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#21
Harry Cahyadi said:
Michael,

Looking really good so far. it is also a gorgeous piece of wenge.

Did you source that wenge blank locally or internationally?

The reason for asking is, I have been wanting to build with wenge, but couldn't justify the shipping cost from the US.

Thanks.


Harry
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Hi Harry,

Mathews Timbers in Rooks Road, Vermont is the place to go to (apparently) - that's where David (who supervises our in-class activities) got it from. Not too far from your neck of the woods.

Totally agree, this is a phenomenal piece. The second neck will most likely be for a bass I'll build for my son.

Regards,
Michael
 
#22
MichaelOz said:
Hi Harry,

Mathews Timbers in Rooks Road, Vermont is the place to go to (apparently) - that's where David (who supervises our in-class activities) got it from. Not too far from your neck of the woods.

Totally agree, this is a phenomenal piece. The second neck will most likely be for a bass I'll build for my son.

Regards,
Michael
Click to expand...

Great stuff.

Glad I asked. I wasn't aware you are based in Melbourne. I will visit them very soon. :hyper::bassist::hyper::bassist:

Thanks.
 
#25
Haven't posted in a while. Wow, life is actually going on as well. There you go.

Managed to cover the truss rod, and got a fretboard, too.

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This is after planing and levelling with a scraper:

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Other way:
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In last night's session I was able to radius the board AND cut the fret slots. Amazing, really, and only possible thanks to David's little "bag of tricks" that is loaded with a lot of useful goodies.

First I trimmed the board to 76mm width (so it fits on the fret-slotting jig), and shortened it just a little bit. The I mounted it (with double-sided tape) on a beautiful piece of maple (which will be the neck for my next build :) ) and then in the radiussing jig. This is what it looks like:

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In the background you can see the router. Depth adjusted just to the top of the "raw" board. The router is mounted on a contraption that provides a 20" radius over a couple of guide rails. First pass down the middle, then from the outside up and down the board towards the middle.

Final result:

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It's "kinda" thin. In fact, it is VERY thin. Just over 4 mm in the centre, and of course less along the periphery. Hmmm. Might pose issues later but we'll see.

Was very careful peeling the board off the support - did I mention it's thin?

I then mounted the board on another MDF support which in turn was stuck to the "distance between cuts" determinator thingy. Very technical
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. In fact, it's a metal plate with notches corresponding to fret positions. In my case it's for 35" scale (plates for different scales are available) and provides positions for 24 frets. May not be enough but I haven't decided yet (might go to 28, half my age this year).

A picture tells a thousand words:

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You can see the board mounted on the support mounted on the metal plate with the notches. They "click" into a little pin. Fretsaw goes through the 4 bearings which are height-adjustable. We set it so there is about 1 mm of material left when the fret slot is cut.

Nice little trick here: use a little bit of wax on the fret saw, makes it move very smoothly. I did that for each fret just before I reached the final depth to make things as smooth as possible.

Here's the board with the end slot (that's where the nut goes - or the zero fret, have yet to decide) and 12 slots - halfway there:

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There was no cracking or splitting of wood at all, very clean, straight, even cuts. Only took about 45 minutes.

Challenge was to get the now even more fragile board off the support (I had plenty of tape): all's well that ends well.

Can't wait for the next couple of weeks when I hope to finalise the neck shape. It'll be good to have my Dingwall by then - I've heard nothing but good things about the shape of those necks, and mine's a wenge as well so direct comparisons will be possible.

Thank you for reading, and comments (as usual) welcome.

Regards,
Michael
 
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#26
Received my Luminlay delivery today - ordered last Thursday, very prompt service.

Very nicely packed:

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Before:

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and after a very short exposure to light:

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Very cool!

This is not all mine, BTW, I did a group order for our bass building course.

Regards,
Michael
 
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#27
Quick update after a productive session.

Band-sawed the neck shape and required very (and I mean VERY) little sanding to make it fit into the neck pocket (which really is more like a big backpack
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). Headstock shape is also roughly cut, and I fitted the neck - LOVE the overall feel of it.

Then started to saw the fretboard to shape but had some splitting happening - it's not particularly thick now, is it? Ended up using the disk sander to shape it with a mm either side of the neck just to make sure.

Also covered the end of the truss rod, just where the nut will be, with a little piece of timber.

David then smeared Titebond on the neck and used a couple of tiny nails to fix the board to the neck so it doesn't move when clamping. Clamped and ready for final shaping and maybe receiving frets some frets next week.

Really happy with tonight's progress. What is absolutely stunning is the wood grain in the neck. It's really popping out as soon as the plane of the cut or the sanding is slightly off axis - can't wait to see it when the neck is carved
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.

Pics:
Stunning grain in the neck (not "pain"
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):

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Glueing up:

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And we all love clamps, right?

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And of course I couldn't resist to introduce body to neck. It's a decent fit:

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And another full-length shot:

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Works for me
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. As usual comments are more than welcome.

Regards,
Michael
 
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#29
DerekW said:
Looks amazing! Would love to take a class like that.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Derek.

There's about 10 of us, and everyone is doing something different. Run of the mill P, short scales, headless with a fur coat, walnut and wenge fretless, great variety. It's an excellent learning environment as well (qualified to say that as lecturer :)), not cheap, but I'm really starting to understand what goes into building an instrument.

The proof will be in the pudding: once it's strung up and plugged in I can decide if it's a player or a wall piece;).

Regards,
Michael
 
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#32
Very slow session.

Fret board looked nice on the neck. Filed fret board and neck to the specified width - didn't need to remove much (in fact would have loved to have more width at the heel) but getting it straight-edged required a fair bit of detailed effort. While not quite bump-free I am happy with the result (once I shape the neck those little imperfections will disappear anyway).

Sanded the headstock into its final shape and wow, the grain on the sides is freakish.

Here are both sides of the neck:

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And here is the headstock, almost in its final shape (outline) - there'll be a lot of beautification happening until it's the final product but THE GRAIN is insane:

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More next week - or earlier. Comments welcome.

Regards,
Michael
 
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#35
No? That's good to hear. I'd love to work with it at some point. Like I said its a beautiful wood. Maybe I have negative ideas about it stuck in my head because of what I've heard about its toxicity.
 
#36
gsnad2000 said:
No? That's good to hear. I'd love to work with it at some point. Like I said its a beautiful wood. Maybe I have negative ideas about it stuck in my head because of what I've heard about its toxicity.
Click to expand...
Wenge isn't a very oily wood in my experience with it. More of the oily woods like cocobolo are the ones that people usually have a reaction to. Wenge just requires sharp tools to avoid tear out because of its interlocking grain pattern. Its really not bad to work with.
 
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#37
gsnad2000 said:
Looks great! I have not worked with wenge, i hear its a bit of a nightmare to work with, but man it's beauty is a thing to behold.
Click to expand...

This is my first attempt at "fine art" woodworking so my experience is not particularly broad. But of course I've made some observations ;).

1) No matter what timber you use, treat it with respect. When routing, for example, do 10 passes at 2 mm rather than 2 at 10 mm. Gentle does it.

2) There was a little bit of cracking in my fretboard when we thicknessed it down to 5 mm. This is (probably) due to the particular structure of this piece of wenge - the growth rings (i.e. the grain) are absolutely parallel to the length of the fretboard, and pretty much perpendicular to its surface. If you know a little bit about "wood" you'll know that you're looking at "capillaries" - empty spaces (in the living tree filled with water, once dried with air) surrounded by thickened cell walls (made up mostly of cellulose and lignin). That means that should cracking occur it will happen along those capillaries.

How do you avoid this? See 1).

3) It smells. Some may find it OK, others may be taken aback a little. The best way to describe it is: 2 week-old cat wee. Apparently it may cause some itchiness or irritation on the skin but I haven't had any issues.

When I compare this piece I have with the wenge that's in the neck of my Thumb I have to say I'm a lucky guy to have scored this particular piece (if you go further up you'll see I have a second neck blank from the same log!!). The Thumb has no visible grain while what I have will look insane. Zebra bass!

Hope that sheds a little bit of light on wenge. Now to the much more important question: how do you actually pronounce "wenge"? ;)

Regards,
Michael
 
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#38
All good info. Thanks.

In my head I always pronounce it like the word "when" with a j sound at the end, but in videos I usually hear people say it like "whengee" with the "g" as in the word "guy".
If that makes sense. Haha
 
#39
gsnad2000 said:
All good info. Thanks.

In my head I always pronounce it like the word "when" with a j sound at the end, but in videos I usually hear people say it like "whengee" with the "g" as in the word "guy".
If that makes sense. Haha
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense. I've heard both but as someone who grew up in Germany I tend to the latter version, with a proper German "e" :D

Regards,
Michael
 

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