Special Edition Build Off - I Gotta P

[Gary_M]

Beautiful work as usual!

I noticed you didn't route truss rod adjustment access into the body. Are you planning on taking the neck off to make adjustments?

Edit: Oh, and color? I like boring: you can't go wrong with black and maple, so if red doesn't work out...

Thank you, sir. Good eye, the truss rod adjustment slot is on the to-do list, but I just haven't done it yet. I'll probably get to it when I carve in the body contours, drill wire channels, etc.

I would definitely consider black, but since I already have a black P I was planning to do something different.

 

[Gary_M]

Today I got some more work done on the neck. Ordinarily, I cut fret slots before I put a radius on the board. Because I use router bits for the radius, I was concerned that the birdseye maple may chip if were slotted first, so I changed up my normal order of operations.

I mounted the fretboard to the plywood fixture that I use when routing the radius. I always take many passes with very shallow cuts. The board is centered on the fixture, so I rout one side, flip, then rout the other side.

Here I'm sighting from the end to set up the overall height of the bit. I am leaving it just shy of the centerline. I'll remove the bearing later and let the fence limit the cut.

To help stabilize the board during the slotting operation, I wanted to leave the ends of the board square. To accomplish this, I have start and stop marks at each end of the board and on the fence. Yeah, lots of marks there, glad I didn't get them mixed up.

Here is the progress after a few passes.

And done. The centerline is still there and the cut comes nearly to it on each side. I'll just sand the ridge flush and blend it with a sanding beam later.

Closeup of the little ridge. Probably 1/64" tall.

I mounted the board to the slotting template. Here you can see how the end is still square. This will act as a foot along with the center ridge to help hold everything in place while slotting.

Slotted the board...

And done. Of course the fret slots will need to be chased later to bring them to full depth at the edges.

Here I'm getting the board aligned on the neck prior to glue up.

Drilled for alignment pins.

Fretboard was marked and the taper was cut at the band saw. Naturally, most of the interesting parts of the board were cut off when I tapered it.

Per my usual procedure, the board was attached with hot hide glue and put in the vacuum bag for clamping. I'll pull it out later tonight.

Wow, that was a long post. If you made it this far, thanks for looking.

 

[AK4570]

Beautiful and precise (no pun intended) work, Sir.

And a good evening to you as well.
John

 

[TerribleTim68]

I'm really curious about your router bit and fence setup for your fretboard radius. Did I miss the part where you said what the radius is? Also, I'd love to see more pics of how you set up the fence to control your "depth" of the routing.

 

[Gary_M]

Beautiful and precise (no pun intended) work, Sir.

And a good evening to you as well.
John

Thank you sir!

 

[Gary_M]

I'm really curious about your router bit and fence setup for your fretboard radius. Did I miss the part where you said what the radius is? Also, I'd love to see more pics of how you set up the fence to control your "depth" of the routing.

Um, I'm honestly not sure if I mentioned it or not, but it is a 9.5" radius. The depth of cut is simply controlled by how much the bit is "buried" within the fence. I usually take 6-8 very shallow passes flipping the board and fixture end for end to cut evenly on each half of the fretboard.

Between each pass, the fence is moved back, just a tiny bit. {EDIT to clarify: When I move the fence back, I keep one side locked and move only one end of the fence. The locked side effectively becomes a pivot.) This exposes more cutting edge. I keep marking the surface of the board to keep visual track of the cut progress. Once I'm right next to the centerline, I stop.

Here are a few pictures from another build which may show the setup a little better.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining it very well, so let me know if you have questions. I should just make a short video at some point.

 

[Gary_M]

Here is some more progress on the project. I decided to work on the body contours next. This is one of my favorite parts of any build.

I decided to start with the belly carve, so I fastened the body to the bench with a holdfast and penciled in the outline.

Using various rasps, I roughed in the belly carve. Thinking about making an extra deep "COVID-19" sized belly carve.

Here it is pretty much complete.

Next up was the forearm contour... no real progress shots. Nearly done here.

I mounted the body in the vise and got to work on softening and blending.
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

And here's the body mostly complete.

There are still a few areas that need to be massaged a bit. Before I shoot finish, I'll give it a once-over and tweak those areas a bit.

Also on the to-do list are the wire channels and truss rod adjustment notch.

More soon.

 

[Gary_M]

Small amount of progress today on the neck.

I trimmed the headstock down to just over 9/16" at the bandsaw. I'm not entirely sure what the official thickness should be. I have a slew of Fenders and they range from just over 1/2" to nearly 5/8". I figured I'd shoot for a happy medium.

Next, I lopped off the excess chunk.

Drilled some appropriately sized holes for the vintage styled reverse tuners.

I drilled for and installed some black plastic dots. I used hot hide glue for this. Ordinarily I use CA to install dots, but I was afraid that CA may discolor the maple board. Since this will get a couple of coats of lacquer I wanted to use an adhesive that was gap filling, but would not soak into the grain and discolor it. As you can see, this piece is has a lot of wild and swirling patterns.

I also installed some side dots tonight, also with hot hide glue.

Next, I'll get the fret slots down to final depth, sand the dots flush and clean up the fretboard surface. After that, it's neck carving time.

More soon.

 

[Gary_M]

Here is some additional progress on the neck. Getting in the home stretch on the woodworking portion of the build now. Exciting stuff!

I sanded the dots flush and cleaned up the fretboard surface.

Next, I marked the nut, 3rd and 12th fret positions. I transferred the primary facet layout lines from my profile drawing to my neck blank.

Bass side primary facet done.

Treble side primary facet done.

Secondary facets in progress here. I like to work with a single light source while doing the majority of neck shaping. It really helps me to see where I'm going.

Tertiary facets marked out... These are not marked with any real precision, I just mark out some quick guidelines. I'm knocking the high points off all the secondary facets. I keep doing that until everything starts to blend. I continue to use raking light to check the progress.

Here, I'm nearly done with the initial shaping. My process is probably different than most, but I leave the final thicknessing until this step. Here you can see how the center is still untouched. The maple is still at 3/4" and the overall thickness is just at 1". At this point, I shave down the 1-3rd fret area to the correct thickness, then taper that up to nothing at around the 12th fret. I true it up with a straightedge, then blend the back center into the rest of the carve.

And here it is all blended together. The transitions still need to be finished, but the overall carve is pretty close now. It's about .96" at the 3rd, but the shoulders are sloped nicely. Feels perfect for me and not overly chunky.

It's hard to pick up with that lighting, but that neck is going to look killer when finish hit it!

I was going to fret it before I shaped it, but today I was in the mood for carving. So next will be fretting and finishing up final shaping and details.

 

[Jeff Siddall]

It's hard to pick up with that lighting, but that neck is going to look killer when finish hit it!

I must be getting better at subconsciously adding finish to wood because as soon as I saw that neck I was thinking "that figure is awesome!"

 

[Gary_M]

Worked on smoothing out the transitions tonight and got them nearly where I want them. Minor tweaks are still needed, but I'm pretty pleased.

 

[Gary_M]

I must be getting better at subconsciously adding finish to wood because as soon as I saw that neck I was thinking "that figure is awesome!"

Ha! Yeah, sometimes it catches the light just right and it just starts to glow. I've been tempted to wipe it down with naptha or something, but I think I'll just hold off and wait for the real thing.

 

[Gary_M]

Today I mostly worked on fretting the neck, so here are the highlights.

First I cleaned up the fretboard and sanded up through 600 grit. The fretboard eventually gets lacquered with the rest of the neck. I was concerned about getting the fretboard all dirty during fretting, filing etc., so I decided to wipe on a couple of quick coats of shellac. Hopefully this won't end up biting me in the rear.

I wiped on a coat, let it dry, then wiped on another coat.

Just a single coat of shellac adds a really nice color.

After the second coat was dry, I lightly sanded with 600, then buffed it with a brown paper bag to make sure it was very smooth.

I'm using Jescar 47104 stainless fretwire on this build.

I trimmed the frets down, then sanded flush to the edge of the board.

Next I beveled the fret ends.

And done! Well, for now anyway. Any additional fret work will be done after finishing.

More soon.

 

[AK4570]

That is a gorgeous neck... Well done, Sir.

 

[Gary_M]

That is a gorgeous neck... Well done, Sir.

Hey thanks, I appreciate it! Hope to start shooting some finish within a week if all goes well.

 

[Gary_M]

I've gotten a little bit done over the past couple of days, but working from home is actually killing my time for working on this. Working from home has turned into working at all hours... which sucks and I need to put an end to it. I work in a company full of workaholics... and it is getting ridiculous.

OK, on with some actual progress.

Drilled the pickup wire channel.

Routed the truss rod adjustment pocket using a 5/8" core box bit.

Needs a little clean up to get rid of the fuzz.

Drilled and countersunk the neck bolt holes.

Marked and drilled for the neck screws and mounted the neck.

Always feels good to put it together for the first time.

Next, I worked on mounting the tuning machines.

All done.

I trimmed the nut height down a bit.

Great fit, just needs some slots and shaping.

I pulled my 1982 '62 Fullerton AVRI to double-check the bridge screw location. I love that bass. It has aged so nicely. It plays and sounds fantastic.

That's it for today, I'm hoping to accomplish a solid mock-up tomorrow (minus electronics and pickguard. Then, it will be time to tear it down, refine some body carving and finish sand that bad boy. I'm hoping the weather will continue to hold so that I can shoot some finish!

 

[Gary_M]

Well, I finished up the last of the actual woodworking and construction part of the build. Here are a few quick pictures of that process.

I got the bridge aligned and installed.

Marked and slotted the nut. I also went ahead and glued the nut in once this was pretty close. Fine tuning will be done after final assembly.

Here is a quick mock-up with the pickguard, knobs and covers laying in place. I did a very rough and quick setup on the bass and noodled on it for a bit. It is LOUD. But, I guess most instruments are a little louder with no finish, so I can't read into it much. But I have to say, each string rings out with authority and no dead spots at this point.

Next, I broke the bass down and refined some of the carved parts. Here I made the belly cut extra-deep.

And smoothed. I think that slimmer top profile looks better to my eyes.

Using raking light to help guide me with sanding and shaping.

I think that will be pretty much it for updates until I start to shoot some finish. This week is going to be pretty cool. I may go ahead and run the heat in the garage and get started, I don't want to run out of time for sure.

More soon, hopefully.

 

[Dark Horse]

Nice clean build so far , great work !

 

[Gary_M]

Nice clean build so far , great work !

Hey, thanks! I know you're not feeling the best right now, but I think you're still kicking my a$$ on the productivity front!

 

[Gary_M]

Well, today I was able to get started on the finishing process. Honestly, it sort of surprised me that I was able to. The weather this spring is just not warming up like it normally does, so I'm right on the brink of not being able to shoot lacquer.

Anyway, I got things prepped and was able to shoot my first coat of sealer today. The Mohawk sealer has flatteners added and has a really cool matte sheen to it. Apparently it can be used as a finish itself and I may do that on a future project.

The poplar body is going to need multiple sealer coats for sure. It turns a pretty funky color as well. Of course I had to put my initials and a date in there... even though they will probably get covered later.

The neck looks pretty yummy, I have to say. I'll look it over tomorrow after I sand it back, but I think only one seal coat will be needed here.