Short scale 5er

[turindev]

I saw one out there by @turindev too - how did those Hi Beams work out for the B?

They weren’t flats, but I thought they worked great! It was kind of a pain finding strings too (this was a 30” scale)

 

[Jisch]

I've got a pretty busy day today, but got a half hour in this morning before stuff got under way.

I got the neck taper cut - bandsaw, oscillating drum sander then sanding block.

I got the top glued up - based on the grain this will surely look like a once piece top. I cut both pieces on the table saw, the treble side had a little bit of bow to the cut, I flattened it out with my level with sandpaper on it. I can barely see the seam with the glue on it. I think I will put a thin black laminate in between this and the walnut back, just so there's a bit of contrast (not 100% on that though).

I looked at a bunch of options for the fretboard, birdseye maple wins. The other darker woods I had were either too close a match - like I tried to match and failed - or just didn't look right against the slightly red sapele. This will look good. It's tough to do this matching with darker woods as you know the color will change when I put Tru Oil on it, but this is a safe bet.

Next I need to get the walnut body cut out and chambered, and I guess get those fret slots figured out.

 

[Jisch]

Another day without a lot of shop time, but I got the top and body rough cut out and found a piece of walnut for the neck heel. That sapele is pretty nice.

 

[Jisch]

I brought the top in close to where I want it - I'll cut the body down and do further edits after glue up.

and I made up a test fretboard out of a scrap piece of oak, I'll use this to try out my CNC cuts.

 

[tjclem]

I had a little dilemma with the truss rod - a "standard" bass one was too long, a long (480mm) guitar one would probably work, but was a little short. I had a friend weld a bass truss rod a bit, I'll cut off the end and this one will be the perfect length. Can I charge extra for a custom truss rod? It cost me an oak bowl.
View attachment 4637939

LMII will make them any length you want that is who I use. Good luck with your project...t

 

[Jisch]

I suppose at some point I'll get comfortable enough with CNC where I won't have to run tests, but today I proved why I still need to do run tests.

I ran the fretboard, but I only cut centerlines and the two fret slots on the end, I can figure out the rest based on these four lines. I basically built the fretboard in Fret2Find and imported the SVG file into the CAD software, rotated it 90% and viola.

I forgot to change the board size in the CAD, I had programmed a 4" wide board and my board is actually 2.75" so my first attempt had the centerline way off the center. The feedrate for the .5mm end mill was also way too fast, broke it off right away. I corrected those two things and got this board, it looks good but I will do some measurements to make sure it's perfect before running the birdseye board.

 

[Jisch]

I started running the fretboard this morning. I broke a bit on the first run when it got to the second fret. I slowed the feed rate down and started a second run. The bit broke on the second fret again - after looking carefully the broken bit was still in the slot, so the second bit hit the first one and broke. I slowed everything down even more (just to be safe) and am running it now, I just made it past the second fret, so away we go. It doesn't matter how long it takes to run as it will just run as I'm at work here, why do I want it to go faster? Hopefully I'll have a fretboard by lunch time.

 

[TerribleTim68]

.... It doesn't matter how long it takes to run as it will just run as I'm at work here, why do I want it to go faster? Hopefully I'll have a fretboard by lunch time.

Exactly, feed rate only matters to production work.

 

[Jisch]

I got all the hardware from the buyer last night. I have been designing off of mechanical diagrams up until now, I guess it's just a lack of trust or whatever, but I feel SOOOOO much better and more confident having the parts in front of me and doing actual placing and measuring. One thing that got me in the placement of the bridge is that the string saddles are centered on the baseplate, but the middle screw is not. I had a few seconds of WTFing before realizing that

I re-worked the top body shape a bit, cut down the fretboard and planed the fretboard down, it was sitting at 0.35", I want it more in the 0.25" range. I guess I took this pic before I did that work on the fretboard.

This thing is looking nice, but I am at the part where I have the absolute maximum number of pieces, I don't think I have ADHD really, but at this point I can get easily distracted by different stuff that has to be done. Next up routing the body for control cavity, pickup and chambers.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I got all the hardware from the buyer last night. I have been designing off of mechanical diagrams up until now, I guess it's just a lack of trust or whatever, but I feel SOOOOO much better and more confident having the parts in front of me and doing actual placing and measuring. One thing that got me in the placement of the bridge is that the string saddles are centered on the baseplate, but the middle screw is not. I had a few seconds of WTFing before realizing that

I re-worked the top body shape a bit, cut down the fretboard and planed the fretboard down, it was sitting at 0.35", I want it more in the 0.25" range. I guess I took this pic before I did that work on the fretboard.
View attachment 4649365

This thing is looking nice, but I am at the part where I have the absolute maximum number of pieces, I don't think I have ADHD really, but at this point I can get easily distracted by different stuff that has to be done. Next up routing the body for control cavity, pickup and chambers.

I did almost the same thing yesterday. I was locating a bridge and thought one of the mounting holes was centered on the bridge. I couldn’t get the side to side to line up on my jig when I had that hole on the center line of the body though. It took an embarrassingly long time and amount of “creative language” before I realized the mounting hole wasn’t quite centered in the bridge.

 

[Jisch]

I did almost the same thing yesterday. I was locating a bridge and thought one of the mounting holes was centered on the bridge. I couldn’t get the side to side to line up on my jig when I had that hole on the center line of the body though. It took an embarrassingly long time and amount of “creative language” before I realized the mounting hole wasn’t quite centered in the bridge.

I have a headless bass that has some maple trim around the bridge because I routed the hole for it based off of the mounting screws and not the saddles. It was off by 1/4". Pencil marks are a lot easier to erase than router marks.

 

[Jisch]

This bass is specified with wood cover over the pickup. My normal process is to make the pickup cover then cut a hole in the top to accommodate the cover. I drill a hole in the top then cut inside the lines with my scroll saw then use a file to bring the hole out to the lines. This makes for a perfect fit, but the piece I cut out is typically not usable for the top, not to mention the fact that it's slow, fiddly work.

Since I have the CNC and a tiny bit, there is a better way (hopefully).

The programming took about 90 seconds. I put the X/Y zero mark in the center of the square and set that up on the CNC. I ran the 0.5mm bit in the CNC along the centerline and adjusted the top on the waste boards to make sure it was absolutely straight. This is probably equally boring to the non-CNC and old school CNC guys, but I'm still in the fascination stage with this machine.

Then I hit play, 12 minutes and one broken bit later I had a perfectly square cutout. I don't have any of this sapele left really so this will allow me to use the cutout as the cover for the pickup. I set the depth of cut to what I measured the thickness of the top to be on the edge. Apparently it's slightly thicker in the middle. I had no marks in the waste boards, but I had to use an Xacto to cut out about a half inch long section in the middle, that section was paper thin. It's hard for my brain to grasp this level of accuracy.

While that was running I started sanding the radius (and yes I get the irony in the fact I am doing the radius by hand, but I'm not quite there yet with my 3D design skills and it only takes a few minutes).

 

[Snert]

I have been wondering if that would work to get PU covers and control cavity covers etc. I was thinking of using a Dremel with a base and template, but CNC is even better.

 

[Jisch]

I have been wondering if that would work to get PU covers and control cavity covers etc. I was thinking of using a Dremel with a base and template, but CNC is even better.

For control covers I have historically cut it out with a scroll saw.

My dad has a pinless blade on his scroll saw and you can use a tiny drill to allow you to get the blade through the back. The challenge with a scroll saw is it comes down to skill using the tool. Even after cutting a couple dozen like that my cuts are sometimes not perfect. I don't know if I could use a dremel or router with a thin enough bit and not break it while following a template manually. That said I've seen some people wrap the cover with a thin laminate that would allow for a thicker kerf and larger bit.

I think I will try cut out the control cavity cover with the CNC as well, I'm getting more comfortable with it for sure.

 

[Snert]

For control covers I have historically cut it out with a scroll saw.

That was how I was going to approach it, but have no skill with a scroll saw. Might have to just be a cavity rout and brass cover until I either get my skills up or a CNC.
I have too much spare time at the moment and I've finished the electronics designs I had to do, so have had time to think about what builds I could do, even if they're way beyond my skills. There are other more reasonable builds to accomplish before I get to continuous cover, but I can't shut my nerd brain from thinking about it.

 

[Jisch]

That was how I was going to approach it, but have no skill with a scroll saw. Might have to just be a cavity rout and brass cover until I either get my skills up or a CNC.
I have too much spare time at the moment and I've finished the electronics designs I had to do, so have had time to think about what builds I could do, even if they're way beyond my skills. There are other more reasonable builds to accomplish before I get to continuous cover, but I can't shut my nerd brain from thinking about it.

When I first tried cutting using that scroll saw my dad told me "you have to stay ahead of the cut". It's really easy to end up with a lot of side pressure on the blade and things go crazy when you try to make a turn. Practice makes perfect. While I related that I've done quite a few of these, the reality is I don't do it often enough to get to the point where I'm really good at it, there's a certain amount of relearning every time I do it. My dad cuts out gears for wooden clocks on it, he's gotten really good at it.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

When I first tried cutting using that scroll saw my dad told me "you have to stay ahead of the cut". It's really easy to end up with a lot of side pressure on the blade and things go crazy when you try to make a turn. Practice makes perfect. While I related that I've done quite a few of these, the reality is I don't do it often
enough to get to the point where I'm really good at it, there's a certain amount of relearning every time I do it. My dad cuts out gears for wooden clocks on it, he's gotten really good at it.

Yeah, I don’t think I’d be that good with the scroll saw either. Of course, my scroll saw isn’t the best so that helps the “nice, consistent cut” issue.

 

[Jisch]

Chamber and control cavity routed.

 

[Jisch]

This work stuff gets in the way! My progress is a bit disappointing over the last few days.

This morning I got up early and got a couple things done:
I got the control cavity cover cut, I need to route just a touch deeper from the front, the CNC route is .25" deep, I left over .3" from the front. I figured leaving it this way would prevent the top from falling and breaking the .5mm end mill, but either way probably would work

While that was running (which is a huge advantage of CNC) I started working on the pickup cover. I could have done all this on the CNC, but It's a pretty deep route and it was pretty easy to accomplish. First I cut a hunk of walnut the same size as the sapele I cut out of the top, I drilled it out with a forstner bit, cut it to depth on the table saw then cut it out with a coarse blade in the scroll saw. This is pushing the limits of the scroll saw, but it works if you're careful to hold the wood down. The sapele here is too thick, I'll plane it down to probably half as thick as it is now. If I remember I will take that off the BACK of this so the top of the pickup cover matches the top of the bass perfectly.

Fits like a glove. It's probably a bit too tight causing the edges to bulge, I'll file it out a little bit. I'll glue in some cross pieces to hold the pickup in the cover.

 

[Jisch]

At lunch I ran some arms to hold the magnets which will hold the control cavity cover on. I normally make these by hand, wow, CNC was so easy, push a button, 12 minutes later 4 perfect arms.