Build 02: The Singlecuts

[b3e]

I have a question to all that build in pickup ramps, or set them up for players. How high do you actually set or build the ramps? How far away from the strings are the ramps usually set?

I actually thinking of lowering the strings on a fretless design towards the body top, so the top itself would act as a ramp and mount the pickup from behind. Currently looking for pros and cons of such an approach. Does it make sense or not? I guess I could make this work, but maybe I'm not seeing something. Any thoughts?

 

[b3e]

I have ordered some 4mm Ash stripes today to insert into the necks, I'll probably plane them down a bit, but we'll see how it looks first. So until they arrive I have a few days for making exact neck and headstock templates.

For now I wanted to share another technique you can use while joining veneers or tops. I already wrote about mounting the plane in the vice blade up, so that you can slide two pieces of a top over it - this is a technique that some violin builders use for bookmatching top and bottom material, usually with a larger wooden jointer plane. Alternatively you can use the shooting board again.

I had this top wood that I needed to join, the gap was around a millimeter between the pieces, with a clear concave in the middle and the edges after the cut where rough

I constructed a large shooting board using MDF, scraps and clamps. You need a flat bottom piece that your plane will glide on, another one on top, that will raise the material to be planed, to have a full contact with the blade, and one square piece mounted at 90 degrees to act as the fence. Of course you can do yourself a favor and make a permanent shooting board for yourself, or even two, depending on the plane size you will use and the material to be planed. This time I needed a big one and as you can see it's still not big enough to hold the full piece, but still it's long enough for the plane to do the operation correctly. I like to use my low angle jack for this, because it allows to take very precise cuts even with endgrain

Setting the plane to take very small shavings (you really don't want to take much off, otherwise the picture on the wood won't match), I planned the ends first, then started to take full passes. I aligned and pressed both pieces together with just my hand, no need to clamp it down really, since there is a a fence. You use the lateral adjustment on the plane to set the blade right if it has a skew.

After I noticed that the plane takes full length shavings and that the saw marks are gone, the pieces matched perfectly together. I still have some small yearly in the material on the edge, but it will be hidden under the surface anyway, so there is no need to take it down further. Here is the joined line, ready for the glue up.

So if you don't happen to have a jointer, its a great alternative.

 

[FacStudio]

Lovely work. Some fantastic Luthery happening here.

With regards the Sandberg, they often use shims. I had a US Spector with a shimmed neck pocket. My mates NYC Sadowsky is shimmed. All 4 of my current Sandbergs are shimmed. All of them are some of the best basses I’ve played in 30 years. Not sure why you’re so astounded about a shim?

 

[Frederiek]

I have a question to all that build in pickup ramps, or set them up for players. How high do you actually set or build the ramps? How far away from the strings are the ramps usually set?

I actually thinking of lowering the strings on a fretless design towards the body top, so the top itself would act as a ramp and mount the pickup from behind. Currently looking for pros and cons of such an approach. Does it make sense or not? I guess I could make this work, but maybe I'm not seeing something. Any thoughts?

For me, a ramp only makes sense if I can touch it through the strings. So it needs to be up really high on a fretless, and slightly lower on a fretted as it's played more agressively. I like placing my right hand on the fingerboard, for the tone but also very much because of how that plays, so your idea makes sense to me. The only con I can think of is that when you have to adjust the neck for whatever reason, or the action needs to be raised, you will loose the 'ramp' for the strings are too high above the body. Radius is also something to consider. What I did myself in my first build was make a pickup cover shaped as a ramp, I think it works quite well

 

[b3e]

Lovely work. Some fantastic Luthery happening here.

With regards the Sandberg, they often use shims. I had a US Spector with a shimmed neck pocket. My mates NYC Sadowsky is shimmed. All 4 of my current Sandbergs are shimmed. All of them are some of the best basses I’ve played in 30 years. Not sure why you’re so astounded about a shim?

Thanks for the compliments, trying my best in avoiding errors

As for the Sandberg, I do like the guitar and overall craftsmanship. I was rather wondering about the redrilled neck holes and the cleanliness of the routing in the neck pocket, not just the shim. I guess I was just expecting something else unscrewing the neck

 

[b3e]

For me, a ramp only makes sense if I can touch it through the strings. So it needs to be up really high on a fretless, and slightly lower on a fretted as it's played more agressively. I like placing my right hand on the fingerboard, for the tone but also very much because of how that plays, so your idea makes sense to me. The only con I can think of is that when you have to adjust the neck for whatever reason, or the action needs to be raised, you will loose the 'ramp' for the strings are too high above the body. Radius is also something to consider. What I did myself in my first build was make a pickup cover shaped as a ramp, I think it works quite well

Thanks @Frederiek , some good points there. I haven't thought about adjustability of string height and neck bow really. Shaping the pickup cover into a ramp with a radius is very clever!

 

[b3e]

This build will be slowing down now, since I have to focus on the walnut build to complete it. Don't have the time to do 3 builds in parallel, but, since one element is being glued I can drive my attention to the other build for a while and that's how one of the necks for the Singlecuts is progressing.

Since I cut the middle piece of the neck to the wrong dimension (30mm width instead of 35mm at the heel), I had to order some 4mm thick Ash veneer to make inserts and so a 3 piece neck ended up being a 5 piece. This leaves me with a neck that is a little wider in the end, but allows for some excess to take off. I guess I'll stick to this concept for now. Here is the veneer, which I cut into 6 stripes. makes 50 cents per insert

I plained and sanded the elements and glued up the neck. Since I was lazy and didn't plane the veneer to the right size, I ended up with it sticking out of the block, and even clamping the middle element down, it moved by nearly 2mm, protruding over the wenge surface in the end. I could plane it down smooth, but it was too close to the error line for me. I will be using some dowels or toothpicks in channel's drilled through the end and beginning of the laminate to avoid movement under glue in the future. And I will plane everything to size for sure. Here's the glue up of the first neck and the end result:

Currently I'm weighting the pros and cons of going with a flat head design, or a scarf joint. I hate the fact that you can't lay the guitar flat with a scarf joint and always have to worry about that head. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I can make it work with a flat head and no string tree - which would be great. Can't have that extra depth that's FBass uses anymore, as the blank is just 22mm thick. Interesting dilemma

The next thing will be gluing on the wings to a flat, or angled headstock, just a mock-up here

 

[eddododo]

Did this finish?