alternatives are either 1/8 in aluminum or…? I ‘d love to hear any thoughts from those that have been down this road previously.

Thanks in advance,
John

 

[ctmullins]

Five-piece laminate neck? You don’t need any reinforcement.

 

[AK4570]

Necks will be multi-piece laminates regardless of additional structural support. The neck material I have on hand is maple that leans toward the softer side and whose provenance is unknown. Based on where it came from, however, I would have to guess bigleaf.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Nothing wrong with aluminum bars. The old (original) Danelectros had 2 T bars right below the fretboard. I have a long scale bass neck that’s still as flat as can be. Note: I thought the bars were visible from the end but the filler strips are all you can see.

 

[Beej]

I've used aluminum bar stiffeners lots of times. 1/8"x1/2" - I rout a slot about 10mm deep at the nut end and 1/2" deep at the heel end and embed them, then I rout off the sticky-out parts towards the nut with a regular router sled. They have worked just as well as CF bars IME but then again I've not really had multi-lam necks without stiffeners fail either.

 

[AK4570]

Alrighty then; the hive-mind has spoken and aluminum it shall be!

Thanks to all that chimed in… I feel at least a little more secure in the direction I’m headed

 

[ctmullins]

Does that mean I now must recant my position and instead advocate for aluminum?

Kidding. Aluminum works fine, and is nice and light. I used it once instead of a truss rod (shhhh, don’t tell anyone).

 

[AK4570]

That’s a big ol’ negative, Mr. @ctmullins … everybody’s ideas get to play! She’ll be both a multi-piece laminate and get some aluminum bling as well

 

[AK4570]

Warning: this post will wax philosophical… or at least fake it a bit!

Leaving Alaska in Sept. 2020 was not at all a peaceful easy feeling as that one band used to say. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit traumatic. But as anyone who has ever lived in the Great Land can tell you, without a steady income, you’re not staying! It’s just too expensive. And then there’s the mosquitos and long, cold winters to help you decide that homelessness isn’t a great option either.

So we sold our house, 2 vehicles, a boat, an ATV, a shop full of tools, everything else we could think of, loaded the remainder into a trailer, and dropped it at the nearest thrift store which was—no exaggeration—over an hour’s drive away, then hit the road south.

Between September 2020 and April 2021, we traveled 29 states and I’ve long ago lost track of the number of job applications. With a great big nothing to show for it. Sitting in an RV campground in South Carolina, we got our girls together for an old-fashioned family skull session and posed the following question: “If you could live anywhere you wanted, where would it be?” Consensus being quickly achieved, we loaded ourselves and the mutt back into the rig and headed west one more time.

As much as this cynical old Chief Boatswain’s Mate hates to admit it, things often work out in much better form than he has any right to expect. It took a little while but, not too terribly long after hitting the Big Sky country, I landed a job. (...and here’s where it gets philosophical…) I am working in a position with an organization that brings me more joy than I’ve ever experienced in a job prior… although I’m making less than half of my previous income in Alaska. I’m in the middle of trying to build a handful of basses off my truck’s tailgate while recreating all the jigs and workarounds that filled the shelves of my previous shop. And you know what? I wouldn’t trade any of it for the shop, the house, and the constant stress, anxiety, and plain old heartache of the job I had there. I’m making less than I’ve made in the last 15 years but I’m having more fun and living a better “me” than I can ever remember being.

So with that confession out of the way and in light of all the tools that didn’t make it to Montana with us, I’ve had to do some scrounging! A tour through the local Craigslist adds turned up an older (mid-80’s) Craftsman 10” table saw in need of significant TLC. But it included 2 motors (both USA Daytons) and appeared to just need cleaned and tuned up. Since full-timing in an RV necessitated that the saw was/is going to live in my storage unit, it needed to be mobile. And since I’m a confirmed scrounger and was already in possession of a significant amount of salvage wood, a plan was formed, wood was cut, and the Beast began to take shape.

Once I dropped the saw onto the base, I quickly realized that the puny castors I had chosen were most definitely NOT going to work! The Beast was, in a word, immoveable.

Once that (minor) issue was sorted, it was on to creating a small outfeed table that will double as a vertical/horizontal clamping surface.

How does this relate to the current bass builds, you ask? Well, once this side project is finished, I will finally be able to start working on cutting out the wood for making necks… and that’s all I’ve got to say about that!

Now, if you’ve suffered through that wall of words and are still here, I’ve another question:

Has anyone used carbon fibre arrow shafts as neck stiffening? In my recent scrounging, I found 3 .350 diameter new shafts and would be willing to sacrifice them for the greater good, as it were.

Best regards, all
John