SBO 23 - The Long Black

[Alex Xander]

Your logo looks really sharp. You've probably said already, but how is it made?

It’s simply cut vinyl, done by a sign writer friend. I’ve just been sticking them on top of the finished article and they have proven to be surprisingly robust. Doing it this way means that if someone ends up with the bass and doesn’t like the logo, it can be removed.


The logo itself was done with AI. I used an online tool that asked me maybe six questions about how I wanted the logo to look. The first one it generated was exactly what I wanted.

 

[Alex Xander]

I carved the neck this week. As I expected, sanding/rasping etc at the interface of the insanely hard gidgee and insanely soft cedar proved to be quite the challenge and needed many hours of sanding tiny areas with small bits of sandpaper.

With the cedar being so soft, I decided to give it a few penetrating coats of thin CA glue as a bit of a sanding sealer. I followed this with some satin Osmo Polyx. I’m not sure if Polyx will work over CA, but it’s not biggie if it doesn’t.

Here it is after the first coat of Polyx, still wet.

There’s something awfully sexy about a good volute, especially with a multi laminate neck.

I’ve been saying this neck is cedar and gidgee, but the thin white laminates are paulownia and the thicker ones silver ash. The headstock is rose mahogany, same as the back of the guitar.

Next up I will mount the bridge and route the pickup cavity.

 

[Alex Xander]

I seem to have been struck with an affliction of starting new basses before finishing the one I’m working on.

I recently got this fairly sweet haul of rose mahogany.

One length is about 200mm x 200mm and the other 200mm x 300mm.

I had this little belt piece of camphor waiting for a back. I was holding onto this for the summer build off, but impatience got the better of me.

I guess it might be a partial build entry yet. We’ll see.

 

[Alex Xander]

Distraction number two came in the form of spending some quality time with my 4 year old daughter. She loves watching YouTube videos of epoxy art, so I concocted a plan to do an epoxy topped bass, having no experience with epoxy art but a few ideas.

I didn’t get any progress shots of this one, but I basically ground about 1000 divots into a chunk of rose mahogany with a ball rasp
and a drill. From there, I painted it silver, and we got to work pouring yellow, red and brown tinted epoxy on top.

After pouring, I absolutely hated this, but it was nice time with my daughter.

After shaping into a bass shaped object and mocking it up with some chrome, I’ve kinda come to like it. It’s gaudy for sure, but it has something about it.

 

[MarkA]

After shaping into a bass shaped object and mocking it up with some chrome, I’ve kinda come to like it. It’s gaudy for sure, but it has something about it.

It reminds me of the ocean floor -- or maybe an underwater cave -- in a 1970s sci-fi movie about a lost civilization (treasure, alien technology, siren calls...).

I of course mean this as a compliment -- glad you and the kiddo got some quality time in, putting it together. ;-)

 

[Reedt2000]

Distraction number two came in the form of spending some quality time with my 4 year old daughter. She loves watching YouTube videos of epoxy art, so I concocted a plan to do an epoxy topped bass, having no experience with epoxy art but a few ideas.

I didn’t get any progress shots of this one, but I basically ground about 1000 divots into a chunk of rose mahogany with a ball rasp
and a drill. From there, I painted it silver, and we got to work pouring yellow, red and brown tinted epoxy on top.

After pouring, I absolutely hated this, but it was nice time with my daughter.

View attachment 5249994

After shaping into a bass shaped object and mocking it up with some chrome, I’ve kinda come to like it. It’s gaudy for sure, but it has something about it.
View attachment 5249995

It looks like some of the funky celluloid pickguards you used to see In the 60s and 70s on imported guitars, I dig it

 

[Alex Xander]

Some more progress on the 6 string.

Neck pocket is routed and neck is attached (hopefully 8 screws should be enough)

I have some tidying up to do on the control cavity route before attaching the cover.

On the front, the bridge is attached and the pickup cavity is routed. I had a very major slip with the router here. It’s since been filled and hidden well enough. The rod should disappear (more or less) once a finish is applied.

I’m on the home stretch now. Not too far away from final sanding and finishing.

 

[Alex Xander]

I put the strings on and cut a nut.

I couldn’t resist temporarily wiring the pickup in and having a play. This neck has two truss rods, both of which are epoxy bedded. The strings on this one are fairly high tension (50lbs balanced). At first the trussrods seem to make no adjustment at all until the neck made an almighty cracking noise, and hey presto, the trussrods work flawlessly. I remember @Bruce Johnson posting about this many moons ago (IIRC saying that the neck needed a certain degree of stress before the rods slipped in the epoxy bedding), but this it the first time I heard the crack and things let go. It was quite cool, although for a minute I was wondering what I had broken.

The bass still has a lot of work before it’s finished, but the 184 and 136 F# and B strings are among the best I’ve heard with the 39” scale and the heavily reinforced neck. It’s very, very bright (in part due to the hex core stainless strings), and it has a nice growl to it. I’m not sure I can afford them, but a custom set of Garry Goodmans flatwounds would probably be a match made in heaven for this build.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

At first the trussrods seem to make no adjustment at all until the neck made an almighty cracking noise, and hey presto, the trussrods work flawlessly. I remember @Bruce Johnson posting about this many moons ago (IIRC saying that the neck needed a certain degree of stress before the rods slipped in the epoxy bedding), but this it the first time I heard the crack and things let go. It was quite cool, although for a minute I was wondering what I had broken.

Hah! Yes, that's a characteristic of epoxy-bedded truss rods. It'll shock you when it cracks loose like that. It's usually pretty loud, and makes you think that the whole neck has split in half. But that's normal and only happens the first time you tighten it up. On new basses, I always make sure to crack the truss loose during the setup, to avoid scaring the customer.

 

[Alex Xander]

Hah! Yes, that's a characteristic of epoxy-bedded truss rods. It'll shock you when it cracks loose like that. It's usually pretty loud, and makes you think that the whole neck has split in half. But that's normal and only happens the first time you tighten it up. On new basses, I always make sure to crack the truss loose during the setup, to avoid scaring the customer.

I have one build where the neck seems fairly unresponsive to truss rod adjustments. Would you recommend giving it a really solid crank to see if it’s locked up in the epoxy bedding? It’s a shrink wrapped dual action, dual rod setup. The rod works, just not as well as the same rod in other, similar necks.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I have one build where the neck seems fairly unresponsive to truss rod adjustments. Would you recommend giving it a really solid crank to see if it’s locked up in the epoxy bedding? It’s a shrink wrapped dual action, dual rod setup. The rod works, just not as well as the same rod in other, similar necks.

Yes, take it out to both ends of its range of travel, forward and reverse. Obviously, be careful not to over-torque it and snap it off. If it's shrink-wrapped, you may not hear the notorious crack. But it could still be partially stuck.

I don't use commercially-available DADR truss rods here very often. I've epoxy-bedded them a few times successfully, but I've also heard from other Luthiers who have tried epoxy-bedding them and had them fail. They locked up tight enough that they snapped off before breaking loose and moving. I think that they weren't careful enough in pre-waxing the rods, but I don't know.

Because of their inherent design geometry, DADR truss rods have higher loads in the threaded rod than SASR or DASR rods. The load needed to snap free from the epoxy may be too much for them.

Because of that, I'm hesitant to recommend epoxy-bedding the modern compact DADR truss rods. I've done it successfully, but others have had failures. There's some risk.

 

[Alex Xander]

Long Black meets Warwick Thumb

Unsure what to do for a neck for this one. I guess if I’m channeling the thumb vibe, it best be something hard and heavy. Shouldn’t be too difficult, looking at my wood stash. It’s 90% hard and heavy stuff.

Also not sure on scale length. It might even be time for a boring old 34”!

 

[Videojunkie]

That grain pattern is just screaming for a sunburst of some kind.

 

[Alex Xander]

That grain pattern is just screaming for a sunburst of some kind.

And a builder with the skills to pull it off!

 

[definenredefine]

And a builder with the skills to pull it off!

I have a hard time believing that you aren't such a builder.

 

[Videojunkie]

And a builder with the skills to pull it off!

The one on the Rick-man was pretty easy. Those analine dyes were pretty easy to use, and high% rubbing alcohol should be easy to source. I bought a multi-color pack from Amazon and it was pretty inexpensive. Try it on a few cutoffs and I think you'll be surprised how it goes.

 

[Videojunkie]

I have a hard time believing that you aren't such a builder.

seconded.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I’m sure you can get it if you want to try. Get some alcohol soluble dyes and check out a few of BigD’s videos on the YouTubes. If you can find a copy the mandolin building book by Roger Simonoff has a section on using dyes to create a burst also.

In the US I’d suggest Feibings or Angelus dye. I’m not sure what’s available there though.

 

[Alex Xander]

The 6 string Long Black rolled off the production line this afternoon. Strung up F#BEADG with stainless steel Newtone strings.

I finished this with CA glue (one coat thick enough to fully penetrate) followed by two coats of Osmo Polyx applied with 0000 steel wool. A super easy finish to apply (less than an hour all told) and the bass was assembled the same day the first coat of finish went on.

This is comfortably my best sounding bass to day. I put it down to the neck construction and the 12mm deep stainless reinforcement, but a humbucker in the sweet spot probably contributes more to the pleasant sound

 

[ctmullins]

Dude, you are on a roll! That looks amazing.