The Evil Twin, another 36" headless build

[TheBloodyBarber]

Yet another build has begun this afternoon. Last year I built my third instrument, chronicled here. I love the 36" scale length and the Nova headless hardware, the cheap single coil rails and the crazy maple. All this to say, I need to make a backup to my primary gigging bass. Not a clone though... an evil, darker twin.

Materials, parts, and specs:
36" scale 5 string
Crotch walnut top, poplar body
Five piece cherry/maple bolt-on neck
Epoxy coated maple burl fretboard

Nova headless hardware, 19mm spacing
Bitter Root 22" spoke wheel truss rod
Bartolini BH2s wired parallel with single coil selectors on both, passive wired VVT
20 Bronze frets
D'addario super long Pro Steels

So today we split, book matched, and glued up the top and then glued up the back body layer. There's another middle layer of poplar left to thickness plane, joint, and glue up.

 

[bholder]

nice wood. near demonic grain!!

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

Yeah, it's downright infernal. I can't wait to see it finish sanded and finished.

 

[bholder]

I'd be tempted to stain it black rubbed into the grain, then sanded back, then crimson red fading to blood red and black edges. But it's sure to be gorgeous whatever you do!

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

It's way too hot to mow the lawn today so I headed over to the shop with the intent to cut and glue something. The choices were either the middle poplar layer or the neck and the neck won out. I've been planning a five piece neck since inception but it was a game day decision on woods. I've been pretty set on cherry but wasn't sure on the stripes, either curly maple or black walnut. I went with the curly maple.

The cherry has quarter sawn ribbon visible top and bottom that should really pop when it's finished. This curly maple was used in the top of my last build, just insane looking stuff.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

Rainy day so I headed over to the shop. I thought I had enough poplar for the last body lamination but had apparently miscalculated. We went over to the lumber yard and grabbed up a nice stripey piece. We ripped it into 3.5" strips, planed, jointed, and glued them up. I think it'll be a real nice contrast to the super bbusy top. Here's the first shot of my body shape too.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I got the body pieces out of clamps, scraped, sanded flat, and the poplar glued up. I clamped the walnut to the poplar without glue so it doesn't Pringle on me. After sanding to 120,that walnut crotch is looking real, real nice.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I'm going to chamber this body before gluing the walnut top on. How thin can I safely go with poplar on the back? I've gone with a fat 1/4" with maple and cherry in my last couple builds but poplar is noticeably softer. Am I still safe at a fat 1/4" or should I go a little thicker?

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

A couple days ago I went over to the shop, unclamped the poplar, and cut the body shape on the bandsaw and jigsaw. It's starting to look like something.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I got over to the shop this afternoon with the intent to rough cut the walnut top and get it glued down to the poplar. I routed tunnels for pickup and bridge ground wiring, rough cut the top on the bandsaw, set a few pins, and glued it up. It's almost looking like a body.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I got the body of of the clamps, profile sanded, bridge and neck pocket sketched. I also did some finish testing on walnut scrap with clear and amber shellac. I'm going with amber.

I ended up with a few exposed biscuits that I need to carve out and epoxy fill. I also need to epoxy fill my maple burl fretboard. I'll take care of those tonight and tomorrow.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

Today we got the fretboard ripped to almost width, split, thickness planed, and epoxied. This is piece of burl is pretty wild. Once that was all done I had time to rout the roundover around most of the body. The planer that takes these bigger bits is a bear to handle delicately so I'll finish around the lower horn by hand.

My bronze fret wire is sitting at the post office. As long as the epoxy behaves through cure, next up is probably slotting the board and routing for the truss rod. It's coming together pretty fast now.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I got the fretboard slotted today. It's looking real nice.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I got the truss rod slot routed and the horns finish shaped before running face first into my first big problem. The resin I used on my fretboard was peeling up on the edges on several places. I'm not about to trust that long term so it all got scraped and sanded off before several coats of amber shellac. From here on, I'll stick with shellac anywhere I want something shiny and keep epoxy reserved for filling holes.

Next up, neck glue-up

 

[Matteo Marziali]

Antimatter inspired?

 

[Level5wizard]

Where did you find that top? Looks insane

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

Antimatter inspired?

Yeah, it's my favorite shape.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

Where did you find that top? Looks insane

There's a local lumber yard where I can pick through the stacks for something that grabs me. This top cost $4.25/board foot due to knots.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

So... Catastrophe struck. I measured my neck pocket wrong and ended up unable to set my bridge on my body for 36" scale. Duh. I put that body on the shelf for a future short scale project.

We glued up a rainbow block out of maple, cherry, and walnut a few days ago. I dropped it off this morning with my CNC having friend. I worked up a rough sketch of the body stretched a bit to give me more wiggle room. He made some quick work cutting it out, routing the neck pocket, pickups, tuner access, and control cavity. Now into shaping the neck and body edges.

 

[TheBloodyBarber]

I spent a couple hours after work in the shop tonight getting the body edge sanded and the neck shaping started. I ordered some little neo magnets to fasten the control cover. They should be here next week.