There's another storm brewing!

[pilotjones]

Saddle blanks laid in place, to figure where the holes should be drilled in each, in order to be able to lay two nice lines for the edges. Positions based on SK1 after intonation.
Link Removed

Blanks drilled, tapped, and tops sanded.

 

[Hopkins]

I'm impressed by the amount of time you put into every step. I would have long since ran out of patience.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Looks fantastic, PJ!

 

[pilotjones]

Thanks.

Patience can be a virtue or a vice, it's all in the application. For all the things that I let sit until I come up with the "perfect" solution, there are still some things where I just do it NOW even when it's not advisable. For example, those saddle blocks may turn out to be a little too short, but wanted to get on to the next thing. I have more material to make longer ones if necessary, though.


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Today got the tuners in their final positions, pre-drilled the holes for the little rotation screws, and put in the screws. I printed out a CAD drawing of the nut end of the board including the string paths. I positioned it, and added a copper wire to act as a zero fret, and strings. This is so that I could
- cut the "nut" grooves in the right places
- judge how much extra wood I have at the sides for doing a rolled edge.

Then I took off the strings, cut those grooves, and did the rollover on both edges. The treble side gets more rollover, because that's where it matters for feel. I followed that with some more shaping on the back of the neck, and some tweaking of the body contours.

 

[tbrannon]

I followed that with some more shaping on the back of the neck, and some tweaking of the body contours.

No pictures?? What tease. Haha.

Every picture you post, I see some detail I had previously missed. Love the multiple paths the lams take running from the neck up into the headstock on this most recent picture. So many wonderful little details on this bass.

 

[pilotjones]

Nothing really pic-worthy as far as those minor adjustments. Maybe noticeable in person or by hand, but not so much on the internet.

Yes, the extra lams took a bit more thinking to do, I'm glad they're presenting themselves well.




Stone score

I've been wanting to have a good smooth flat surface for sharpening tools. A week ago when I was visiting a plater in Brooklyn, I stopped by a neighboring stone cutter to see if he would sell me a sink drop, or something else suitable. He had nothing because he had just "cleaned up, " but he told me to come back in a few days.

I went back today, and he had saved several drops for me. I asked if he could cut a 1" strip from one, which I would use for fret leveling. He said that he really couldn't do that easily because even his saw is CNC (it was cool to watch a twelve or fourteen inch diamond-bladed saw flying through the air on a gantry!), but I was welcome to anything in the dumpster.

I walked out with two sink drops and a 1-1/4" x 60" bar, no charge.

 

[wraub]

I did much the same, went to a local countertop place and asked to search their cut pile.

Came home with a piece roughly 18x12 inches, and 2 pieces roughly 3x6 and 3x8. Sanding blocks and a variable work/sharpening surface, free of charge.

Recommended.

 

[Ol'Bass'ead]

I like to make my nuts out of that stuff.....

 

[pilotjones]

I did much the same, went to a local countertop place and asked to search their cut pile.

Came home with a piece roughly 18x12 inches, and 2 pieces roughly 3x6 and 3x8. Sanding blocks and a variable work/sharpening surface, free of charge.

Recommended.

Hmmm, I never thought about regular sanding blocks before. Duh.

Maybe I'll try to cut two out from one of the rectangles. Each has a line coming in from the center of each end about 3" from where they started the water jet in the waste area, so all it would take is one good straight line.

I like to make my nuts out of that stuff.....

The white stuff? It's not Corian, I think it's a remanufactured stone. It has a high polish on one side and the dust is chalky. Is the dust from Corian chalky or plastic-y?

 

[Ol'Bass'ead]

Not sure, it's been a while. But if I remember right it was plasticky. And I thought that was Corian you had picked up. Yeah, Corian is what I use.

 

[pilotjones]

Yeah. I looked up the white stuff, it's "Cambria" stone, per the markings on the back. 93% quartz, should be great as a block.




This thread has been sadly lacking of late in beer content, so here are the beers that were sampled at today's Easter gathering, in order of tasting.

If you're interested about any of them, I'll try to remember what the general impressions were.

 

[pilotjones]

Small tune-ups

• Deepened the trough for the strings' ball ends, so that the B and E won't protrude as far when strung up. Re-did the tail-out of the trough at the bass side to look nice.
• Enlarged the thumb notch for removing the cavity cover. Much more comfortable now.
• Drilled the hole for the preamp's LED. It is in the bottom trough, just inside, between the blue and green in the spectrum stripe on the treble side. There it will shine upwards and be visible when plugging the cable in, which is when it gives its battery status flashes.

You can also kind of see how I worked out the transitions from the raised tail end of the fretboard to the lower body wings. Functionally good so that it has no sharp corners to get damaged, and I think aesthetically nice.

 

[ctmullins]

... aesthetically nice.

Uh, yeah. And Mt Everest is "kinda tall".

So what's it weigh at this point?

 

[pilotjones]

Thanks. No weight on it, as I don't have an accurate scale with any kind of capacity. It's pretty light, though. The pickups are not too heavy, even the three of them together, and the wiring harness is not bad. So, since there's no metal bridge, and I want to use wooden knobs again, I think it will be pretty reasonable. I have no idea yet how much finish that lightweight tropical walnut is going to drink in, though. I've seen redwood act like a sponge.

 

[pilotjones]

Snip snip


I finally modified my sheet metal nibbler to be a fret tang nipper. I started with a Klein nipper (see page 21 of this thread) and cut a groove using a cutoff wheel on a Dremel. Here are some pics.

The result is good. on nickel silver wire it does a great job, and on the EVO wire it does almost as well. The EVO snaps off with a quick *snak*, leaving behind a bit of a burr. Either one, I would touch up with a file.

 

[Rôckhewer]

Yeah. I looked up the white stuff, it's "Cambria" stone, per the markings on the back. 93% quartz, should be great as a block.

So I was in the stone fabrication biz for about 15 yr. before getting back into woodworking full time.
& just incase you weren't aware...there are some natural stone slabs, (3/4")... that will actually "warp".
The thicker stuff (3cm) is usually ok.
The Cambria manufactured stone will probably be ok for sanding blocks but I would check it with a machinists straightedge for overall flatness.
Green marble is the absolute worst offender for warping.
The green piece you have there is actually a green "onyx". Onyx is more brittle than marble and will probably stay pretty flat...but I'd check that too.
When stone warps, it pretty much will always be cupped on the polished side & I'm only talking about 1/32" deflection in 12" or so...but that's enough to make a sanding block dig in at the ends.

 

[pilotjones]

Thanks for the info! I will definitely check them for flatness. 1/32 per foot is enormous.

 

[Rôckhewer]

Thanks for the info! I will definitely check them for flatness. 1/32 per foot is enormous.

Yeah, I've only seen it that bad on a piece of green marble...kinda an isolated incident.
More so in the last 8-10 years you'd see so called exotic stones being quarried that can't really hold up on their own & they would have a fiberglass mesh on the back and an epoxy impregnated surface . Stuff like that can get funky as well. It really made it a pain to work with.
I'm much happier having changed career paths & working with wood.

BTW your bass is coming together beautifully...nice work.

 

[pilotjones]

The green agate does have a fiberglass screen on the back, but it checks out as nice and flat.


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Tonight I did some testing of epoxy pore fill.

I used wool daubers as suggested by Bruce, but this left either a foamy surface if i dabbed at it, or a thick coating if I didn't. Then I tried thinning 1:10 and 1:4 or 5 with alcohol. I guess I'll see how it turns out when it cures.

I know a few of you have been doing this. Are you thinning the epoxy? Are you getting this bubbly thing happening?

 

[lbridenstine]

I'm not sure what epoxy you're using or if this is common with epoxy, but I think with Mirror Coat, they suggest using a blow torch to get rid of the bubbles before the epoxy cures, if I remember right. Maybe you could do something like that?