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The Hossenfeffer Bass Build

#226
Headstock thicknessed and tuner holes drilled....badly. Not sure what went wrong, I drilled a 1/16" pilot hole through the headstock then used 3/8" and 1/2" forstner bits to drill holes for tuner post and ferrule, but they don't line up perfectly centered! Sometimes the simplest things elude me. My pilot hole bit must have wandered very slightly going through the maple. I guess it doesn't matter too much, the ferrule hole locations are correct, I'll just have to ream out the post holes very slightly bigger than 3/8" to give me slop to line up with the ferrule hole.
IMG_1155_zpsgfdacahh.jpg


Routed the neck back in a stepped configuration to allow for the volute. I'm sure there was a better way to do this, couldn't thing what it was short of bandaswing the whole thing on edge.
IMG_1156_zpsyh4toy39.jpg
 
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#228
In retrospect, what I should have done was backed up the headstock with some scrap maple clamped tight to it, drilled the 1/2" hole to ferrule depth, then with everything locked down tight, drilled the 3/8" holes right through at the same center and into the scrap to prevent tearout on the back. Seems obvious now that I'm thinking about it..... next step is to bandsaw close to my headstock line and then pattern route to finish with my headstock template. Another handful of weekend woodwork hours shot to hell...
 
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#229
Gilmourisgod said:
In retrospect, what I should have done was backed up the headstock with some scrap maple clamped tight to it, drilled the 1/2" hole to ferrule depth, then with everything locked down tight, drilled the 3/8" holes right through at the same center and into the scrap to prevent tearout on the back. Seems obvious now that I'm thinking about it..... next step is to bandsaw close to my headstock line and then pattern route to finish with my headstock template. Another handful of weekend woodwork hours shot to hell...
Click to expand...

This happens to me often enough. I'll do something, and then think of the way I should have done it. I've accepted that building instruments is a developing process, one that takes time and experience.
 
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#231
I was just looking at one of my first basses as a reference to carve the one I'm working on now, and I noticed how the through body ferrules are misaligned - I did similar to what you did and the pilot drill drifted as it was going through the body wood. I found a much better way to do it - I drill the two outside pilot holes from the front without worrying if they wander. On the back I draw a line between the pilot holes, measure them out so they are perfect and use an awl to mark the locations, then I drill them with a forstner bit. It's possible that the hole for the string is not perfectly aligned with the hole in the bottom of the bridge, but since the bridge is covering that hole I can enlarge it without being able to see it from the top. I have three basses with misaligned ferrules, so it took a little while to figure this one out.
 
#233
Gilmourisgod said:
In retrospect, what I should have done was backed up the headstock with some scrap maple clamped tight to it, drilled the 1/2" hole to ferrule depth, then with everything locked down tight, drilled the 3/8" holes right through at the same center and into the scrap to prevent tearout on the back. Seems obvious now that I'm thinking about it..... next step is to bandsaw close to my headstock line and then pattern route to finish with my headstock template. Another handful of weekend woodwork hours shot to hell...
Click to expand...

I do things wacky too.:wacky:

It's not lost time if you learned from it
 
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#235
I haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if this has been covered already, but:
You could always just glue stripes of bubinga onto the bottom your binding before installation, to get the 'exposed board edge' look.
This would be the better way to do it anyway, since an over-thick fingerboard usually results in having not enough wood behind the truss rod - a fairly average nut-end thickness of .825" minus .375" of fingerboard would leave only .450" of neck wood, and the truss rod route is usually .375" deep leaving only .075" of material behind it...not enough to be stable/strong.

Cheers,
Martin
 
#236
Martin
Thanks for the post, but that ship has sailed, so to speak. I've been pretty true to the original design, including the thick fingerboard. What you describe is just an additional neck binding in bubinga that I could have routed a ledge for, a great idea, but too late! I realized how thin the remaining maple beam is, which is why I added a volute and carbon rod stiffeners. Hopefully that yields a strong neck. I keep asking how much wood is safe between bottom of trussrod and back of neck, the consensus seems to be 1/8" as a bare scary minimum, and 3/16" preferred. I haven't carved the neck yet, but its a Double action rod 1/4" wide x around 3/8" deep. That leaves 3/16" under the trussrod, but the neck is thicker than I hoped. In hindsight (the only kind I seem to have!) i could have made the whole neck thinner by just eliminating the band of exposed bubinga under the white binding. Here's a section at the first fret, showing the truss rod and carbon stiffener positions relative to back of neck. I'd like to shave at least 1/16" off the neck back. I don't see the carbon rods as a problem, since they don't move, but maybe there is a shallower DA trussrod I could use that would allow me to thin it out? Not sure what I'd do with the existing trussrod channel, maybe infill with solid maple and re-route to a shallower depth? Any brilliant suggestions appreciated!
EDIT: looked at the Stewmac "low profile" DA rod, also requires a 3/8" deep slot. Anybody seen a shallower one?
volute_zpsqk7lnqy6.jpg
 
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#239
Gilmourisgod said:
It's probably just my experience, I have dropped a running router, which was very exciting, never dropped a router table, but there is the whole pucker factor with the exposed spinning Blades of Death. My Craftsman router table came with a poorly designed blade cover, maybe I can find a way to use it.
Click to expand...

The rule of thumb when using a hand held router is to not lift it until the bit stops spinning.
 
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#240
That's an excellent rule of thumb I always follow, same with a tablesaw. The exciting router incident I referred to was basically tripping over the cord, which drove the bit into the wood, which then kicked back and flung it out of my hands. Luckily it flung away instead of towards me. I get a little sweaty just thinking about it. Now I either use the table or watch the cord! I know I should use the blade guard, haven't figured out how to make it work for template routing.
 
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