Build #6 (seeing more mistakes or making more? 8 str. tapping inst.)

[rwkeating]

I don't know if I got better at spotting things that were off or if my skills have slipped and I made more mistakes this time. I am hoping for the former.

The goals for this instrument, based on improving from my last build were:
- fine tune the way the instrument hangs on a strap,
- make the instrument lighter,
- make a body design that looks a bit "more normal" while maintaining all the necessary ergonomic parts, and
- push myself to try some different approaches (tools and designs).

I came up with this body design (right) compared to the old body style (left.) There is nothing wrong with the one on the left. It actually works very well, I just wanted something that called less attention to itself.

I had to redesign the head stock as the Sperzel bass keys I've used are no longer made. I went with Hipshot for all the tuners. I bought extra guitar tuner buttons for the bass side to make things looks more balanced. The problem was that two of the bass buttons would not come off! Hipshot suggested drilling them out.

This went very well. I could then get a pliers on the screw and get it out.

Here is the culprit. They used thread locker (see orange area on threads.) Why in the world would they do that and only on 2 of them. Ahhhhh!!!!

On top of all that, the new buttons were so hard to install I had to use a vise to press fit them on.

Now I could redesign the head stock. Once that was done I felt a sense of relief. I could now move forward and get to cutting wood with a clear mind.

 

[rwkeating]

I had some Sapele so I decided to use that for the neck. I figured to save wood and to work on my skills, that I should make a laminated neck. Due to sloppy cutting, I didn't save wood but I did learn a lot doing my second multi-piece laminated neck.

Splitting the wood for the laminates. I don't understand how people can do this and stay on the line on both sides. I guess I need more practice.

Cutting one of the above boards that I cut (after squaring it with hand planes). I did have to use some from the second piece also.

I laid the laminates out and drilled through both ends (in the area that would be cut off later.) I inserted a long threaded rod to keep things from moving around during the glue up.

Gluing the laminates.

Squaring the glued up board was, once again, a lot of work. However, in the end it was very nice to see how the cleaned up laminates looked (unfortunately I don't have a picture for that.)

 

[rwkeating]

I cut the scarf joint. Unfortunately I am not getting better at doing this. If you are squeamish, look away.

Lots of cleanup was needed.

I used toothpicks to line things up prior to gluing. There is a gap there because I needed to adjust due to not having enough extra length on the board. That gap would be removed later as I planed down. This caused the head stock to be too thin, but I saw that coming and knew I could deal with that later.

I glued the scarf joint and cleaned it up. Then I glued the ears on the head stock.

 

[rwkeating]

Here the scarf is glued, the ears are glued on and the head stock planed. At this point the head stock was too thin, so I added a padouk top.

Clamping the head stock cap.

Head stock, cleaning up the back.

Blending the cap into the neck.

I marked the tuner location from the CAD paper print out and drilled out the holes.

Fitting the tuners.

 

[rwkeating]

Cleaning up the head stock.

Time to make the truss rod channel. This was the first time I was installing a rod with the adjustment access at the body.

This was the first time I used a Stewmac truss rod. I thought it was the same dimensions as the one sold by LMI, but it isn't. It needs a deeper channel near the adjustment end. I hadn't planned for this so that part of the neck got way too thin.

After getting advise from folks on TalkBass, I decided that later I would build up the back of the neck and just make the neck pocket in the body deeper. I was almost ready to throw the neck away and start over. Thanks for the help guys!.

I had some 1/4" padouk that I purchased a while back. I cut a piece off for the fingerboard.

I set up a precision ruler and used a spreadsheet to located the fret slots using the 64th" scale.

I make a nick at the edge of the board for each fret slot.

I used the right angle gauge to score the fret lines based on the nicks made in the picture above.

 

[Alex Xander]

I cut the scarf joint. Unfortunately I am not getting better at doing this. If you are squeamish, look away.
View attachment 5312834

View attachment 5312838

I don’t think it matters how ugly something gets while it’s a work in progress. It’s the end result that matters, and yours looks great!

I used to be very particular about cutting my scarf joints, but now I give them what I would have previously considered a very rough cut, then give them a quick cleanup with the smooth side of a Shinto rasp.

 

[rwkeating]

I use different tools to widen the scored lines I previously made that marked out the fret slots. I kept doing this until I could get a fret saw into them. I don't saw down to full depth at this time. I'll do that after the fret board is glued to the neck.

I use very small nails as locators before gluing on the fret board. I cut their heads off. That last sentence felt strange to type.

Gluing on the fret board.

I trim the sides of the fret board and cut off the extra stuff at the end of the fret board and neck.

Sand the fret board flat. Make sure fret slots stay clean and deep enough. Install fret markers. Put a light coat of Watco Danish Oil on neck just to make sure it gets into the fret slots. I'll hammer in the frets later. I didn't use any Titebond to fill in the fret slots as the frets were installed. Titebond doesn't really glue the frets in, it just seals up the wood in the slots. I'm letting the Danish oil do that this time. I'll just have to see how that works out in the long run.

 

[rwkeating]

Here is the addition of the plate to thicken up the back of the neck where the truss rod didn't have enough wood behind it. I did this prior to installing the frets.

Cleaned up a bit. End of neck and fret board not cut off yet.

After cutting off the fret ends, I like to fill the slot ends with saw dust and super glue. In the past I've done this with saw dust and Titebond. Not sure what glue is better to use for this. It really isn't holding anything, just acting as filler. I guess my decision should be made on best color matching?

Set up to put a few coats of Watco Danish oil on the neck. The neck can hang out and get used to being a neck while I work on the body. Fret leveling will come later.

On to the body. The body is made from African Mahogany and I'll be using White Limba for the top..

To save wood (for a future build) I didn't use two equal size pieces of wood. Therefore, the seam wasn't the center line.

On a side note, I made this bench about 2 1/2 years ago. I really thought about what a good size would be taking into account not just the room size, but what I would mostly be working on. It has worked out really well as often I can incorporate the bench into clamping things that I am gluing.

 

[rwkeating]

I used a chisel and router plane to cut out the neck pocket.

I temporarily installed the neck to use it to get a center line for all other measurements.

The pickup holes were started by drilling the corners (my router bit diameter is too big for the corners), chiseling out most of it and finished with a router and template. For the sake of practice, I tried to make these as clean as possible even though the top of the body would go on and these routs would never be seen.

I marked the control cavity, drilled holes in the corners and cut it out with a jigsaw.

I then used the template that I made for the cavity (right side) and router to clean it up.

The router could only go so deep so I removed the template and ran the router on the already routed section of the cavity wall in order to route the rest. As we all know, a router throws wood dust all over the place. Good thing I put the garbage can underneath to catch the wood dust.

 

[rwkeating]

The battery compartment was done from the rear using the same templates. The battery route was done with a chisel by hand. My plan for around the battery was to add extra weight to the instrument in case I made it too light (unfortunately I didn't come close to making it too light.)

Here are the finished cavities from the back.

Here is the finished body face before gluing the top on. The blue tape is to make cleanup easy if glue runs down there. The channel to the left is for a ground wire. Even though I am not using it, I wanted to get into the habit of including that. The one to the right is for the wires to the battery box. The holes are my attempt at weight relief. They worked, but I could have positioned them better and made more to have removed even more weight. (All those extra cuts around the perimeter are either for clamping or getting the body to fit into the drill press.)

Lining up the top for best fit and look. The wood is White Limba aka. Korina.

Gluing the top together. Those 2 vertical pieces of wood were scrap that I had from the last build. I was experimenting with a stain (hence the dark tops.) They came in handy for clamping.

Gluing the top on to the body. The top was face down. Clamps pushed down, but I felt better adding weight to it too.

 

[rwkeating]

First thing was to clean out the neck pocket so I could put the neck in place and reestablish my center line. This was harder than I thought as the top wood tended to bow down and splinter.

I finally just took a router to it and while I was there cleaned out the "floor" of the neck cavity. I don't know if that's the approach I should have started with. The chisel approach just wasn't working.

Using the paper CAD printout, I could located the pickup cavities close enough to make a hole for the router to go in and route out the top.

This didn't work out too well (similar to when I was cleaning out the neck pocket.) It only got better when I could finally get a router bit in there.

The results including a cutout for the truss rod wrench.

 

[rwkeating]

The bridge was actually the first thing I made just because I hadn't finished some other design aspects of the instrument. I'll just insert that part of the build here.

Using a tiny (toy?) chop saw from Harbor Freight, I was able to cut clean equally sized string pieces for the bridge, including cutting a slot for the fret wire that goes on top. This saved me so much time as compared to using a hacksaw and the subsequent filing to clean up and even out the cuts. Just keep the WD-40 flowing so the blade doesn't bind and Bob's your uncle.

The Home Depot stick sets the size of the string piece. The hex wrench gives me the spacing I need for the fret wire slot. I remove the wrench after cutting the fret slot and then scoot the aluminum over (to the right) and cut it off. The wood I am holding in my hand stops the saw from coming down too far when I cut the fret slot. The wood behind the aluminum centers the aluminum under the blade. This is important for the fret slot as the diameter of the blade is so small the bottom of the fret slot (looked at from the end) isn't flat, but more of a smiley face. By keeping the blade centered, you can hide that curved cut.

This jig (made of leftover stuff) allows me to drill a center hole in each string piece. The bar on the left is just pushing the small string piece (cut in picture above) so it stays under the drill.

Then tap the hole (this is for the intonation screw.) I made a few extra in case something went wrong.

Here I'm starting to make the bridge plate using the drill press. The slots in the wood are the same as the string spacing. Just put a knife in a slot, slide the aluminum over and drill. Repeat until you have enough holes for all the intonation screws (8, since I have 8 strings.)

Then I drilled the holes for the height adjusters. I used 3 screws (2 on the bass side, 1 on the treble side) for this but I think it might be better to go back to 4 due to the length of the plate.

 

[rwkeating]

The slot for the fret that I put in each bridge piece is undersized so I had to press in the fret.

To make the string tail piece, I used the same method as on the bridge to drill the string holes.

I drilled holes for the mounting screws and counter sunk them. I later used the counter sync and hand sanding around the string holes to get rid of any edges that could cut a string.

Then after a bunch of filing and sanding the bridge and tail piece are done for now.

 

[13ghosts]

The slot for the fret that I put in each bridge piece is undersized so I had to press in the fret.
View attachment 5323075

To make the string tail piece, I used the same method as on the bridge to drill the string holes.
View attachment 5323076

I drilled holes for the mounting screws and counter sunk them. I later used the counter sync and hand sanding around the string holes to get rid of any edges that could cut a string.
View attachment 5323078

Then after a bunch of filing and sanding the bridge and tail piece are done for now.
View attachment 5323079

Wow!

 

[Gary_M]

That bridge looks super-duper!

 

[rwkeating]

The bridge will be slightly sunk into the body (there was no route previously made.) I used a hand router since this would be shallow and the corners needed to be right angles (not rounded corners.)

I placed the paper template on top to get the sides of the body marked in marker. Then I used a pencil taped to a chopstick to make a line outside of the first line. This is where I would drill in order to make cutting the body out easier.

Then I used the drill press to drill on the outer line.

Then I used a really old (and falling apart) jigsaw to cut out the body. The holes (made previously) makes for less work with the jigsaw and the bottom of the blade doesn't bend (towards or away from the body) around corners this way. On the down side, it makes for a lot of cleanup work.

 

[rwkeating]

Once again, much cleanup is needed.

Then it takes a lot of time to sand down to the line.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I admire your fortitude. I’ve done bodies in a similar fashion in the past and I’m glad I have routers!

 

[Quills]

Awesome work and admirable dedication. I was a pansy and deliberately waited until I had a bandsaw, big router and spindle sander before deciding to tackle guitars. Watching someone do it well the way I contemplated doing it before being a lazy chicken got the better of me is inspiring.

 

[rwkeating]

During body sanding I took a break to make the cavity covers. I had some scrap padouk of the correct size. I used a method that works if your wood is thicker than it needs to be. You use the template to route the wood thinner, then sand down to the lower part. I didn't see how this would be different than sanding down to a pencil line, but it is and in a very positive way.

In this picture I am using the template on the right to work on the board on the right. The padouk on the left is just for height to hold up the template.

The part I am sanding away is higher than the part I need to keep. Sanding to that line is easier than sanding to a pencil line.

To get the location of the holes for the screws, I used a hole punch on blue tape. Then placed the tape sticky side up.

Put the cover on and when you take it off you have your marks.

Since both covers are the same, I taped them together and drilled the screw holes in one shot.