What's On Your Workbench?

[hushnel]

Just finished one up. This was a slap together project just to get me back into building. I used a 30" scale paddle head rosewood fretless neck, a profiled Tele body of Cedar and a hand wound/scatter wound 51 P bass single coil. it turned out pretty nice. Paint job sucks but it's wearing nicely. I may redo it in a month or so, when it cool off and the humidity drops a bit.

The next project I've selected the wood, received a truss rod and rosewood finger board, and a rather large piece of Sassafras I'll use for the bottom part of the body, which will capped with black walnut. The neck will be cut from a piece of Honduran Mahogany I've had stashed away for about 15 year. The black walnut is about 100 years from the day it was cut.

Sassafras

Mahogany and Black Walnut,

 

[thebassbuilder]

Wow, some cool things in this thread!!

Me, I'm working on a 4 string neckthru, and applying shellac on a ukelele.

Looks great! What kind of app or filter are you using on these pictures?

 

[jmorbita]

Looks great! What kind of app or filter are you using on these pictures?

Thanks!
I'm using a canon T3 camera with a 50 mm lens, and procesging in lightroom 5.

 

[thebassbuilder]

Thanks!
I'm using a canon T3 camera with a 50 mm lens, and procesging in lightroom 5.

It looks killer! I love the effect. It reminds me of those model trains/towns you would see where the cars are moving about and I just love that look. Great job all around.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

^ Looks like he's got his camera set up with a fairly narrow depth of field.

 

[Scoops]

A chunk of Mahogany.
This piece cost me 80 bux, including tax and the half gallon of gas it took me to get there and back. I'll get 4 bodies out of it minimum.

 

[Will_White]

I decided I wanted to join the black and maple club, so this is what was on my work bench.

A Guitar Fetish scratch and dent guitar body I re-contoured and refinished, a maple/maple neck with mother of pearl blocks, white binding and two way truss rod from rondo music, a 15.8k black on black GFS Power Rails humbucker, cheap 18mm black bridge modified for better intonation adjustment range, cheap black tuners, black floyd rose string retainer, cheap black neckplate, black elliptical strap buttons. I've got a pair of black mini switches coming still along with a new soldering iron (red). Here's a close up of the neck, I'm really impressed with the quality on this thing.

Because it was a guitar body I had to route the neck pocket out to fit the wider neck (too wide actually) c and I knocked the gloss off the back of the neck and the body with steel wool. I installed the strap button on the inside of the upper horn to help with neck dive and angled the pickup slightly, I don't think it's really going to make much of a difference. Since I got tired of breaking the tiny little screws that come with the tuners I used some pickguard screws that I had around, I actually like the look better makes it look more substantial. I was actually able to get everything put together tonight except for electronics but because of light I don't have any pictures of it all together. I'll add some tomorrow.
Until then a black and maple teaser.

 

[jmorbita]

^ Looks like he's got his camera set up with a fairly narrow depth of field.

You are correct Sir!!
the 50 mm lens allows me to get a very narrow depth of field (up to f 1.8)

 

[jmorbita]

A chunk of Mahogany.
This piece cost me 80 bux, including tax and the half gallon of gas it took me to get there and back. I'll get 4 bodies out of it minimum.

That's some cheap mahogany!

 

[HaMMerHeD]

A chunk of Mahogany.
This piece cost me 80 bux, including tax and the half gallon of gas it took me to get there and back. I'll get 4 bodies out of it minimum.

Lucky...my nearest lumberyard is 2 gallons away.

 

[Will_White]

From a pile of parts to a completed bass. I got the switches today so I wired it up. It still needs the setup tweaked but it sounds pretty good. I think fudged something with the wiring because it's not working quite right.

Here's what I meant when I said the neck was too wide. But I kind of expected that to be the case.

 

[hushnel]

I had the same problem when I built the fretless Tele. I cut some paper thin pieces of flat sawn pine, I cut a cual out of pine to clamp the paper thin pieces to the body.

If you can zoom in on this picture you'll see the finished fill.

 

[Will_White]

I might do that eventually but its functional now and structurally sound so I'll probably just leave it along with the large gouge in the upper horn, I don't plan on selling it and it was just a quick slap together build. Most of the body is very soft wood (every thing above the control cavity) and the finish isn't very thick or hard (I do not recomend Minwax polycrylic in the rattle cans the brush on kind is nice and dried solid in a matter of hours but the rattle can I'm not sure if its dried yet and I sprayed it a little over a month ago) so it'll get other dings and dents along the way. On the plus side its extremely light I suspect under 8 pounds maybe even under 7.

 

[hushnel]

I wouldn't bother either. I use what I learn in the previous project and move on. I had also had problems with my paint. I used an enamel that takes forever to cure. I took the paint down to the wood twice and finally just left it alone. I plan on pulling it apart some time when the humidity is low and I'll use my neighbor's paint room, by that time I'll have another project finished to play with and let this one cure long enough to harden up. Though the finished project is no way perfect, it has charm, the way it's wearing is much closer to an accelerated aging (road worn) process than the contrived sanding and relic'ed offering that are popular amongst those that like that kind of stuff.

It came to me to fix the neck overhang early in the project, even before I routed the body for the humbucker, I did rout the neck pocket to get the fingerboard center in line with the body center line, and decided I had to deal with the overhang at that point.

 

[Will_White]

I might do that eventually but its functional now and structurally sound so I'll probably just leave it along with the large gouge in the upper horn, I don't plan on selling it and it was just a quick slap together build. Most of the body is very soft wood (every thing above the control cavity) and the finish isn't very thick or hard (I do not recomend Minwax polycrylic in the rattle cans the brush on kind is nice and dried solid in a matter of hours but the rattle can I'm not sure if its dried yet and I sprayed it a little over a month ago) so it'll get other dings and dents along the way. On the plus side its extremely light I suspect under 8 pounds maybe even under 7.

I was way off on the weight, with two differant scales I got a fully loaded weight of 5.125 lbs, with a decently substantial bridge and standard tuners. If I went with ultralight tuners and a bent plate bridge I could probably get it down under 5, but I'm not that weight conscious.

 

[RBS_Johnson]

^That's awesome will. I need to get a featherweight bass together for myself. I can handle 9-10lbs for awhile, but 5 lbs would feel like nothing.

-Jake

 

[hushnel]

Lite is a good thing. Just about 5lbs, I can hardly imagine.

 

[HaMMerHeD]

5lb. Damn

The closest I've come to that is 6lb, 10oz.

 

[Will_White]

I wasn't even trying to build a featherweight bass but it was certainly a nice surprise, it's a smaller thinner body (smaller then a strat or tele and way smaller then my P Bass), I took a fair amount off with contouring for comfort as it was a slab body when I got it and it uses a multi wood construction on the body with a strong hardwood for the control cavity area which is mostly hollow because of the control cavity and a pretty soft and presumably light weight wood for the rest, those are the only special things I can think of about it, otherwise it's just a normal import maple/maple neck and cheap hardware.

Most of my basses are fairly light as they're hollow bodies but I do have a 9 or 10 lb Double P Bass that is one of my main basses.

 

[RBS_Johnson]

How does it sound Will?