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second go around on building a bass

S

superquick

Dec 6, 2011
144
1
west ga
#1
well i guess today i officially kicked off my second build. the majority of my body wood came in today, a big hunk of cherry. now to hunt down a top for it along with some neck and fb wood. this one will most likely take a bit longer to complete than my last build but should hopefully turn out much better. so the journey begins :D
 
#2
Small update. I've been in the process still of rounding up parts and wood and making templates to try and keep this process smoother than last time.

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here's the nice piece of cherry i plan on using for the body. now to find the rest of the wood i need and get them ready for glue. its a slow start but moving steadily
 
#3
more wood came today. the top i plan on using is a piece of andiroba and apparantly is a bit bowed. yay for having to order wood from the internet. i believe i can get what i need from it though. i ordered more than what i needed.

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here's some of the extra cherry after i hand planed a bit and sanded smooth. then dampened with some mineral spirits

and here's the andiroba

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i think it should make a gorgeous top matched up with the cherry
 
#4
Looking good! Definitely take your time, make lots of templates, and make sure they're right before cutting your body woods. Got a design yet?
 
#5
Thanks! right after i finished my first bass using no templates at all i started making some to ease the process for this time. i've got my body and neck template already set. here's the body design i came up with

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i'll be making more as i get parts in
 
#6
today i was able to get down to the cabinet shop and get the wood i have now planed and cut down. i got my hunk of cherry finish planed and sliced down to a more workable size and i got my andiroba ripped in half to make a bookmatched top. i was able to get two tops out of the board i got. here they are

top number 1
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and top number 2
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i haven't really decided on which to use yet but they both look gorgeous. and i have more wood on the way as i type. this project is picking up speed
 
#8
i started off this morning by guing up the other half of the body and started cleaning the first half

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thanks to my harbor freight clamps i really have to watch and baby the gluing process nearly up until the glue has set up completely, so by the time i had even pressure on the second half and had the first half cleaned up the second was ready to come out of the clamps and get cleaned up. most of today was spent prepping the two halves to be joined since i dont have a jointer. i hand planed and block sanded the best i could and it turned out fairly well. much better than my first build. after the hours of planing and sanding i set up the glue for joining the body

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and i made a template for routing the control cavity throughout the day as well which turned out pretty good. it's good practice for using the router which i dont have much time on yet. the more i do, the more i learn. and when i'm this early in the game that's what counts the most
 
#9
well i got a good bit accomplished today and it's starting to look more like a bass now than a pile of wood. the body blank came out of the clamps today and i cleaned up the squeeze out. my glue lines of course came out nothing like i wanted but they are what they are now. they don't look too mad but they're nowhere near perfect.

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i know how to fix this problem next time now after having done it. after i got that done i set in on cutting the body out using my template. since i dont have a band saw, and i knew that my scroll saw coluldnt handle this task i just hit it with the router full on. it's worked well so far and should do the job completely as long as i go slow with it. i ran out of time today to finish it up

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tomorrow i'll finish up the body and move on from there
 
#10
Photo0567.jpg


the body is now totally cut out and ready for routing. now to complete the neck which will hopefully happen soon. wood should be coming in soon and i'll make another trip back up to the cabinet shop for cuts and planing. i should be ordering the rest of the parts tomorrow as well so they'll be in soon
 
#12
Looks awesome!

One suggestion for you - by the looks of your template markings, the layout of the pickup cavities and the electronics cavity appear to be extremely close in proximity...there's not much margin for error between where the bottom of the pickup route meets the top of the electronics route. So, you could potentially drill through the top and have a hole open up in the bottom of the route where the cavity is.

I'd aim for a minimum of at LEAST a quarter inch of space, preferably more - between the cavity route line and the pickup route line just to give you a little wiggle room in case of any slight variations in deviation from center line.

Lonnybass
 
#13
when i drew up the plans for the pups i had intended on using soap bars but since have changed my mind to use jazz pickups so i'll be sure and route out my pickups through the top and then make sure to get the control cavity farther away. it does worry me a little like it is so i may go back and make a template for a smaller cavity. or i may possibly do like i did last time and route out the shape of the cavity about half way and then bore holes on down just big enough for the pots to sit in to keep from having the top too thin in such a large area.

for electronics i plan on winding my own jazz pickups so we'll see how it goes. i constructed a small winder and i have the parts ordered to make them so hopefully i can set in on getting those started
 
#15
last week and this week have been totally filled up thanks to band camp so i haven't got much done. i've basically been waiting for parts to come in and to find the time to go back and pick up the wood i left at the cabinet shop to be cut. i have been able start winding the pickups however and it is proving to be really tedious. it's slowly getting there
 
#17
thanks! it's slowly making progress. i got my first ever pickup finished but i'm not totally sure that it did like it was supposed to. i got it wound and tried to ohm it out but it read zero. now after i dipped it in the parafin/beeswax mix and let it dry it now shows resistance. was that supposed to happen or no? i can see how dipping it would insulate the copper and allow a consistant current to flow but i'm not 100% sure. any advise from someone more expirienced than me?
 
#19
superquick said:
thanks! it's slowly making progress. i got my first ever pickup finished but i'm not totally sure that it did like it was supposed to. i got it wound and tried to ohm it out but it read zero. now after i dipped it in the parafin/beeswax mix and let it dry it now shows resistance. was that supposed to happen or no? i can see how dipping it would insulate the copper and allow a consistant current to flow but i'm not 100% sure. any advise from someone more expirienced than me?
Click to expand...

i made my first pickup fairly recently. zero is a bad sign. you mean zero and not open circuit? what dc resistance did you get after potting?
 
#20
the meter i have did not change at all from not having the tips connected and connecting them to the pickup. it shows 0.F open and showed the same when connected. but now after potting it shows 3.19 ohms at 3500 winds and my other shows 2.63 at 3000 winds. they both showed 0.F before potting
 

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