Winter Build Off 2022 - Curly Redwood 4 String

[RichterScale]

Is something that cures chemically, like an epoxy, out of the question? At least as a grain sealer/strengthener?
I guess the problem with that is any color would have to be tinted into the finish coat and then you're back at square 1, waiting for higher temps.

 

[dmarino]

A coat of epoxy is not out of the question at all, in fact its a pretty good idea.
There are some other finish options out there to consider as well, I think Minwax makes an oil-included wipe-on poly that's water based, could be something to consider. There's time to research and think it through.
@Jisch did a gorgeous curly redwood bass with Tru-Oil not too long ago, and that seemed to turn out just fine, so maybe that's an option, too.

 

[Jisch]

That curly redwood absorbed a LOT of Tru Oil before it started building, but it looks awesome. I have another curly redwood fanned fret too.

 

[dwizum]

I've done several ukes with curly redwood tops and lots more with plain straight grained redwood tops. The challenge there is getting at least some durability without adding a pound of finish to the surface. My favorite so far is a coat or two of shellac, followed by lots of thin coats of minwax wipe on oil based poly. On a couple I've skipped the shellac and it will build up fine but takes a lot more coats. Some of my redwood ukes needed 8 or 9 coats of finish to build to an even sheen (much less a thick protective layer) vs something like spruce which usually takes 4 or 5, or hardwoods which are usually ok after only 3.

On a solid body it probably doesn't matter as much, tru oil or any wipe on poly will build up fine, just with a lot of work... If you're an aggressive player I think it's just a matter of resigning yourself to the fact that it's going to get dinged up no matter what you do.

 

[dmarino]

Thanks, Jisch and Dwizum, this is good info, sounds like patient application of oil type finishes is going to work out fine - that's the most probable route for me I think

 

[Jeff Siddall]

Poly isn't steel, so even if you do put on a thick coat of poly it is still possible to get dings as the poly will just chip. Personally I don't worry about it. I try to be careful, but I am more concerned about the look and feel than durability.

 

[Flamingo21]

On a solid body it probably doesn't matter as much

Noob question- why would it matter less on a solid body?

(When I started typing, the system made my Noob question into a Boob question. What's up with that?)

 

[dwizum]

Noob question- why would it matter less on a solid body?

On an acoustic instrument - especially a uke - the performance is largely impacted by the stiffness and mass of the soundboard. If you put a lot of finish on a top it will change the tone and volume, sometimes significantly. Meanwhile, on a solid body, it won't make a difference - or at least the difference will be insignificant in comparison - you can go ahead and let the wood soak in all the finish it wants to and build it up as much as you want.

 

[TerribleTim68]

Noob question- why would it matter less on a solid body?

(When I started typing, the system made my Noob question into a Boob question. What's up with that?)

On an acoustic instrument - especially a uke - the performance is largely impacted by the stiffness and mass of the soundboard. If you put a lot of finish on a top it will change the tone and volume, sometimes significantly. Meanwhile, on a solid body, it won't make a difference - or at least the difference will be insignificant in comparison - you can go ahead and let the wood soak in all the finish it wants to and build it up as much as you want.

This also goes with the reasons why, for acoustic instruments, solid top instruments are usually more sought after than laminate top instruments, because they have completely different sound qualities.
I'm happy that when I found my AEB it was a solid-top version, not a lam-top. The solid tops also tend to be vocally louder. At least, that's been my experience.

 

[dmarino]

I got some time in the shop this afternoon. It wasn't all that warm, but not freezing cold. That's about as good as it's gonna get for a while, so I just worked through it.

I used a bottom-bearing router bit to cut the backstraps flush with the neck blank

Time to sort out the body blanks. Here's the rough cut lumber (poplar)

Jointed and planed, need to bring down to final thickness to match the neck blank

I transferred the body shape to the body blanks and set up the 10" bandsaw with the thin blade. The poplar is soft enough that the little saw had plenty of torque to handle it and the thin blade made cutting the curves easy.

My old husky dog wandered in and gave me a 'what the heck are you doing?' look

Laying it out before glue up

An I went ahead and glued it up. A nice milestone, this thing is shaped more or less like a bass now.

I guess next up will be preparing the topwood for attachment. There will be a layer of black veneer between this and the redwood top. Should be decent weather this weekend and I have Monday off work, so I'm hoping to continue to make good progress over the next couple days.

 

[dmarino]

I went into the shop for the top wood prep today.

One thing I did wrong somewhere along the way was make a poor calculation of how thick the body would be with the layers I wanted. It ended up thicker than I meant it to be. I thought a lot about what to do about or whether to do anything about it at all. I'm not worried about the thickness or ergonomics themselves, that should be ok, but more worried about weight or balance issues. I considered making a router sled and thinning the body down a little, but that would remove the curly redwood backstrap and I wanted to keep it if possible. I also thought about chambering a little, too.
To see where I'm at I weighed the bass as it currently stands and it is 6.89 pounds in the state pictured below

That basically gives me around three pounds before it starts being a 'heavy' bass. I didn't go to the effort of weighing all the hardware, electronics, two 9v batteries, and pickups, but I think I should be able to keep it under 10 pounds. All that stuff will be mounted, yes, but I'll also be routing a ton of wood out of this body, as well as carving roundovers, belly relief, etc. before finish and assembly. I guess we'll see what it ends up weighing. Even if it's a tad heavy, as long as it balances ok, I'll probably be happy.

I drew a little rough layout on the body to see where things will probably go. The amorphous shapes on either side of the neck pickup were where I considered chambering, but I decided not to do it.

I started prepping the top while I thought it all through. I broke out the small bandsaw again and rough cut the top shape, then measured and shaped the neck pocket at tight as I could.

Test fitting the top (dry) on the bass, not bad I guess.

Then I just decided to go with it and cut the black veneer and glued the veneer and the top wood on. This glue up is always a little nerve-racking, it really needs to go well or it will cause obvious visible misalignments and such. It really makes a difference in a getting a good-looking final product after it's all shaped and carved up.
I think it went ok, I guess we'll see for sure tomorrow... all clamps on deck - I think this is all but one of my clamps. I got glue all over the place, there will be a lot of sanding and cleanup, but I think everything went ok.

Tomorrow is a work holiday, I have a lot of other stuff to take care of but it should be quite warm and I'm hoping to get this out of the clamps and clean it up a little to see how it turned out.

 

[TerribleTim68]

Moving right along!

I, however, do not get tomorrow off. My boss could care less, so we work.

 

[dmarino]

It was a short day in the shop today.

I took the dragon style rasp and cleaned up the overhanging edge of the veneer and the topwood. There were some minor issues after the glue up dried and I removed the clamps. For one, I didn't really clamp the middle... I don't have any deep-throated clamps and I have put some heavy weight, like a kettle-bell in the middle in the past, but I didn't do it this time. This resulted in the center joint of the book match opening up a tiny bit in places. Not very much maybe a 64th but probably enough to notice. Another issue was the neck pocket drifted away from the end of the fretboard area. Again, not much - not even a 1/16" but enough to notice. Third, a tiny hairline crack opened up along one of the curls in the wood in the treble side. This was almost unnoticeable, but it's there.
These are pretty manageable issues, and the basic glue up was okay. The top stayed centered and the veneer looks good, so on with it...

Here's the bass after cleaning up the edges. There's sanding dust in the cracks I mentioned so they aren't easy to see.

The veneer and top all glued down well with no apparent gaps between the body and top

The last thing I did was to mix up a paste of redwood dust and shavings with Titebond and push it into the cracks and openings with a finger. I'm hoping that this isn't too obvious after it dries and I sand it up.

It looks like the next steps will be about routing the pickup, battery, and control cavities. Then onto shaping the roundovers, belly relief, and carving the heel. I'll have to start thinking about the fretwork at some point here, too.

 

[dmarino]

I made a little progress on this one. With two months to go, I need to get some things done so I can have enough time with the finishing process. Electronics soldering/build and assembly/setup take some time, too. I'd like to finish the woodworking and fretwork in the next 2-3 weeks if I can.

I sanded off the top clean and it looks okay.

Then I did the battery and control cavities. In lieu of chambering, I made both the control cavity and the battery cavity the same full-size routs. The bass side cavity will just hold two 9-volt batteries.
The bass weighs 6.6 pounds in this state. That should work out to a not-too-heavy final weight.

Next up will be creating a template for a "BC" size soapbar - 1.25" x 3.95" and routing the pickup cavities. Then I'll carve the heel, do the roundover and general body shaping. Also, I'll need to drill out the jack access, the bridge ground channel and the channels for the battery and pickup wires into the control cavity. In addition, I will need to cut and shape the two redwood cavity covers and a truss rod cover for the headstock. I think that's all the woodworking left - well, except final sanding which is no small thing.

 

[dmarino]

I made some progress on this build today. Seems like the weeks are flying by lately.

I finally got some new 3/4" MDF from Home Depot. I've been using some ancient coarse MDF that I found in my garage 20 years ago when I moved in. I'm finally out of that stuff, so I bought a half sheet of nice smooth MDF, that should last me a good while. It takes a little more effort with the rasps, but that's probably a good thing, as it means the templates I'm making aren't quite as soft.
Anyway, I measured out the "BC" soapbar shape, drilled most of the hole out with a 1" spade bit, and took the rasp to the rest of it.

It's hard to make the rasp stay vertical, you think you're keeping it straight up-and-down, but it often needs correction. I probably need to find a better method than just free-handing it. Buying acrylic templates as masters and routing the MDF with a pattern bit would probably work a lot better. But anyway, the pickup cover seems to fit pretty well.

Time for the super-glue and tape trick and a few passes with the top-bearing router bits.

I hit the top of the corners with the small diameter Amana bit ( this thing ) to get the radius in there. I'll need to clean up the lower parts of the corners with a chisel tomorrow.
Then, I took out the extra-long drill bits and drilled the battery, pickup, and bridge ground cable channels. All good. There's a tiny chip-out in the bottom of the bridge pickup, I'll have to try to conceal it with a little bit of sanding of a round-over in these pickup routs. Or I may just fill it - or ignore it for a while and think it over.

The only other thing I did, which I didn't get a pic of, is I took out a 1/2" chisel and started hacking away at the extra wood on the neck heel. It's pretty rough at the moment, but I think tomorrow I'll start shaping the body, the body round-overs, and working on carving the heel. The end of the major woodworking is pretty close. I do still need to drill out the jack access hole. Tomorrow, though, is shaping and carving.
Then it'll be fretting work, maybe next weekend.

 

[2groggy]

...
It's hard to make the rasp stay vertical, you think you're keeping it straight up-and-down, but it often needs correction. I probably need to find a better method than just free-handing it. Buying acrylic templates as masters and routing the MDF with a pattern bit would probably work a lot better. But anyway, the pickup cover seems to fit pretty well.
...

You can use the tape and super glue trick to make a template for the template. In this one I used wood glue and screws, then removed the screws later. The picture should be enough to give you the idea.

Edit - let this picture be my entry into the jankiest jig competition

 

[dmarino]

Yes, thanks @2groggy! This is a great idea! A lot less work, too

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Ive been soaking the bearing edges of my MDF templates with CA glue to harden them up, seems to work pretty well. How do you like the Amana mini-bits? Typical Amazon reviews of "They are Great", followed by " Broke in 5 minutes". I suspect people.breaking them are trying to cut too much. I'd want them just to nibble the pup corners to the final 1/8" or 3/16" radius. What were they for those pups?

 

[dmarino]

The small Amana bit seems to be fine to me, but like you say, I'm barely taking any wood with it. If anything seems fragile, it's just that the little bearing is pretty tiny. If anything would fail that would be it, I suppose. But this is a special purpose tool for just touching the corners, I thought I'd give it a try instead of using a chisel to hand-shape the corners, which is what I've done on the other basses I've built.
The bit I used is a 3/16" radius by 1/2" long, and the pickups are Aguilar Super Singles. The schematic from Aguilar doesn't list a corner radius, so it's possible the radius doesn't fit exactly and could need some tuning. It does seem to fit, though.

 

[dwizum]

I suspect people.breaking them are trying to cut too much

I think you're right. I've been using the 3/16" radius x 1/2" length mini Amana bits as my main cavity bit for a couple years now - probably at least 30 instruments worth of routing - and I love it. I go straight to this bit after hogging the cavity out with fostner bits. Just take small bites and it works great.