WBO 2025 - Travel Broadens the Mind

[smart51]

It's traditional to start a build off post with a wood pile, but it is still in transit. Here are a couple of pieces of MDF as place holders. I'm going to build a short scale travel bass to replace the one I built for SBO22. The volume knobs are too close to the strings, so I'll make something slightly bigger.

It will be a scratch build and to fit in with the theme, I'm using two species of wood, Ash and Purpleheart, both on the body and in the neck.

 

[smart51]

One freshly sanded body. There are two mistakes. The big one was that somehow I put the pickup cavities in the wrong place. There's a cover going in the recess over them so no-one will know. What's the phrase for this? Tone chambers? The other one was a router error near the neck pocket. The plug hides it well and once stained I think it will be invisible.

 

[Beej]

One freshly sanded body. There are two mistakes. The big one was that somehow I put the pickup cavities in the wrong place. There's a cover going in the recess over them so no-one will know. What's the phrase for this? Tone chambers? The other one was a router error near the neck pocket. The plug hides it well and once stained I think it will be invisible.

View attachment 7110178

I wouldn't have ever known about either of those things if you hadn't just told me.

I like the shape; to my eye it's simultaneously modern and retro.

 

[Why Nautilus‽]

I say get four pickups and just go for it!

 

[smart51]

Black leather dye is very, very black.

 

[smart51]

I'm feeling disproportionally pleased with myself. I've cut a fretboard blank at an angle from a thicker board so that it is quarter sawn.

I know that purpleheart is brown when freshly sawn. How do I get my purpleheart back to purple?

 

[T_Bone_TL]

Time and air (oxygen.) Avoid UV light exposure or it heads back to brown.

 

[smart51]

Here's the neck blank. Ash and Purpleheart.

 

[smart51]

Knobs!

 

[Gervais Cote]

Knobs!

View attachment 7112809

Looks promising…………

 

[smart51]

More progress

 

[smart51]

Slots for the tuner guides to sit in. Recessing the outer ones lower means you don't use up the string hight adjustment allowing for the fretboard radius.

 

[smart51]

The tuners are finished. Shielding paint and wiring next.

 

[Gervais Cote]

The tuners are finished. Shielding paint and wiring next.

View attachment 7114301

Goodness ! Not even finished yet that !!!!!

 

[smart51]

Lacquered Purpleheart looks good.

 

[smart51]

The neck is done, I have to wait for it to purple up before applying finish. I'm not sure about the black grain filler though.

 

[Gervais Cote]

The black grain filler will match the body so looks good to me.

 

[smart51]

First big hiccup of the project. With low UV this time of year, I switched to the heat gun method of purpling up the Purpleheart. I've grain filled and lacquered it, then test fit it to see the colour combination in a moment of triumph. It's shrunk by 3mm (or about 2.5%) in width (but none in length). There's now a 2mm gap along both sides.

The worst thing is that the tuner slots go from the purple to the black and they no longer line up.

 

[smart51]

Here's that colour combination

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Here's that colour combination

View attachment 7118727

Consider mine sympathy “likes”. I hope you get it resolved relatively painlessly.