The Hossenfeffer III Build

[Gilmourisgod]

Ok, that's kind of what I hoped people would say. I'll have to file the bottom of the nut a very slight angle off 90 degrees to get it square to the board, but i dont think it will be noticeable, maybe something like 1 or 2 degrees? Better than notching the binding now anyway. Glad I.asked!

 

[Rôckhewer]

I pretty much always cut my board long enough to put a notch in the fingerboard itself.
But... you're past that.

Bat signal up to @Rôckhewer, what did you do on your Balance K build?

Lol....I tried to make an adjustable nut, ala-Alembic.
It was hideous...it functioned... but imo was totally unnecessary.
(I carve a much prettier nut these days.)

Point being...
If you really want more mechanical advantage over just glue... (which should be fine)....
You could make an adjustable nut... which is a two piece contraption.
It needs a thin base plate under the nut itself with tapped holes for the hold down screws, and provides a seat for the grub screws that set the elevation. That little plate is glued in solid.
Zoom in on my pic above and you'll see it on the edge.
You could shorten that base plate...and inlay it... inside of your binding.

But...
I agree with trending responses... what you got there will be fine.

 

[dwizum]

I don't really get the point in gluing except for the minor convenience of not having the nut fall off when you're doing string changes, but I once had someone give me very strongly worded negative feedback because I didn't glue the nut on his bass. So now I do it by default on other people's instruments or builds I'm selling. None of the nuts on my own instruments are glued. That minor convenience is not worth the risk of possibly chipping wood out when removing a glued nut, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I actually looked at the Warwick two piece adjustable "Just-A-Nut", but they wanted something ridiculous for it... so I got some 1/4" thick brass bar stock and I'll cut my own.

That's going to be a little project in itself, having never done it from scratch before. I bought this Axemasters compensated Jazz nut and realized it was too low to work with this fingerboard. D'oh!

I figure I can use it as template to set string spacing anyway, then it goes in a drawer for another build. I like 1-1/2" nut width, so it should get used eventually.

Will Elmers stick to brass, or should I use CA to tack the nut in?

 

[ctmullins]

What about building a tiny little “tray”, out of matching wood, for the Axemasters nut? You could put a little notch in it, and glue it into place. It would raise the height of the Axemasters nut, and the notch would provide a nice secure mount for it too.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I could......but I think I like the simplicity of a tall brass nut even with the binding. I have enough brass bar stock to make 10 nuts, so if I eff it up the first try, (likely), I'll just make another one.

 

[dwizum]

I've used Elmers white glue and plain old wood glue (usually the LMI stuff) to tack brass nuts in place. It doesn't exactly stick very well but I see that as an advantage since you can give it a gentle tap with a punch and it just breaks free without a struggle.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Trussrod works... check

Blobs of silcone to prevent rattle in the rod channel... check

Brass nut roughed out to verify board location.. I used wire brads to register through a couple fret slots too.

Obligatory neck glueup. I use the fence from my tablesaw as a clamping guide, pretty much the straightest/stiffest thing I own.

I printed out some body carve images from my drawing and lightly spray-mounted them on to serve as high-contrast guides for body carves. This is one part of a build I don't have a lot of confidence or experience in, so I'll take it slow and incremental. I'm trying to keep a hard line transition from flat to rounded edge, we'll see how it goes. I can always carve more off, harder to put it back..

Getting there....

 

[garrett77]

Happy first birthday to this thread. It’s been fun watching this bass come together.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Neck came out of the clamps clean, time to carve it...

Bandsawed off most of the waste, cut the thickness taper on my router sled, and started carving via the "facet method", which is the only way I know how to do it. Works for me...

Initial curves at heel and volute cut with my Robosander to keep everthing straight and square.

Per usual, templates for everything, first and second step facet layout. Then hours of tedious filing, first with a Sureform, then my cheap HF rasps.

A ton of material yet to come off the heel, this will be my first fully carved (and asymetrical) heel. Lots of taking body wings on/off and gradually honing in on it, you can see the pencil hatched area showing approximately what has to come off, blending a bunch of compound curves. As usual, trading time for skill, and every minute in the shop feels like the shortest minute of my week. This may take a while...

Roughing out the volute, the square edges will all get knocked back to blend it in. My third volute, not too scary.

Watching a neck carve about as fun as watching paint dry, I'll spare you till it's done..

 

[Gilmourisgod]

6 hours of carving later....

Im pretty happy with it, probably massage the heel carve some more, hard to see exactly how Alembic does it, so I could take some more off (Bat Signal up to @Rôckhewer !). Didn't cut through to the trussrod or make any other major errors, so I'll call this a win. I'm trying to do a better job on the neck profile on this one, my previous attempts have been a little too "square" for my taste. So far this feels like a nice flat "D" profile, and very sleek. I think I've finally gone as far as I can without gluing the body wings on so I can blend all these curves. Once that's done i can start working on the Heart Omega at the heel. Got a weeks vacation coming up after Christmas so I hope to push this all forward.

 

[StereoPlayer]

Beautiful!

 

[Reedt2000]

6 hours of carving later....
View attachment 4510854
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View attachment 4510856
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View attachment 4510858
View attachment 4510859

Im pretty happy with it, probably massage the heel carve some more, hard to see exactly how Alembic does it, so I could take some more off (Bat Signal up to @Rôckhewer !). Didn't cut through to the trussrod or make any other major errors, so I'll call this a win. I'm trying to do a better job on the neck prfile on this one, my previous attempts have been a little too "square" for my taste. So far this feels like a nice flat "D" profile, and very sleek. I think I've finally gone as far as I can without gluing the body wings on so I can blend all these curves. Once that's done i can start working on the Heart Omega at the heel. Got a weeks vacation coming up after Christmas so I hope to push this all forward.

That volute is awesome

The heel design is very nice as well, maybe needs to blend with the bass string side of the body a tad bit more but looking incredible

 

[Slidlow]

The heel carve is nice. Did you consider going straight across with it?

 

[Gilmourisgod]

That volute is awesome

The heel design is very nice as well, maybe needs to blend with the bass string side of the body a tad bit more but looking incredible

You are definitely right on that, I snuck up to my line as close as I dared, but in order to blend it any further, it will have to be glued up. I don't want to undercut my line rolling into the body contour. Never done a complex compund curve like this before, so I'm winging it (very slowly)!

 

[Gilmourisgod]

The heel carve is nice. Did you consider going straight across with it?

I'm slavishly copying the original Balnce K heel carve, which looks like this, but hard to see exactly whats going on from just from a dead-on back view.

 

[deff]

I'm slavishly copying the original Balnce K heel carve, which looks like this, but hard to see exactly whats going on from just from a dead-on back view.
View attachment 4510889

It looks like you have it really close to the picture.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Looking good. I like the point in the heel carve. It’s a nice reference to the overall Alembic style.

 

[dwizum]

Yeah, bonus points for the authentic pointy heel!

 

[Rôckhewer]

f (Bat Signal up to @Rôckhewer !).

OMG... she's looking phenomenal.
I really don't need to be giving you advice... that volute looks amazing.
But ok.
Your heel is right where it needs to be... pre wing glue up.
After the wings are glued on....yeah... keep scooping out & blend the heel into the wings.

The body radius of the horns... is maintained around the bottom the heel... then drops into the neck... with about the same radius...in reverse.
A tight s-curve.... not a slope.
The neck profile... is maintained... up until that s-curve.
Body radius in black... corresponding scoop in red.

You could probably get it closer... pre glue up.
But yeah... just a little more scoop & finesse.

Here's mine... if it helps.