Electric Bass Guitar Build

[Julie Moriarty]

My SO wants a bass guitar. And I'm getting bored watching the lacquer cure on the other guitar. :)

I took some 1:1 scaled drawings of bass guitars, glued them to 1/4" MDF, and started cutting templates. The neck and back are completed, with the exception of the neck heel. I don't want to cut that until we decide what pickguard will be used.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/pb_template_01_zpsdc1b5187.jpg
Based on the p-Bass.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/jb_templates_01_zps19501c40.jpg
Based on the jazz bass.


When we were at Sam Ash, my SO picks up a Rickenbacker and loved how it felt and remarked how much lighter it was over the Fender P-Bass. I guess the Rick is 1-1/4" thick vs. the 1-3/4" Fenders. Also the Rick has a through neck. But there's always the issue of neck dive, so I don't know how that's countered. The Rick has a decent sized headstock, probably about the same overall weight as the Fender.

Anyway, where we are right now is trying to decide what components to use. My SO wants something that is versatile (rock, jazz, blues), something lightweight (as much as possible) and something that's comfortable (easy) to play.

As far as woods, the only thing for certain is an ebony fretboard. I have a really pretty piece we bought just for this purpose. In stock, I have a slab of 6/4 bubinga that is wide enough for a one-piece body. I have a slab of very straight grained 8/4 African mahogany, but my SO seems totally uninterested in that for a body. For the neck, I have some medium figure BE maple and some curly maple. I also have walnut, jatoba, figured cherry, sapele (figured and straight-grained) and padauk.

This is the bubinga slab:

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Woodworking/Bubinga_01_zps45fcaed6.jpg


There are more options if we went with a through-neck but I'm not so sure about my abilities/knowledge venturing into that. So for this build, I'm kind of pushing toward a bolt-on neck.

My SO wants as much of the wood as possible to show - small pickguard. This is a JP-90 and it has about the smallest pickguard I've found so far.


http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/jp-90-2_zps2e1c6c4b.jpg


The body looks like a jazz bass body but with the horns being cut a bit sharper. I kind of like it buy my SO likes the one I have the template for.

Questions:



Would basing this build on the JP-90 create a bass that is versatile, sounds good for jazz, rock and blues, is easy to play and comfortable?
Would the above pickup configuration satisfy the sound desired?
Would the bubinga be too heavy for the body?
If the bubinga would be too heavy, would maple be any better?
Would you trim the headstock? I think the JP-90 and maybe the jazz neck have trimmed headstocks.


You guys helped me so much on the other build, you created a monster! :D

[Shawn Pixley]

Anyway, where we are right now is trying to decide what components to use. My SO wants something that is versatile (rock, jazz, blues), something lightweight (as much as possible) and something that's comfortable (easy) to play.



There are more options if we went with a through-neck but I'm not so sure about my abilities/knowledge venturing into that. So for this build, I'm kind of pushing toward a bolt-on neck.


Questions:



Would basing this build on the JP-90 create a bass that is versatile, sounds good for jazz, rock and blues, is easy to play and comfortable?
Would the above pickup configuration satisfy the sound desired?
Would the bubinga be too heavy for the body?
If the bubinga would be too heavy, would maple be any better?
Would you trim the headstock? I think the JP-90 and maybe the jazz neck have trimmed headstocks.


You guys helped me so much on the other build, you created a monster! :D

Julie, it is clear that you have been assimilated... As a preface, I don't play bass often but I have and can.

to your specific questions:
1) I have never played or held a JP-90. The Fenders I have played are Jazz, Precision and Telecaster Basses. I think that they are all ok in their way. My favorite bass is a Rickenbacker 4001. If you are looking for vesitility, I would want separate tone and volume controls for each pickup. I think tapping the coils on the pickups also ad versatility.

2) I think I would want the neck pickup closer to the neck - probably centered on the twenty fourth fret position. As to the pickups themselves, I have no knowlege that is relevant.

3.) Bubinga is heavy. If you are looking for light weigh, you're going in the wrong direction. Would you consider a bubinga "cap"? If you insist upon the Bubinga, you may want to hollow it out to relieve weight. This will waste a lot of expensive wood.

4.) Maple is lighter but still heavier than a standard fender body.

5.) I am a little unclear about what you refer as trimming. Do you mean "cut down" or trimmed out with veneer form the body?

As to your other questions, I think a through neck can be very nice. I have an Ibanez prototye guitar with a through neck, and two coil tapped pickups. It is the most versatle guitar I own. It was my back-up when touring.

Julie, would you consider no pickguard at all on the bass. Especially if you go with the bubinga, it would look stunning. All your cavities would be through the back of the Bass.

All in all, if I were to do this. I would make it from ash or mahogany with the bubinga cap. There would be no pickguard, as I would weight relieve and mount the electronics from the back. I would do a bound body and neck with the ebony fretboard. For versatility, maybe 3 pickups HSH with the pickups individually switched and coil tapped. This is similar to my Ibanez guitar (not a bass, but...). As to body and headstock shape, I don't care much for the fender bass shapes, so I would try to develop a different aesthetic.

I can post a couple of pictures if that would help.

[Halgeir Wold]

Some nice ideas here.... I was hoping to take a walk in the same direction...... if things permit.
Maybe slightly off topic, but even if the Fender JB and PB are probably the most commonly used basses, are
there any opininions on "the best bass" out there?
( I know it is somewhat like shouting in the woods - and topping that, I hardly play guitars myself...... )

[John Coloccia]

re: pickup locations
Actually, I have to disagree with Shawn a little bit. If you bring the pickups much closer to the neck, I think you'll get a very, very muddy bass sound. If you check out most basses, it's pretty rare that the pickups are much closer, if at all, than what you have there. I think it just looks funny because the pick guard is funny.

[Julie Moriarty]

Yes, Shawn, I have been assimilated. Resistance was futile. :rolleyes: You gave me a lot to think about though.

On trimming the headstock, I was referring to reducing the overall size. From pics I've seen, it looks like some of the Fender bases have that Strat head but it's smaller than the template I made. I've thought about back cavities and no pickguard. In fact I showed my SO some pics of some really nice thru-neck, back-wired basses and we talked about doing something like that got shelved for another day. My SO is itching to play some bass. The Fenders are easy as are getting templates.

I do have a CAD file of a Rickenbacker 4001 I was playing with this morning, trying to see if all the dimensions were accurate. The scale didn't translate to AutoCAD and when I scaled one dimension, another was off. I'd probably need to have one in my hands to verify the accuracy of the file. We watched a number of video comparisons of different basses today. The P-bass sound eeked out a win. The Rickenbacker was close but the player kept hitting the bridge pickup with the strings. That thing is massive! Don't know if that's an issue one needs to learn to avoid.

When we discussed bubinga or maple and the weight, the figure of the wood won out. Funny how once introduced to beautifully figured wood, it's hard to look at anything else. If I put that big pickguard Fender is famous for, I could rout out some weight underneath it but that seems like a waste. I can't top the wood unless I do it in two pieces. My bandsaw only resaws to 9.75". I need almost 14" width for the bass body. My SO nixed that anyway.

Halgeir, something I've heard again and again regarding the best musical instrument for you - it's the one you love the best. Everyone has their own opinions. I'm doing the Fender thing because parts and drawings are so easy to get. And they are pretty easy to make. But it's hard to ignore the fact that the design of Fender guitars have changed little over the last 50-60 years and they are still selling like hotcakes.

John, I was looking at a number of different basses and all of them have the neck pickup in the middle of the body. So I think you're right there. When listening to the PJ basses (precision neck pickup and jazz bridge pickup) it was pretty clear that you could go just about anywhere you want with that setup. But a lot of people said you need a matching set or you may have to turn down the volume on one to get both pickups to put out equal volume. I've seen some PJs with a mini-toggle, to switch between pickups and some just rely on the volume controls to do that. But it's rare to see two volume pots and two tone pots. It seems most are just one tone pot.

Of course, StewMac will be one of the lucky winners in this new project. I'll have to get a new scale template, fretwire, radius block and a few other tools for the bass. All the basses I've seen have a 10 degree radius fretboard. I'm thinking Schaller mini tuners. Someone recommended Fralin or Nordstrand for pickups. The ones we heard today sounded pretty clean. But active pickups got nixed. And I have to do some homework on nuts, bridges, action heights, truss rods (1 or 2), strings...


http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/flounder_oh-boy-is-this-great_zpsbc0fd599.jpg
That movie always makes me laugh...:)

[Shawn Pixley]

John - you could be right. On guitars, the neck pickup on the natural harmonic can give a wonderful "chimey" tone. Jazz guitars almost always have that arrangement. My thinking, for versatility and jazz, the coil tapped neck could give you the slow rumble on a slow walking bass line. The Rickenbacker 4003 has the single coil on the 24th fret. Alembics and my Danelectro have the pickup at the 26th fret position.

[Chris Fournier]

John - you could be right. On guitars, the neck pickup on the natural harmonic can give a wonderful "chimey" tone. Jazz guitars almost always have that arrangement. My thinking, for versatility and jazz, the coil tapped neck could give you the slow rumble on a slow walking bass line. The Rickenbacker 4003 has the single coil on the 24th fret. Alembics and my Danelectro have the pickup at the 26th fret position.

Bass is different than guitar!

[Shawn Pixley]

Chris - please elaborate. Do they have different physics? Other than the vibrating mass being larger, the principles are equivelent.

[John Coloccia]

I wouldn't worry too much about the harmonics. It's only in the "right" place for the open notes. It's in the wrong place for a lot more notes :)

[Julie Moriarty]

This conversation piqued my curiosity so I did a little research on pickup locations in relation to the neck. I knew I had seen pups closer to the neck. What I didn't realize til now was those basses had 24 frets while the Fender only have 20.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/20-24_fret_comp_zps5c77aa97.jpg


Did Fender go with 20 frets because it was preferred by the players or because it was cheaper to manufacture? After looking around some more I found Rickenbacker and Gibson also have 20 frets. The more custom basses seem to have mostly 24 frets. But the Gibson EB-3 (1961-1979) has 22 frets with a large pickup butted right up to the neck.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/gibson_eb3_zps440595b6.jpg


This is like the guitar build - the more you know, the more you realize there's a lot more to learn.

[george wilson]

"The more you know,the more you realize there's a lot more to learn"

That is exactly true,Julie. And it is a true fact that really stupid,ignorant people act a lot more sure of themselves than those who know a lot more. I had a former wheelwright idiot at the museum tell me he wanted to build an airplane. The guy couldn't even build a decent wheel. He had no idea what would be involved in making even a wooden frame airplane. After he got the chop,I had to help the new ones straighten out his bad work.

[Halgeir Wold]

"The more you know,the more you realize there's a lot more to learn"

Also known as digging for pyramids... :D

[John Coloccia]

I think it's William Cumpiano that refers to that as the "beginner's mind". I think it starts with a euphoria of "look at what I can do, I'm great!", but then you get kicked in the shorts a few times and get depressed. Finally, you make it to a point where you start feeling bad for charging money for your shoddy workmanship, but the customers seem happy enough so you just keep trying to get better.

And then there's George. I have a feeling he could toss a bunch of spruce, some chisels, and an old cow bone into a box, shake it for a few seconds, and pull out a guitar.

[Julie Moriarty]

When my kids were younger and just getting into challenging their parents wisdom, I used to tell them, "The more I learn, the smarter my parents get." They eventually got it.
Still waiting on some decisions from my SO on the bass. In the meantime, I'm moving forward on Rad Axe #2... http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/W_CHIC1_zpsb5f0c74f.gif

[John Coloccia]

Are you going to keep the two-tone headstock? I think it's pretty cool.

Just one thing to keep in mind, BTW. Fender gets very upset when someone copies their headstock and tries to sell the guitar. If you have any thoughts that you might like to sell these someday, you may want to start thinking now about making some small changes here and there to stay clear of their legal department. They've been quite aggressive in recent years. I wouldn't bother changing anything right this second, but it's something to keep in the back of your mind for when you have a spare moment...maybe start fiddling around here and there over the next few months. You don't have to change very much. Just tweaking the scroll at the very end would be sufficient to keep them away.

[Julie Moriarty]

I knew Rickenbacker was aggressive in that sense but I never heard Fender was, though it doesn't surprise me that they would be. I was thinking of making some changes and the first place I wanted to was around the scroll. It's kind of dated. I do want to keep the two-piece headstock. I like it too. What I don't know is how much material is necessary at the headstock to take the load of the tension from the strings. That's part of why I didn't make any changes in the first guitar.

What I can see in the future is me getting bored with making exact Fender clones. When I saw the JP-90, I liked how they flared out the horns a bit and that got the creative juices flowing. Then I saw this today
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/N-HH-460_zps3036c013.jpg


I loved how the grain flowed with the body and I was surprised to find I actually liked the shape of the body. But mostly I found it inspired me to make something different. Maybe the key is to take the wood and design the body to enhance the grain.

I know, in a general sense, everything has been done, but I see nothing unoriginal with taking something, changing some of it, and making it your own.. I've always loved design. So I see myself going in that direction as I become more confident about building a playable guitar. I get bored easily so the idea of making my own designs keeps the enthusiasm high. :)

[Julie Moriarty]

Are you going to keep the two-tone headstock? I think it's pretty cool.

I'm going to do the black-dye-sand-back method on the Rad Axe 2 body. Then I'll lay some red dye over that. Since the neck and body are both maple, I didn't want to attempt to dye that little portion of the head. I'm thinking keeping it from bleeding over a finely defined line would be about impossible. So I cut the RA2 headstock today and then went searching for a dark wood with a lot of figure. I sampled this red-dyed piece of walnut.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Radocaster/radicaster_20_zps7be149c5.jpg


Just after I applied the dye, the darkest part of the wood turned almost black. So this should work. Now, what new headstock shape will emerge? I have no idea.

[george wilson]

I think you could injure yourself on that radical shaped body,Julie!!:) It would not be comfortable to play seated,with that prong sticking out. For what they are,the curves are well drawn,except flattish spots on the long horn's curves. I just don't care for it. It won't become a classic design. Simple is best. It always is. Think: What complicated or radical shape has become a classic design? The Fender shapes,and the Gibson Les Paul early shapes have been hard to beat.

Ask yourself what it is about the original Fender bass that continues to make it the bass everyone keeps going back to? The pickups? Scale length? Neck dimensions? There is something about it that experienced players end up returning to. I'm not saying to make copies of it. Just use whatever it is that musicians like.

[Jim Creech]

I agree with George. It seems to me that everybody is making copies of the classic designs. You may want to consider what makes these designs so popular, study them and design your own based on the fundamentals and ,like George say's - Keep it simple!

[John Coloccia]

They make good points. There are definitely ways to play with the formula while still keeping features that everyone is comfortable with. This is an old prototype/loner I have laying around. It's since been beat to heck, and it served it's purpose so I mostly dismantled it and recently used the neck to do a destructive stress test...just wanted to see what it would do. Anyhow, it's definitely a unique shape, especially with that tiny lower horn, but if you were to look closely at it you'd see that the waist, especially the lower one where your leg goes, is very classically located and shaped.

But now if you look on the back, you'll see a fairly unusual sculpted heel design that is extremely comfortable to play. The small horn and sculpted heel is my "thing" and makes the guitar very playable in the upper registers, but overall it hits some pretty classical lines at places where people have come to expect them. There's lot's of room, even now, to stay within "normal" parameters and still stretch out and make it your own :)

BTW, this was a VERY thin lacquer finish. Maybe 3 coats of clear. It's not enough. By the time I was done leveling and polishing, it didn't take much to wear through the rest of the finish!!


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[Chuck Raudonis]

Julie, don't let 'em talk you out of passion. If you want to build one that is shaped like a dragon's head, go right ahead and build it. We're not saving lives here, we're building guitars. If you don't like it when it is done, just build another one and salvage the parts. The fun is in the playing AND the building. Go for it!

When I built the bass I decided that I wanted a very aggressive set of horns on it so I did. I still love it. Will everybody else? Who knows. All I know is I do and I'm the one who built it and I'm the one who is playing it.

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[Dennis Peacock]

I am a bass player....and have been for almost 40 years. I bought an EB-3 bass a few years back and thought I'd really like it.....I gave it away 1 year later. There was not much I liked about the bass, so I donated it to a non-profit that was needing a bass guitar.

I have a few bass guitars at my home but I really got spoiled when I took a tour of the Gibson Tobias Bass guitar factory that used to be near me (Gibson closed the plant just a few years ago). I really feel in love with how the bass felt, sounded, and how well the neck design fit my short stubby fingers so well on both a standard and long-scale neck.

My hope is to do exactly what you are doing....building my own bass guitar to my own specs to fit just me. :D
Thank you greatly for this thread. Much appreciated.

BTW Chuck....I LOVE the look of that bass.!!!!!

[george wilson]

Not talking Julie out of anything. I am trying to help her develop designs of her own that are tasteful. She is intelligent,and I know she can do it.

[Halgeir Wold]

Maybe a silly question for some, but are those "longhorn" basses practical? Easily broken off?

[Julie Moriarty]

Julie, don't let 'em talk you out of passion. If you want to build one that is shaped like a dragon's head, go right ahead and build it. We're not saving lives here, we're building guitars. If you don't like it when it is done, just build another one and salvage the parts. The fun is in the playing AND the building. Go for it!

When I built the bass I decided that I wanted a very aggressive set of horns on it so I did. I still love it. Will everybody else? Who knows. All I know is I do and I'm the one who built it and I'm the one who is playing it.

No one has talked me out of the bass Chuck. It's been on hold for several reasons that are still being resolved. And while I was waiting for answers from my SO, I decided to finish the second guitar.

My SO really loved the feel of a Ric 4003 over either a Jazz or P-Bass. Maybe it's the weight. The scale lengths are only 3/4" apart so I'm thinking it's the body thickness (1.25") and subsequent reduction in weight. But that would mean a thru-neck build. I kind have to change gears for that. And if we go with a 33.25" scale, that would have to be hand cut.

My SO settled on pups (Fralin). I was thinking Schaller bridge and tuners. The body design is still being discussed and the neck thickness is still up in the air.

That bass of yours is absolutely gorgeous! What woods did you use (besides maple)? Did you rout out for the dark wood on front where the maple is or were they pieced together? And how did you match the grain on the rear cover so perfectly? That is the best grain match I've seen yet!

[Julie Moriarty]

It looks like the delays are over and most all the decisions have been made. This is some of the wood we picked up yesterday. Plans are to build a thru-neck with a curly (it's more like quilted but it was marked curly) maple neck and koa for the body halves. It's looking like the long piece of Macassar ebony will be used for the fretboard as the brown in it so closely matches the koa. I'm not anticipating doing any toning.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Guitar%20Stuff/Woods_03_zpsc1e096a8.jpg


I don't know if I'll need to grain-fill the koa. This will be the first time I've worked with the wood, mostly because its price kept me from buying it.

I've got all the plans done for a Ric-type bass so I'm ready to make the templates. The body will be 1-1/4" thick. I'm hoping that will keep the weight down some. I have no dimensions on the neck thickness or curvature so I'll have to wing it. I'm planning on putting in one truss rod and a couple of carbon fiber rods imbedded on either side of that.

I'll post pics of the progress.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well, we made a change in direction. The P-Bass and Jazz Bass lost to a Ric-type bass. So this will be my first thru-neck build. I'll be doing a lot of winging it.

I made the templates from a CAD file I got off the Internet. But I first had to do a lot of work on it before it could be used to make templates.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_01_zpsde420a07.jpg


I'll be keeping as close to a Ric as I can and that includes a 33.25" scale. Stew Mac doesn't make templates for that scale (only 34" & 35") so I'll be cutting the frets by hand. I started with a 8/4 piece of koa, for the body sides, and resawed it to a bit over 1-1/4". The neck is going to be curly maple and the fretboard Macassar ebony. We found a piece that has brown in it that blends nicely with the koa.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_03_zpscb630e55.jpg


I'm planning on angling the headstock 4-5 degrees. Can do that without making a scarf joint? From the side, it looks like the grain from the neck would run through the entire headstock. I'll glue up koa on either side of the maple on the headstock.



http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_04_zpsd540ccf1.jpg
The red pencil marks are for biscuit cuts. The thru-neck is 7/8" thick and I'm planning on gluing a piece of figured sapele (from the first guitar) to the back to make up the rest of the 1-1/4" thickness needed at the body halves. When I cut the halves, I tried to get the grain to flow in a way that's pleasing to the eye while making sure the upper horn had straight grain running to the tip.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_05_zps29b5f95b.jpg
It looks too long but it's the same length as the Ric. I'll be taking this slowly.


And I won't be buying any more koa. It's tough to dimension and ridiculously expensive.

[Shawn Pixley]

For the through neck, I think you could laminate it to avoid a scarf joint. I have a prototype guitar made by Ibanez with a through neck. It has a five piece laminated neck and is one sweet & versitile guitar. The body sides are laminated as you plan. Personally, I love the 4001 bass. The Bruce Foxton / Phil Lynott sound is some of my favorite bass sound.

i look forward to seeing your progress.

[Julie Moriarty]

You're talking about the entire neck being laminate, right? I envision trying to laminate a head onto the solid wood neck.

I saw a build on a bass forum where the guy made a flame shaped head. It looked pretty cool. Several days ago, after it was done and he was stringing it up, the head broke off. He glued it back on but that may not be enough. It looked to me like there wasn't enough stock where he cut the nut and he didn't leave a volute. Luckily for him, it's a bolt-on neck.

[Shawn Pixley]

When you laminate the through neck you don't need such wide and thick stock.

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You're able to turn nice quarter sawn 5/4 stock 90 degrees rather than laminating the headstock and body.
I certaintly don't want to be dogmatic about it but is simple and it works well. This guitar is about 23 years old and has been heavily toured. Its versatility and light weight make it an ideal second guitar. The neck is thin and fast. The neck is very stable and stay in tune well even though I have been known to hit the strings quite hard and use big bends. My son has done all but steal it from me.

[Julie Moriarty]

Okay, I see what you were talking about. The picture in my mind had the laminates running at the same orientation as the fretboard. Putting them 90 degrees from that makes more sense, and makes it easier. Thanks Shawn!

[Julie Moriarty]

After much consternation, or should I say inability to make up one's mind :rolleyes:, I made an executive decision. I removed the sapele from the neck and ripped it into thirds. The remaining koa was just long enough to make it past the nut so I ripped two pieces to fit in between the maple laminates.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_06_zps58f3757a.jpg


It's just clamped together and still pretty rough (I still have to dimension the laminates) but I wanted to show the boss her bass will be beautiful. :D Shawn, your suggestion was perfect! I'm thinking I'll cut the 4 degree cut into the koa strips before glue-up and then use that for a finger joint when gluing in the headstock. Another first.



http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_07_zpsfb28e152.jpg


Everything has a coat of mineral spirits on it. I'm sure when it's all finished the koa stripes will match the body halves in color. I'm kind of loving the Macassar ebony piece we found. We're thinking of using an amber dye or maybe amber-dyed shellac to bring out the grain in the body and neck better. The rough stock was 8/4 so I have some thin pieces to do color tests on.
I want to thank all you guys for being so patient with me and helping me find something I really love doing. Thank you so very much! http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Emoticons/hug_zps1fdf1eee.gif

[Shawn Pixley]

Julie,

Looking good! I think the lamination will work well for you. I am glad my suggestion worked out.

Shawn

[Julie Moriarty]

This was one of the trickier glue-ups I've done.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_08_zps3fdf1a43.jpg


Time for lunch! :D

[Shawn Pixley]

Looks good! You can never have too many clamps.

BTW that's a nice bench. I am glad to see you use the waxed paper trick.

[Duane Meadows]

I always have liked that style laminated thru neck!

[Julie Moriarty]

Trying to save money, I eeked out everything I could from the stock on hand to make the neck glue-up. Once I removed all the clamps and did a little sanding, it became obvious that wasn't going to work. So yesterday I started from scratch. I tried to get some strips of the koa from what I had left but that was part of the problem the first time. The piece I have just isn't long enough.

I looked at the woods I have to see if I could find something that closely matched finished koa. I had some sapele left over from the cabinet job that had a very straight grain. When I applied mineral spirits to it, it matched up pretty well with the koa. I also decided not to try to save as much wood as possible by shaping the glue-up pieces before gluing and just ripped them full length.

I started with 4/4 curly maple and ripped it to 1-1/2" widths. The center piece I planed to 7/16" thickness. The piece of sapele was a bit over 3/8" so I planed that to 1/4" and ripped it to 1-1/2" I then stacked all the pieces to create a 1-1/2" x 2-1/2" x 48" laminate. Overall, the guitar measures a bit over 44" so I'll have plenty to work with. The neck is 2.29" at the base and 1.69" at the nut. The advantage to making the laminate was I got to change the grain orientation on the maple. That put those "flames" guitarists love so much on the top and bottom instead of on the sides.


http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_09_zpsc4f4e28b.jpg


I've been doing some research about where to make the scarf joint cut. I've read newer Rics have a 4 degree break at the head. I'll want to bury the top joint under the fretboard. Just have to figure out where to make the cut. Is that joint going to show?

[Julie Moriarty]

I was looking into how Ric does their heads. I haven't been able to find any pictures that show a scarf joint. I'm wondering with the slight angle the heads are set at, would a scarf joint even be necessary?

I took the laminate and drew in a 4 degree set on the side.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_10_zps1c999efa.jpg

It looks like the grain from the neck will continue out to the end of the head. I still have to glue up some wings on the sides of the head and I could orientate them so they run at 4 degrees. That should help strengthen the joint.

Any comments on doing this?

EDIT:
I found a pretty good photo of the head-neck area and it looks like Ric does not use a scarf joint. Not sure if you can see it but, on this particular neck, they used two pieces of maple to make up the neck. Mine has five pieces and with the headstock wings it will make seven pieces total. Unless I'm convinced otherwise, I'll skip cutting a scarf joint.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/head_neckjoint_zps60ac1578.jpg

[Shawn Pixley]

If the headstock is only angled at 4 degrees, you have a lot of wood at the shear force. I don't think it will be a problem and as you say, the "wings" will help it. Gibson started with a 17 degree headstock angle. When the went to the 60's slim taper profile, there were alot of headstocks broken when knocked over leaning on an amp or with the strap slipping from the button. Later they lessened the break angle to 14 degrees and added the volute around '68 or so. You can get custom shop models and reissues with the 17 degree pitch and no volute again.

I used to have a Ricky 360-12 but I traded it in on a Les Paul Black Beauty with P-90's. I can't recall if the Ricky had the headstock at a 4 degree pitch or not. But the forces in a 25.5" scale twelve string are substantial. I just didn't play twelve string enough to warrant keeping it. Though I bet it would sound great through George's amp.

[John Coloccia]

The wings won't help because they'll be cut away from the angle anyway. Line them up straight...it will make sanding easier if everything's lined up. I wouldn't worry about the scarf. The main problem with the old Gibson headstock was, as Shawn points out, the excessive break angle combined with the huge route for the truss rod nut. You'll no doubt use a double action rod...just guessing based on your last build. That eliminates the need for any additional routing at the headstock other than the 1/4" for the rod. You'll also have a more reasonable headstock angle and bob's your uncle.

[Julie Moriarty]

Now that the Tele is in the final stages, I got back to the bass. I've got all the parts ordered (thank you John for your help on that) so I'll wait until things are here before making any cavity cuts. I did however do a little work.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_11.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_12.jpg


Rather then rout channels in the face, I decided to drill holes through the side into where the control cavity will be. I'm thinking I'll make the access for the controls on the back so as not to bury the koa. I did some fine tuning on the neck blank and marked it up for the bandsaw. But my blades are shot so I ordered some Lenox Flex Back blades in 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" and one 1/4" Diemaster blade. I'm curious to see if it can make fine cuts in wood.

[george wilson]

Julie,I have used nothing but 1/4" blades for 50 years. I have cut perfect 1/16" veneer in hard Cuban mahogany 12" thick with a good 1/4" blade.

If a person can learn how to judge how fast (or slow) the bandsaw wants to cut,and not force it,you can do great things with a 1/4" 6 tpi,skip tooth Lennox blade. Then,you never have to mess around changing blades.

But,I have said before,I often do not do things the "right" way. But,if you can master using the bandsaw,you can get away with a lot of stuff. It's all feel and judgement with the bandsaw. This,provided a person has a very good saw. Mine at work(and at home soon),is the 20" 1950's Delta. I've used a 14" delta at home,with the height attachment,since 1963. It has done everything I needed,but I'm SLOWLY(with my disabilities),a fully intact 20" saw,just like the one at work. I need to drag it out of the shop and finish painting the base.

[Julie Moriarty]

I have a Jet JWBS-18. It's probably close to 15 years old. It can resaw to about 10". (I think they should include both the throat and resaw numbers in the model - like JWBS-1018 :D) For the longest time I wondered why I bought it. Once I bought some decent blades and did some resawing on it we became good friends. Now I use it all the time.

What I have to do with the neck blank is make straight cuts from the top to just short of the nut and then make a long straight taper cut down to where the neck meets the body halves. But first I'll have to flip it on its side and make the angle cut at the head and cut the waste on the back of the neck down to the body. I wanted a good blade so I won't have a lot of clean up work. The thru-body neck will be another first for me.

[george wilson]

I leave a maximum of 1/32" to clean up when I saw out something. Just enough that any roughness in the saw kerf can be gotten rid of. That might be working a bit close to the edge of disaster,but that's what I do because I can saw very accurately.

Your mileage may vary!!:)

I had a Taiwan made 14" clone. The last of the round top saws,actually(Delta sued them over patent rights. The newer saws had flattened tops after that). I was using it for a metal cutting saw as I had the Delta for wood.

The top of the saw bobbed up and down some when it was running. At the slow speed I was running it,it didn't matter. But,if I had been using it for wood,I'd have had to take the wheels out and machine the blasted things round,or grind the rubber tires round. It would have vibrated like crazy at wood cutting speeds. This was back in the late 80's,when everything was still made in Taiwan.

[Pat Pollin]

the bass is looking great, Julie!
I love the way the ebony looks with the koa wings.

"Active pickups" usually just means that an active preamp has been installed in the control cavity of the bass providing 2 or 3 band EQ on the instrument. If you install a set of Nordstrand or Fralin jazz pickups you can wire them passive with just volume and tone knobs, and you will have passive setup. Some premium basses have a defeatable preamp, providing an active mode and passive mode. a switch just pulls the preamp out of the circuit and leaves you with one knob wired for passive tone. great spot to shop for high quality bass electronics and hardware
http://www.bestbassgear.com/
I have a seymour duncan basslines SCPB-2 in my '51 style P bass and it sounds great. I also use nordstrand and delano which are very nice but you don't necessarily have to spend that kind of money to get good sound.
if you don't mind hunting for used gear you may get lucky on the talkbass classifieds with pickups and hardware
http://www.talkbass.com/forums/for-sale-accessories.129/

don't feel boxed in by pickguards- personal preference again but I omit the pickguard unless it is really required by design such as on the P bass where the control cavity is under the pickguard.
here is my first instrument, built in a class at woodcraft ( hi John :) ) I have a black pickguard but never could bring myself to install it because I love that ash figure.
290086

as for pickup spacing, I would recommend following the industry standard for the given pickup choice. not to inhibit creativity but to ensure that the bass will sound right. like you said the fender basses have been the world standard for 60+ years I think they did it right. The jazz bass did change bridge pickup location slightly in the 70s but thats about it.

[Julie Moriarty]

George, unless you've been blessed with great vision beyond 40 (I haven't) you know it's the eyes that will give you the most problems staying outside the lines. When cutting that close to the line, I cut VERY slowly!

Pat, that's a very nice bass you built! It looks like it was one piece, not always easy to find. Thank you for the information and links you provided. It is all very helpful! :)

I bought JBE 4000 pickups from John. My SO and I heard a lot of different sounds produced by different pickups and it was a toss up between Fralin and Joe Barden. After discussions with John, we settled on the latter. We're going with Hipshot tailpiece and tuning machines in gold. It's tough to find gold hardware for the Ric bass. I ordered a wiring harness, mono jack, knobs and nut from Rickenbacker. The only thing I can't find is gold pickup covers. Pick of The Ricks shows them on their website but when you click on them to load into the cart, nothing happens. Rickenbacker is out of stock. If I can't find them, I'm thinking of making covers out of ebony.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I'll put access to the controls from the back. I have slices of the body I cut off in taking the 8/4 stock to 6/4 so I can pretty closely match the grain. The only way I wouldn't go that route is if I made a cover out of ebony, which is tempting me a lot lately. I'm just not sure what thickness I'd have to make it for it to work. Maybe I'd have to back it with sheet metal to keep it from splitting?

On another note - Woodcraft is having a 15% off everything you can fit in the bag sale today and I filled the bag, mostly with finishing products. One of the things I picked up is Behlen sanding sealer. I'm guessing I'll need it for the koa. I already tried mahogany-toned Behlen pore filler but it's pink and dries pink. If the sanding sealer alone doesn't fill the pores, I'll have to mix something up.

[george wilson]

Julie,I always have had good eyes,though over the years I developed cataracts. Not as bad as I thought,though. When I had the lenses in my eyes replaced a few years ago,white walls were stark white instead of having a bit of golden color about them.

I could see 20-15 after the surgery,at distance. I still need glasses for closeup,but do see just fine. My closeups are 2.75,I think,or 2.5.. That is fine for the bandsaw. For hand sharpening #80 drills,I put on 4X drugstore glasses. I'm not quite as sharp as I used to be. Started needing glasses about age 45,I think.


You need to tint that sanding sealer. Don't put it in if it isn't the right color!!! I made that mistake when I was a teenager. I bought some filler that was designated "transparent". I fell for it. It might have been transparent on PINE,but not on rosewood!! It just dried cream colored. All we used to have(that I was aware of) was the old oil based gunk. Not easy to sand off. The new water based stuff is easier to deal with.

In the old days,they just used plaster mixed with water based stains. In the 18th. C.,they actually used ground up red brick dust to fill mahogany,and make it redder. After centuries of relatively dark and bland oak and walnut woods,the English really got excited about the new tropical Cuban mahogany. In the Anthony Hay cabinet shop in Williamsburg,they used brick dust on a piece. It certainly was lively!! But,in the old days,seeing colors was a real treat compared to today. And,their colors were too often vegetable based and fugitive. When aniline dyes were invented in the early 19th. C.,people soon went nuts over them,especially when Queen Victoria appeared dressed in a mauve dyed dress.

Woods from the New World first made their way back to England as ballast material,thrown up on the docks. After a ship unloaded in Cuba,they had to re ballast the ship,and often used logs. When cabinet makers discovered these mahogany logs,it was soon realized that they were a great cash cargo to bring back.

At first,they cut down the trees and only took the stumps back,as they had the most figure. 50 years later,when the trees were getting scarcer,they went in and got the logs they left behind. Talk about rot resistant!!

Getting this wood was terribly difficult work as they went farther into jungles. Many men and oxen were lost to diseases like malaria. But,men were willing to risk it for the pay they got. In many trades,workers refused safety measures when they were invented. They got hazardous work pay,even though they knew they'd die at about 35.

Needle grinders breathed steel dust,and got "pointer's rot". Someone invented putting lodestone magnets near the wheels,but the men refused to use them. Lots of trades were like that in England.

[Julie Moriarty]

George, you are a never ending wealth of information. They need to dedicate a library to you! :D

Can you help me with this? Pickup location and harmonics?

If I understand what I've read correctly, there are certain places you SHOULDN'T place a pickup and those places are where the string harmonics are at their zero node. (Forgive me if I don't have the terminology correct but I'm talking about is a dead spot in the string vibration.) I realize once you fret a string, you change the zero node. But is there some guideline for placing the pickups or is it just seat-of-the-pants?

Right now I'm looking at placing the neck pickup on this guitar at the 24th fret and the bridge at the 36th fret. Both are pretty close to where Rickenbacker places theirs. To keep the SO happy, I'm doing my best to get a Ric look for this bass while creating the best sound I can.

Should I make a mockup and move the pickups around to see what sounds best? Or are there some guidelines I should follow?

[george wilson]

Julie,I am really not an electric guitar maker,though I have made a number of them,I'm more an acoustic builder. John can better advise you on pickup placement. I WOULD get his advice before placing them.

[John Coloccia]

It's seat of the pants. Generally, the closer to the bridge you get, the brighter and less loud it is. Closer to the neck is darker and louder. That's the basic difference when you see the same pickup in a neck model and a bridge model. The neck model is weaker or you'd never get them balanced. It's because the string moves less at the bridge...it's stiffer there...so you get less signal. Also, because of the stiffness it can't support the lower order harmonics very well there...moves even less. So it's brighter at the bridge and weaker. :)

There's no magic formula. There's a lot of talk about lining it up under harmonics, but talk is all it is. The pickups are where they are because that's where they fit. If you move them around, they're still close enough to the harmonics at that point that people will say they're lined up under nodes. Look at 24 fret guitars...quite popular. The position of the harmonic where the Fender neck pickup is located is actually located over the 24th fret on the fingerboard now! Run your finger lightly over the string between the end of the fingerboard to the bridge, and pluck. You'll find so many nodes that it would be practically impossible NOT to have a pickup generally aligned under SOMETHING. :)

I would probably just copy what Ric did, especially since you have pickups that are designed for Rics. I've done a LOT of experimenting with pickup locations. In the end, it's a matter of taste, but if you start moving things around you'll start getting away from the sound of that Ric.

[george wilson]

Well,blast it,I knew that much,John!!:) I thought you'd have some kind of formula. A magic one especially!!!

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks John. I'll just position them where I had planned. And George, thanks for whipping John into shape and dragging him here to reply. ;)

The tuners and tailpiece arrived today. I think we're on the right track with the gold and Hipshot brand. The pickup covers are still alluding me though. About the only other thing up in the air is possibly using some ebony for binding. I still can't quite picture it and I've never done anything like that before.

I've been working on templates to make router jigs for angling the headstock and taking down the back of the neck so I won't have so much hand work to do. It should save a lot of time. If it works, I'll post pics. If it doesn't, forget you ever read this. :rolleyes:

[george wilson]

Ebony for binding what,Julie? If it's the body,be prepared to learn how to bend it.

[Julie Moriarty]

Ebony for binding what,Julie? If it's the body,be prepared to learn how to bend it.

The ebony would outline the body. Rickenbacker also runs binding along the neck but if I did that I'd have to use koa or maple on the neck as the fretboard is ebony.

For the body, I know I'd have to steam the wood, form it and then glue it in place. I've been thinking 1/4" x 1/4" strips of Macassar ebony. Then when it's glued in place, I'd come back and do a roundover on it. Still just a thought.

Here's the progress on the jigs I'm making for basic shaping of the neck:
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_13.jpg
This one is for the back side. It will create the 4 degree angle at the headstock and also cut the waste away from the back. The final shaping will be done the old fashioned way.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_14.jpg
This will cut the front side of the headstock. Both headstock cuts will be made after the "wings" are glued on.
The final Ric shape will be done last.


I also made a template to shape the neck - before the "wings" are glued on. To make sure the neck blends with the different length sides, I used a straight edge to form a line from the nut to where the body joins the thru-neck. On the jig for the front side of the headstock, there will be a platform on top of the left side of the jig. My plans are the router can move off the MDF base and onto the top to shape the transition just above the nut. I'll use a 1/2" round bit at that point. I drew this all up in 3D CAD and "tested" it there. I hope it works as well in the real world.

[george wilson]

It is traditional to bend bindings and the sides of acoustic bodies around a hot pipe rather than by steaming them. I don't know how you intend to bend ebony around the sharp curves of the cutaways. Especially 1/4 X 1/4" strips. Maybe 1/4 x 1/16" strips,but ebony,at least some ebonies,are very brittle woods. Have you thought about using built up black dyed veneer strips? I'd glue them up with black dyed glue.

[Julie Moriarty]

You know George, I've never done any steam bending, but that's what makes this so appealing. Look at where I was 6 months ago. I was clueless about building guitars. Now I'm making the Moriatavarius. :D I realize bending 1/4"x1/4" ebony is very different than typical binding but the look I'm going for will have a roundover on the perimeter of the body. I don't want a sharp edge there.

Yesterday something hit me (one reason why taking this slowly has its advantages), with the thru-neck the same depth as the body, none of the neck will stick up above the body of the guitar. On the guitars I've built, the neck material sticks up 1/8" above the body and the fretboard adds another 1/4" - so 3/8" overall. I've been trying to find a clear picture of the side of Rickenbacker basses to see how they do it but haven't found one yet. I'm thinking I'll have to add a 1/8" spacer on top of the fretboard from where the top of the body is to just past the nut.

[John Coloccia]

It is traditional to bend bindings and the sides of acoustic bodies around a hot pipe rather than by steaming them. I don't know how you intend to bend ebony around the sharp curves of the cutaways. Especially 1/4 X 1/4" strips. Maybe 1/4 x 1/16" strips,but ebony,at least some ebonies,are very brittle woods. Have you thought about using built up black dyed veneer strips? I'd glue them up with black dyed glue.

Looking at the horns, I think it's right at the limit of what I could do with something like Ebony or Bloodwood. 1/4" is way way way too thick. Biinding on electrics and archtops is typically under .100" total thickness. Acoustics are sometimes more, with fancy abalone even sometimes, but that's always multiple layers. Aim to get that ebony down around .8". If you want thicker binding, use some THIN maple and ebony veneers to do white/black/white purfling.

The secret to binding, if there is one, is to make the channel SLIGHTLY too deep. A few thousandths is fine. You always want to scrape the sides down to meet the binding, not the other way around. If you bring the binding down to the sides, any slight deviation in the binding ledge will show up as differing thickness binding. Sometimes you get away with it...and sometimes you don't. Better to be safe and leave the binding untouched.

The really tight bends on the horns are actually mitered, George, like a Venetian cutaway. Still, as you say it will be a test of skill to bend the wood around there. One trick I picked up from somewhere is to use the tape from a mini tape measure to backup the binding as you're bending it. It helps keep the outside of the bend from tearing. It's definitely not a silver bullet, but it does help a little.

[Shawn Pixley]

The really tight bends on the horns are actually mitered, George, like a Venetian cutaway. Still, as you say it will be a test of skill to bend the wood around there. One trick I picked up from somewhere is to use the tape from a mini tape measure to backup the binding as you're bending it. It helps keep the outside of the bend from tearing. It's definitely not a silver bullet, but it does help a little.

Once again John beat me to the game. The tape measure trick helps a lot. You may want to build up the ebony thickness from multiple thin layers (all black if you don't want the banding effect).

For the fingerboard on the through neck, I'll look at mine when Connor gets up. He had a show last night and I'll let him sleep in. The things we do for our kids, eh?

[george wilson]

If you had a strip of saw blade spring steel it would really help,backing up the strips while you bend them,Julie. I definitely agree with John that your 1/4" ebony is way too thick to bend. Better to make up a multi layer strip of black and white,as he said. My suggestion to build up all black layers was if you really wanted a solid black edge. But,sometimes it is just better to make something look obvious,and let the layers show with different colors.

I think Grizzly sells black fiber binding. You could use that with no bending at all. It just bends.

[Julie Moriarty]

I saw StewMac sells natural wood binding. The dimensions are .080" thick, .250" tall and 33-1/2" long. I could take that and laminate it around the curves. What I don't want is a sharp edge, not with wood. Sanding between coats of lacquer is tough enough on roundovers and I can't see a sharp corner being very conducive to comfortable playing.

I've been researching the pickup installation. JBE figures you're replacing old pickups in an existing RIC and provides nothing in the way of mounting them in a new build. And from what I've seen, RIC's design for mounting is kinda crazy. It's like someone just decided, "This looks okay" rather than being engineered and tested. The neck pickup has nothing for mounting it to anything.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/JBE4000_n_01_zpsad6ad0b2.jpg http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/JBE4000_n_02_zpsc659e778.jpg

From what I've seen, that plastic plate is used to keep the pickup inside the cover and there's a foam ring to keep it in there snug. There's no way I can see to adjust the height outside of raising the entire cover up off the pickguard or body. I saw one picture where they inserted grommets under the cover and it looked terrible. And trying to find parts for the bridge pickup is a lesson in futility. After hours looking, my SO said it would be easier finding a RPG to buy than the mounting hardware and covers for the bridge. If we knew then what we know now, the RIC-based bass build would have been replaced by something else. Either Rickenbacker keeps their stock low because they can't afford to have it in stock or they do so to intentionally keep demand and prices high.

[John Coloccia]

You can find the mounting hardware on some of the sites that I sent you, or you can get them on e-bay too.

[Julie Moriarty]

I found some of the parts John but then I discovered how RIC installs their pickups.

I've been spending the better part of the last couple days taking the parts I have and drawing them up in CAD and seeing how they will fit. And I've been finding everything I can that shows how RIC fits the parts together. I think I have it figured out and I'm pretty sure Rickenbacker started out with a design they liked, added a bunch of chrome and then called in Rube Goldberg to engineer the rest. :rolleyes:

I don't have the neck pickup cover yet but it's looking like there's no way I'll be able to mount it flush on the body. The pickup will end up too close to the strings. It looks like they rout out a cavity large enough to fit the entire cover, and then some, and then use the pickguard to keep it in place. I'm not planning on using a pickguard so I'd have to recess the cover a bit and that would look hackish. One of the drawings I did is below. You can see the bottom of the neck cover is below the top of the guitar body. The pickup dimensions are all taken form the actual pickups. It's looking like I'll take pickguard material and use it as a pickup surround. I wanted to do wood but the SO wants PG material.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/JBE4000_Elev_zpse8380dfe.jpg
The bridge pickup cover is still in development. Not sure how the PG material will play into that.
​
I also drew up the dual-rod truss rod and inserted it in the 33.25" scale, 20-fret fretboard. If I place the spoke wheel just below the end of the fretboard, the top part of it will protrude from the headstock, and ruin every router bit I have in trying to shape it. So I did some moving things around, extending the fretboard and adding a fret. The further along I get, the farther I drift from a RIC. But I'm fine with that.

[John Coloccia]

Just so you know, I'm not a big fan of how Ric does anything. Until recently, their truss rods were unhardened mild steel and had a habit of just snapping at the threads. Other than being in the right place at the right time, Rics have very little going for them. I would say to get the pickup placement right, but mount them however is most convenient. It would be difficult to engineer ANYTHING on a Ric any worse than the original.

IMHO, of course.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well I agree completely with your humble opinion. I'd say it's more fact than opinion. Someone said there's a three year wait on RICs. The only I see that happening is if they created the demand by keeping the supply low.

I saw this picture on Talk Bass:
http://www.3dentourage.com/425/brokenric.jpg
When I saw how cleanly the body wings broke off the thru-neck all I could think was a bad glue job.

Their pots are 330k. I have no idea how that will work with the humbuckers, I just ordered their wiring harness and am keeping my fingers crossed. Everything about this guitar is weird. Somehow they got some guitar stars to play their instruments and they have ridden the wave ever since. It's amazing to me something so poorly built has such rabid fans. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

This will be my last RIC anything and most likely my last thru neck, unless someone pays me to make one. :rolleyes: But I have had a lot of fun and learned a lot re-designing everything. And if I succeed in taking the images in my mind are creating them in the real world, I think this will be a pretty nice bass.

[Julie Moriarty]

I got the wiring harness direct from Rickenbacker today. It was supposed to be new. When I took it out of the baggie I got this film all over my hands. When I was in my early 20's, I worked in a factory and I knew this film as something that formed on parts that had been sitting untouched for a very long time.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/RIC_fuzzies_zps77d2b460.jpg
If I was a detective, I'd say this wiring harness was sitting in a production line bin that had been shut down many years ago. Or maybe Rickenbacker sells the junk they don't use as new.

On a more important front, I created drawings for the control cavity. I had to wing it. But it worked.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_15.jpg
I took the above template and, before I cut out the cavity, I used the center marks to locate where the pots and switch were then drilled them through. Then I took a jigsaw and cut out the cavity and finished it on the spindle sander.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_16.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_17.jpg
My SO loves purple. :) Those knobs have purple abalone in the centers. We're looking at trying to find a sheet of purple abalone to incorporate into the pickup trims. Talk about a needle in a haystack!

[John Coloccia]

Give someone like http://www.dukeofpearl.com/ a call. Tell them what you want and see if they'll hand select a sheet with lots of purple in it for you. Be aware that shell, even laminated shell, is NOT cheap. Good Abalone is very wasteful to cut, and it's difficult to work with. Only the very outside of the shell has the fantastic figure. Take off a couple of thousands leveling, the figure disappears into ugly, dull swirls.

[Shawn Pixley]

I agree Rickenbackers are very much hit and miss. I had a 330-12 that needed constant tweaking. The twelve tuners had interferenace problems. The nut was sharp (easily fixed). The truss rods were a pain and the bridge was difficult to get execellent intonation without an after market replacement. The fretboard edge needed rounding / relief.

My friend had a six string 620 that was a dream (though he still keeps trying to buy my Ibanez prototype neck-through). I played a 4001 Ricky bass in the eighties. It was a fine instrument. Maybe I got lucky?

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks John. Looks better than a lot of what we've seen so far.

I didn't know how easy it is to lose the luster of abalone. When you picture things in your mind it isn't always easy to make it happen. But if we went with sheets, I think we'll be okay. The mental images are changing as I see what's out there but right now I'm thinking dark ebony, maybe Gaboon, on the perimeter and abalone on the interior, right up to the pickup. My SO wants gold in there too but I have no idea how to make that work.

I spent most of the morning and a bit into the afternoon making and fine tuning templates for the cover and control cavity recess to accept the cover.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_19.jpg
I cut the recess just shy of the thickness of the cover.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_20.jpg
Once the cover fit into place, I sanded it flush then trimmed around the perimeter so it just falls out. Gotta leave enough room for the finish buildup. :)

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_21.jpg
I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to get the grain to match...and when I fit in in place, it's all wrong! I was going to create a thread here to see if anyone had any foolproof way of doing that but figured I had enough of a brain to do it without bothering others.

I had the grain lines matched up from the sides and the piece was resawn off the same piece as the body half. But for some reason the grain didn't match. I think what happened is the piece I used for the cover was cut from the top. By the time the grain got to the bottom, it lost continuity. That piece of koa has a lot of grain flow going on. When I did the resaw, I was planning on the standard RIC pickguard.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_22.jpg
I drilled and countersunk for #4 x 5/8" flat head brass screws and installed the cover. A little mineral spirits shows the grain "dysfunction." Bummer. I was really planning on hiding the cover in the grain. Oh well...

[Shawn Pixley]

Give someone like http://www.dukeofpearl.com/ a call. Tell them what you want and see if they'll hand select a sheet with lots of purple in it for you. Be aware that shell, even laminated shell, is NOT cheap. Good Abalone is very wasteful to cut, and it's difficult to work with. Only the very outside of the shell has the fantastic figure. Take off a couple of thousands leveling, the figure disappears into ugly, dull swirls.

I scored a lot of raw red and green abalone at a garage sale around here. When I get home, I'll look to see if I have any purple. It seems unlikely though, so don't wait on me. I have a wet ring saw and a wet belt sander to flatten. I think buying prepared pearl and abalone is easier but sometimes you learn more doing it yourself (including ways to ruin things-DAMHIKT).

[Julie Moriarty]

Thank you Shawn! From what I've seen, I doubt you'll find purple in your collection but I appreciate the thought. We've got a line on some possibilities so we should be okay.

Last night the rear cover non-matching grain was really bothering me so I went back down into the shop and took a hard look at everything. I laid out the body half and resaw cutoff in bookmatch style. I may not have gotten it perfect, but it was pretty close. Then I took the cover, flipped it and put it in place and it looks like it came from a different part of the stock.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_23_zpsc55e1dad.jpghttp://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/Mac_24_zps45401938.jpg

I guess I never had a chance. :( It amazes me there could be so much of a change in grain in so little thickness.

[John Coloccia]

I think it looks pretty good, Julie.

[Julie Moriarty]

I got a little more done on the bass today. I was having the hardest time getting drawings to match with what I had but finally fixed the problems.http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_25.jpg
Today it just seemed right to rout for the truss rod by hand. It's kind of therapeutic.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_26.jpg
Chopping out for the truss rod spoke wheel.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_27.jpg
I had to leave the truss rod 1'8" proud for the fretboard spacer.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_28.jpg
Fingers crossed this whole thing works.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_29.jpg
After I trimmed the neck on the bandsaw, I secured it to the 3/4" routing template with turner's tape.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_31.jpg
The spacer in place. I'll still have to plane it down to 1/8".

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_30.jpg
Things are shaping up!

[Julie Moriarty]

Next up is routing out for the 1/8" x 3/8" carbon fiber neck rods. I decided to run them parallel to the outside of the neck instead of the center. I was thinking an "A" configuration is better than a parallel one for side-to-side stability. Though I don't know if that even matters.

I didn't have an 1/8" router bit so I took out the Veritas router plane. When I bought it I also bought all the irons.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_35.jpg


After I cut to about 1/8" deep, I did a test fit on the carbon fiber rod. It wouldn't fit. When I took out a L-N 1/8" chisel to clean out the groove, the chisel was wider than the groove. I checked the width of the iron and it measured 0.115". The L-N chisel was 0.125" and the rod varied from 0.123" to a bit over 0.124". I checked the rest of the Veritas irons and all of them were off. :mad: All were made in Taiwan. I bought the Veritas router plane over the L-N router plane because the Veritas had a fence. The prices were close to the same. Buyers remorse sets in.

I couldn't find a 1/8" router bit locally so I placed an order with Routerbitworld. They shipped the same day so the wait won't be too bad. In the meantime, I set up for neck profiling.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_38.jpg
Initially I was going to use a piece of 3/4" MDF for the router support. When I placed it over the jig, I realized I'd be routing blind. Then I remembered I had some 1/4" Plexiglas left over and found a piece that would work.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_39.jpg
I'll remove the Plexiglas piece on the bottom of the router, use it to drill the holes in the plate and attach the plate to the router.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_40.jpg
The plan is to allow the router to be moved on to the top of the platform to make the transition from fretboard to neck. I'll use a 1/2" round bit to create the transition. On the Fender-type guitars, I used the spindle sander to do this but because of the angled head on the bass, I didn't see that as an option. I'll get a piece of scrap to test the jig first.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_36.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_37.jpg
Since I couldn't see the marks at the nut, I measured down to the bridge and used that to locate the neck in the proper place.

[Ron Lindner]

Julie you made me go check my Veritas router plane and my 1/8" cutter is under also. Wonder if they stuck in a metric blade for 1/8"

Ron

[Julie Moriarty]

Julie you made me go check my Veritas router plane and my 1/8" cutter is under also. Wonder if they stuck in a metric blade for 1/8"

Ron

I hadn't even thought about that Ron. On their website they list their 3mm blade and have "(1/8")" next to it. Maybe they don't think the difference between 0.115" and 0.125" matters but it sure messed me up. There's no way I wanted to sand down carbon fiber! And the fence on the router plane is a bit too iffy to trust it to hold firm enough to shave 0.01".

[Julie Moriarty]

I got the 1/8" router bits today and finished routing for the carbon fiber neck rods. That was a little tricky. There's been nothing that's been easy with this build. Then it was off to roughing out the back of the neck.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_42.jpg

After about 8 passes...
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_43.jpg
​
I picked up some sheet metal to make a backing plate for the controls. I didn't trust the wood to hold the controls in place. I'll probably secure it permanently with construction adhesive.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_41.jpg
​
I'll probably cut the fret slots and radius the fretboard next. I've been procrastinating because I'm afraid I'll screw up and I only have one "perfect" piece of ebony.

[Julie Moriarty]

Some pics of the latest progress
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_42.jpg
Routing out the back of the neck

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_43.jpg
After about 8 passes, the back is roughed out.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_44.jpg
The fretboard is slotted by hand. The scale is 33-1/4" and there are no steel templates made for this scale. I drew up a scale in CADD, printed it, and adhered it to the ebony stock. Twenty-one (21) fret slots will be cut.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_45.jpg
Once all the slots are cut, it's time to remove the paper template.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_46.jpg
The fretboard radius will be 10" so I needed to make a router jig. First step is using a circle jig to make the 10" radius in 3/4" MDF.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_47.jpg
With both sides shaped, I made the top and drilled a hole for the router bit to fit through.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_48.jpg
The 10" radius jig completed.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_49.jpg
View from the bottom. The black on the curved sections is ebony dust.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_50.jpg
The radius jig at work. The jig slides back and forth along the base to shape the 10" radius
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_51.jpg
Another shot of the jig at the end of the base.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_52.jpg
After the radius jig has done its thing, the fretboard is sanded smooth with a 10" radius sanding block.

[Julie Moriarty]

After about a week of doing very little, I got some work done yesterday but forgot to take picture until after much of it was done. I glued the fretboard on and later found the 12" radius sanding beam doesn't work so well on a 10" radius fretboard when used as a clamping caul. The outer edges toward the bottom didn't get glued tight to the neck. I had to fill the voids with ebony dust and CA glue. It worked well though. I can't see any gaps now.

I routed the face of the headstock and profiled the head and then routed the edges of the fretboard flush to the neck. The whole thing was a bit tricky working with the angled head and shaped neck back. Almost nothing on this project is easy.

Then it was on to shaping the neck. That's when I remembered I forgot to take pictures. :rolleyes:

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_53.jpg
I find the spokeshave my favorite tool for doing this work.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_54.jpg


We're leaving for Florida early tomorrow so no more work will be done on the bass for a little over a week. Everyone needs a vacation from retirement. :cool:

[Jason Hilliard]

I started building Bass Guitars 5 years ago and the way I decide where to put my pickups is pretty simple and dead on beyond a shadow of a doubt . Once you get to the point where it's time to route the pickup cavity you wire up all the electronics outside of the instrument . Then you build a rail system . You need to be able to turn the pickups upside down over the strings on the rails you built . The rails should be wide enough to fit the strings between them and slide the pickups on the rails towards the neck or bridge . You'll hear all the differences in locations and you can then decide where to put them .

[Ted Calver]

What a great thread. Julie, I really appreciate the effort you put into sharing your builds with us....Thank you!

[Julie Moriarty]

I recently received the summer publication from GAL and in it there is an article covering the use of CA glue as a pore filler. There's another article in the same issue where the author mentions pore filling with epoxy. Both articles mention Hawaiian koa and both authors talk about their methods eliminating shrink back. Shrink back is new to me. Both the articles reference the use of these methods for acoustic guitars. There's no mention of solid body guitars. So I'm wondering if shrink back would even be an issue in solid body guitars. :confused:

Still, it got me to thinking I may need to put a little more consideration into pore filling, at least for the koa parts on the bass. Initially I had planned to just use a sanding sealer. After reading some other articles about pore filling koa, I started thinking of maybe using some method that involves sanding with BLO or tung oil so the dust becomes part of the pore fill. (maybe the sanding sealer alone wouldn't be sufficient) I do remember experimenting with something like that but I don't remember exactly what I did nor do I remember the results.

But now that I have read about CA or epoxy as pore fillers, and both authors swear by their methods, I'm rethinking my plans. Right now, I have no plans to tone the wood. I want a natural color. Is it worth investing the time to look into epoxy or CA as grain fillers or would standard methods do the job just as well?

[george wilson]

Certainly shrink back will be a problem with ANY guitar. They are still made of wood,no matter if it is acoustic or solid.

For many years now,I have filled the pores of wood with thinned out 5 minute epoxy. I do not AT ALL recommend use of CA for this,as it does not have a warm color. Epoxy does give a nice warmth to the color of wood.

What I do is squirt a teaspoonful of 2 part epoxy into a metal lid. Then,I carefully add denatured alcohol and stir the mixture up thoroughly to completely dissolve the epoxy into the alcohol.

The amount of alcohol is not really measured. I do it by eye,but I'd say I use about two or three times the volume of alcohol as the mass of epoxy. The epoxy will dry anyway regardless of the amount of alcohol. But,leave the mixture with enough epoxy to get into the pores and fill them.

For filling rosewood,which is extra porous,I first fill the pores with paste wood filler. It is not necessary to use the wood filler on spruce,maple,or other non porous woods. These days,I'd use the newer water based wood fillers. The old oil based stuff is a lot more trouble to sand off. Be sure to add pigments that dissolve in water,to tint your water based filler to match your wood,or it will look very bad.

This mixture of epoxy and alcohol will give you about 10 or more minutes of workability before the epoxy starts thickening up and dragging badly. This is why I do not mix any more that I do at one time. I am able to paint the back of a guitar with this much epoxy. Just use cheap,disposable BRISTLE brushes. They will not be good for a second use!!! Stay away from foam brushes. They might dissolve,and suck up too much of your epoxy mix in any case.

I make another batch for the top,then the sides.

The epoxy must be allowed about 2 hours to get "leather hard". At that stage,I use 220 garnet paper to sand it down to the pores. Then,on rosewood,or on koa,which have very long pores,I'd do a second operation.

What you must NOT do is leave the epoxy on overnight,or it will be like sanding concrete!! LEAVE the surface sanded with 220 grit garnet paper. The tiny scratches help the lacquer get a good mechanical grip. I never use sand paper with stearates in it. I don't want anything om the surface that might keep the lacquer from adhereing.

Also,do not sand the surface bare,down to the pores in places,and leave some epoxy on the surface in other areas. It will look very blotchy later on. On the 2nd. coat.leave some epoxy on the surface,but do make sure the pores are filled up. The epoxy will never shrink into the pores like most fillers will. Lacquer will continue to shrink for YEARS,believe me.

I used to use sanding sealer(in the 50's and 60's,when I was less experienced),which is just lacquer with cellulose fibers in it too small to see. It is useless. I had made a classical guitar to keep from rosewood. After 6 months,I noticed the pores were showing. I rubbed it again,and 6 months later,the ores were back again. You won't have that happen with epoxy.

I would also recommend trying the water based pore fillers. It is very easy to sand off. If you fill the grain with the water based filler and wait a few days,then apply a coat of epoxy,and sand it,I do not think you'll ever have a problem with the pores coming back. You will have to sand the surface down smooth with water based filler,as it will raise the grain. Leave it overnight as I mentioned.

Be sure to wait overnight before spraying lacquer over the epoxy. I know from being too hasty on a rush job base for a presentation silver bell in Wmsbg.,that the epoxy will emit tiny bubbles into the top coat because it takes hours for the alcohol to get out of the already hardened epoxy.

I have seen old timers use plaster of paris tinted with color for wood filler. You might want to experiment with scrap wood before trying this on your guitar. The old timers always had ways to get by with nearly nothing out of their pockets(which were meager). In the 18th. C.,cabinet makers actually rubbed red bricks together and used the fine dust to fill Cuban mahogany. They did this in the cabinet shop in the Historic Area,and the result was quite nice,and very colorful. People in the 18th. C. loved color when they could afford it. They were tired of the drab walnut and oak colors of locally grown English woods. Of course,only the rich could afford high style mahogany furniture.

[John Coloccia]

Epoxy does make quite a good pore filler. I like ZPoxy finishing resin. It flows out smoothly and sands like butter. My favorite pore filler these days, though, is thinned Timbermate. Make a slurry, mush it on, let it dry for a bit, and rub it off with burlap. When it's fully dry, lightly sand to get rid of whatever's on the surface. If you're in a rush, you can even speed up the process with a hair dryer or heat gun.

You will definitely want to seal any light wood with a coat of lacquer before using any sort of tinted pore filler. You could probably get away without sealing on things like rosewood and walnut, but mahogany and lighter woods could stain. Of course, that means you will want to stain the guitar first...and then seal...and then fill....and then after light sanding, another coat of sealer to prevent bleeding later on. THEN continue on with the finishing process as usual.

Epoxy has gotten VERY popular with acoustics builders. Since they rarely take any dye or stain, you can actually use the pore filling step as a quick and easy leveling step too! Then if your spray gun technique is good, you can end up with a very thin and easy to level/buff finish.

I think there's one water based pore filler that's pretty good. Crystalac, maybe? Jack Briggs recommends it. The stuff StewMac carries is garbage. You'll fill...and fill....and fill....and it will keep shrinking back and make a ton of work. It never takes more than 2 coats with epoxy, and I can usually fill most mahogany with just 1 coat of Timbermate.

[george wilson]

Thanks,John. I forgot to mention putting on a light coat of lacquer before filling the pores. This also helps minor scratches to not show up from being filled with stain.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks guys. For some reason I'm finding myself reluctant to move forward on the build. I have the neck pretty much to where I want it and I think I'm ready to glue the body halves on but I'm not sure I've got the steps right. The bolt-on neck is pretty straightforward but this through neck thing is giving me paralysis. And trying to mix the Rickenbacker design with the customizing my SO wants has me redesigning and engineering far more than I ever expected.

For the pore filling, I wasn't considering the CA method because it sounds like something out of an alchemy class but I was curious if anyone had tried it. I used the Timbermate method on the sapele Strat and it worked fine. I toned it with yellow to brighten up the wood. I was thinking the sanding with BLO might be the way to go because I like the natural color of the koa. But if I glue the sides on, I'll have the maple to contend with, and the BLO sanding could color the maple.

On all the other guitars, I've used BLO to pop the grain then followed up with shellac. Three of the guitars have maple bodies so I've only had to deal with pore filling on one. I've got Timbermate in natural and brown colors. I haven't seen what untoned natural would look like after BLO, shellac and lacquer have been applied so I'll need to do that. I guess the biggest problem right now is overcoming the paralysis. I walk into the workshop, look at the parts, place them together and walk out. I can't seem to get past that.

[george wilson]

Your paralysis is not an uncommon illness,Julie. Mine is just a manifestation of not being in the mood to work,which gets more pronounced as I get older and more tired.

[Julie Moriarty]

Your paralysis is not an uncommon illness,Julie. Mine is just a manifestation of not being in the mood to work,which gets more pronounced as I get older and more tired.

Mine may have something to do with being on vacation for a week and coming back to the world of retirement, which isn't all it's cracked up to be. On the trip I was asked several times what I do and when I said I was retired the response I often got was, "It must be nice." "Boring" is a better description. Now, going into the shop is a reminder of how boring my life really is. I'd rather be sailing.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've been enjoying working outside too much to go back in to the basement but I haven't stopped thinking about completing the bass. Good thing I'm not making this for a customer. :rolleyes:

I bought a steam generator and on the next rainy day I'll give it a test run. My plan is to take a thin strip of quilted maple and glue it to the outside perimeter of the koa body, like a full depth binding. What I don't know is if wood movement will break it apart at some time in the future. :confused: That just dawned on me.

[Shawn Pixley]

You may (might) have problems at the heel of the body. The Koa wil want to move across the grain but the quilted maple will have long grain that wouldn't move. However binding runs like this and doesn't break, so it may not be a problem.

[Julie Moriarty]

You may (might) have problems at the heel of the body. The Koa wil want to move across the grain but the quilted maple will have long grain that wouldn't move. However binding runs like this and doesn't break, so it may not be a problem.

I was thinking the same thing. On one hand there's the opposing grain issue. On the other is the fact countless guitars have been made with binding that seems to move with the grain. Maybe that's why plastic is used for binding?

I was all set to steam and shape the wood when this hit me. I'd hate to glue on the maple binding and go all the way through the finishing process only to have it later separate and ruin the guitar.

[george wilson]

Bend the binding to a tighter curve than the curves,like the waist,that it rests against. That will help it to not spring loose years later,like you often see on old guitars. The trouble with plastic binding like celluloid is it keeps degenerating until it literally falls apart. The cause is it isn't cured properly. Nitric acid left in it wreaks havoc with the metal parts,too,when it starts to fall apart. I have seen very old instruments,though,where the celluloid is still perfect. It's a gamble. Wood is really better in the long run.

[Julie Moriarty]

When I first considered binding for the bass I just didn't like what I imagined it would look like, thin on the top and wider on the sides. I wanted something wider on top but then you run into problems with splitting the wood as you work around tight corners. Binding the full thickness of the bass worked for me aesthetically but when the grain issue hit me I thought attempting this would be a mistake.

George, your idea about over-bending is a good one but I've already cut up the forms I'll be using to press the slats into shape and later to glue them on the body.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_59.jpg


This is what I plan to use to steam the wood:


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_58.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_57.jpg


Tommy Mac used 4" PVC for a steam bending project much bigger than this so I'm hoping the PVC won't be a problem. I already had the pipe. It's left over from when we built the house in 1986. I'm also hoping the eggcrate will hold up too. That was left over from reef tanks we used to keep.

[george wilson]

Can't you do some over bending after you remove them from the forms? Use a pipe with a torch inside,and dampen the wood. Practice on some scraps of the same wood to get the temp. so it doesn't burn.

If you don't,I can practically guarantee there will someday be some separation on the concave bent areas and the body.

By the way,it really takes weeks for those steamed pieces to actually get thoroughly dry and quit shrinking. I know this from long experience.

When I made my orange Gretsch guitar,I made the sides from several layers of 1/28" veneer(you can't get it that thick any more). It was WEEKS before I got the guitar done. Possibly MONTHS,I can't recall-it was a part time job on weekends mostly. The lacquer on the sides has done some crazing now,because of continued shrinking of those glued veneer layers. It's shrunk a small amount under the lacquered surface,"jamming" the lacquer together. I guess it makes the guitar look more authentic. I'm not going to refinish it at this late date.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've seen the heated pipe bending process. One GAL member used a 3" piece of copper pipe and placed a torch inside it then did his bending on that. It was positioned overhanging the bench with the torch laying on the bench. He said he had to be careful when doing the bending because the heat from the torch could burn his belly button! :eek:

I'll do some practicing and see how it goes. Maybe I need to do a practice glue up too but I'm thinking it would take so long for separation to occur if I waited for that on the practice piece, I'd never finish the real thing. But not sure when I'll get to it. The weather here has been gorgeous lately and I just can't go down into the basement and miss out on this perfect weather.

[george wilson]

You don't wait for separation oin the practice piece. It WILL take too long!! Just over bend the curves so they hug the body more tightly,and let it go at that.

[Julie Moriarty]

Just over bend the curves so they hug the body more tightly,and let it go at that.

If it's good enough for you George, it's good enough for me. :)

When I do the bends, I'll post pics and let you know how it's going.

[george wilson]

Julie,you make such great,organized jigs! The steam bending outfit is very nice. I need you to come down here,organize my shop,and make jigs for me!!!:):):)

[John Coloccia]

Julie,you make such great,organized jigs!

She really does, doesn't she? Much nicer than anything I've ever made :)

[Jim Creech]

Just a reminder Julie, make certain that pvc pipe is well ventilated. Plastic pipe does not play well with live steam under pressure! I use a length of thin wall aluminum pipe when I need to steam bend.

[Julie Moriarty]

Oh boy! You guys missed it! I plugged the steamer into the 4" PVC, sealed very well, I might add... and something started to bubble and gurgle. The drain hose I put in the pipe was cooking like the Chattanooga Choo-Choo!

So I loosened the cap and the "sweat" came out the other end. Add one more bucket! It was interesting, to say the least. I now know why all of the steam boxes I've seen are made from wood. Lots of places for the pressure to be released. The SCH40 4" pipe bowed. I could have shaped it to anything I wanted. But it didn't fail.

Anyway, I took the sample piece and steamed it for over half an hour. They say one hour per inch. This was 1/8" thick and it was still pretty stiff, except the part closest to the steam inlet. That was like spaghetti. So I took that part and placed it in the tightest curve. But the rest wasn't much different than dry wood. I'll know tomorrow how it turns out.

I'm thinking a steam box needs to distribute the steam evenly over the whole box. But what do I know? :cool:

Brian and his mom were jamming tonight. He's been playing the red Strat and doing some really cool magic. It's sad to be able to build a guitar but not play. Playing is where it's all at. Maybe one day...:rolleyes:

[Halgeir Wold]

You really need a small opening in the far end to let the steam circulate through the tube, - and some healthy flow going through the pipe. No need for pressure in the box, though...
I'm not so sure PVC is the right material for this. Some insulation also helps in keeping an even temperature through out the tube.
Boatbuilders steam large 3"+ planks in order to twist them to the right profile on the hull, but the ones I remember used a woden box and a large steam boiler. Too long ago to remember the details....

We used to harden Copper Beryllium antenna blades in a large 5" alu tube, appx 2m long, with a 1.5 KW hot air gun. Some insulation on the outside of the tube and covering the ends to retain the heat, but still allow flow through the tube....... IIRC the ideal temp was 154C....

[John Coloccia]

IMHO, this method of bending is a bad habit to get into for guitar work. It may work on some woods, but when you start using figured wood, it will fail miserably. You'll find that soaking something like figured maple, for example, will cause the piece to just come apart when you try and bend it.

[george wilson]

The trouble with steaming is the pieces will wrinkle down the height of the sides. I have a special steam box we made in the 60's. But,I only use it for steaming strips of wood for antique repair,not wide pieces for guitar sides.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've been doing some reading up since the first run. I was surprised how many steam boxes were made of PVC. Though most were supported underneath to keep the pipe from sagging. I also found most who build wooden steam boxes sealed them very well and only drilled one hole for the drain and one small hole at the other end for the pressure to escape. All the ones I saw, PVC and wood, used dowels as a shelf to suspend the wood being steamed.

This is the piece after 24 hours in the forms. I found one place where the fibers broke around the horn. And that part of the wood was pretty saturated because it was closest to the steam inlet. As you got farther from the inlet, the wood got drier and less pliable. As you can see from the picture below, there was a lot of spring back on one end. That was the end farthest from the steam inlet.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_61.jpg

I lightly sanded some of the fibers away to make the split easier to see.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_63.jpg

Like George said, overbend. Even with clamps pressing things into place, there are gaps. I'll need to fix these with a bending iron. My goal is for the strip of maple to hug the curves of the body.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_64.jpg


I'm beginning to see why you guys don't go to the steam box for bending guitar wood. When the bending iron gets here, I'll get some practicing in and see if I can take a fresh piece and bend it to snug up against the body.

I have a book by Jonathan Kinkead on making an acoustic guitar. From what I read, it seems he soaks the wood in water then takes it to the bending iron. He places a wet rag on the inside (between the wood and iron) and a bending strap on the outside. Is this what you guys do?

[John Coloccia]

I usually just spritz it with water from a spray bottle. Ideal would be to bend dry, but it's difficult to get enough heat into the wood without scorching it. You can get away with it with something like rosewood.

I personally think the bending is just fine, and I wouldn't go futzing around with it any more, especially where the fibers have started coming apart. Get yourself some butchers tape. You can also use masking tape. In tight curves, or when I need extra oomph, I use nylon reinforced plastic tape. Anyhow, after applying the glue, I hold the binding in place with lots of pieces of tape. That insures that the most important part of the joint is tight....the edges. Once it's glued down, that little bit of torn fibers will just sand out. A traditional fix is to wick a little CA glue in there if you want, but you'll just need to be careful so it doesn't interfere with the finishing.

[george wilson]

You don't need to bend anymore in the real tight curve where the fibers are starting to tear. But,I still urge you to bend the binding where it does not perfectly fit the form. You can use the wood,with the form inside it,just as you have it in the picture above. Press the bending iron against the outside of the binding where it does not lie perfectly against the form. You can see a gap just before the peak of the "horn" there. I would not recommend you just trying to pull it down with tape. Sooner or later,the binding will open up the seam there again. The maple will continue to pull at the glue for the rest of the life of the instrument if it doesn't fit. The glue,sooner or later,will lose the struggle.

You can definitely over bend the waist of the body. There is no tearing there,and it will really help the binding to not separate there in the future.

You can just dampen the wood and run it against the iron naked. Be sure to not get the iron hot enough to scorch the wood. You'll end up with a very noticeable thin spot in the binding by the time you sand the scorch out.

[Julie Moriarty]

As always, I thank you, gentlemen, for your advice. The bending iron came yesterday and when I get the chance, I'll experiment with it. We also had some new flooring for the kitchen arrive yesterday and, unfortunately, installing that takes precedent over having fun with the guitar. :rolleyes:

I watched some videos by Simpson and O'Brien guitars and it looks like knowing the temperature of the iron would be a good thing. Simpson works with 280 degrees while O'Brien goes to 315. I don't have anything other than a meat thermometer so I'll give that a try. But right now I'm being called into the kitchen by the foreman.

[John Coloccia]

I've never measured the temperature. I just set it and go. If it seems too hot, I turn it down. :) You'll quickly get a feel for it. Temperatures become more important when you're using a bending machine. Then, you really do need to keep an eye on things because you can't see or feel what's going on and it can get out of and very quickly. Bending by hand, on the other hand, is a very touchy feely, intuitive sort of thing. I don't personally think a thermometer will do anything but confuse things. That's just my opinon.

[george wilson]

I made a pretty spohisticated bending machine. I need to post pictures of it. It works like a charm,producing beautiful,flawless sides with no scorching.

It's like a Fox bender,but mine is all aluminum plate. His is plywood,and rather given to catching fire!!

[John Coloccia]

Cumpiano almost burned down his shop like that. I walked in, and the place was filled with acrid smoke. I guess he'd accidentally left a heating blanket on, and it was slowly scorching it's way through a particle board form if I remember right. That was quite a day. About 20 minutes later, I smell something burning again. It was his HAT....he tossed it on a bending iron, and I guess somehow THAT got turned on too. LOL. Poor guy. The place needed a fresh coat of paint anyhow :)

[george wilson]

I only ever use my bending machine on my concrete floor(It has it's own stand built in),several feet away from anything that can burn. My whole machine gets as hot as a clothes iron. I get it hot,insert a side,crank down the side into the shape I want,leave it for 20 minutes,then let it cool off until it is dead cold. Then I remove the side. It has three 300 watt light bulbs inside,plus,I made an electrically heated caul for the waist. The plywood version is much less powerful,and has no heated caul for the waist. Kid stuff!!!!:) I have a rheostat on mine which is left at the heat I determined by a few experiments,would not scorch the wood.

There is an existing picture of it on that Cybozone website which features me and a few other builders.

[Halgeir Wold]

George - I would love to see that,- but googling Cybozone got me nowhere.......?

[george wilson]

Try Googling George Wilson guitar maker. I'll try it myself and see if it works. Haven't looked there in a long while.

Edit,it did,about the 5th thing on the list was "featured builder,George Wilson Cybozone."

[Julie Moriarty]

When you talk about a bending machine, do you mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTrVHc-GU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTrVHc-_GU)

[george wilson]

Yes,Julie. I must say that fancy LMI side bender looks impressive,but it is needlessly complicated to use,sez me.

First of all,the spring steel they use is plain high carbon 1095 sheet spring,the same thing as the 1095 spring steel that is used to make high class saws. IT AM BOUND TO RUST very soon,as hot steam escapes from the un needed aluminum foil. I say un needed because I just use 2 pieces of stainless steel sheet in mine. No heating blanket,which is also needlessly cumbersome to apply.

The thermocouple heat sensor outfit is fancy looking,and high techy,too. But,I have determined by early experiments how much heat my unit needs to put out,and just leave the thermostat(a unit used to dim chandeliers) set to the same setting.

I don't find the need to get my wood soaking wet,like the "spritz" they use(spritz indeed!!!). THEY must be bending THIN sides,too,because their sides are already sagging like crazy even before they apply the clamps to the bouts. And,rosewood at that. BTW,I have always found that rosewood always has enough oil in it to not need much water,if any. Water takes quite a while to REALLY get out of wood. Weeks,even for thin sides. If you don't wait a long time before spraying lacquer on the sides,the lacquer will get squeezed together over time as the sides shrink more,cracking the lacquer. Also possibly making the neck and tail blocks pooch up from the top,especially. Bend dry as you can,always.

BTW again: On the pictures of the "early" side bending method,the guy would make better sides IF he had skill enough to actually hold the sides 90º to the bending iron,and NOT at a stupid ANGLE to it!!!!!

I didn't make it all the way through the video,but I wonder WHAT the outfit is made of???? Some kind of plastic?? Metal is for real manly side bending!:) 3/4" aluminum to be exact(well,6061 aluminum to be really exact).

I slip my side between the stainless steel sheets,having pre determined where the waist is to be,and screw the overhead heated caul down. Then,I pull the powerful bakelite faced clamps over the upper and lower bouts and let it cook. Remember,there are 3 300 watt light bulbs inside the form.

I don't like the idea of wrapping my wood in aluminum foil because it is going to get wrinkled,especially in the waist,and could well mar the wood. Especially softer woods like Spanish cypress for flamenco guitars. And,that water HAS to be able to get out of the wood. SOME of it does,as steam,around places it finds it can break through. But,I'll warrant,not ALL of it gets out. It gets driven deep into the wood,where it will take longer than is apparent to really get out.

If I ever have any trouble with wood getting colored from being against the 304 stainless,I bought a sheet of 1/32" teflon to put between the wood and the stainless. It will take a lot more heat than the machine will put out.

Oh yes,I do have interchangable form shapes for mine as well,and I did make the cutaway bending attachment,though I never installed it. I'd have to make separate forms for that anyway. I haven't made a cutaway guitar since making the machine. I think they look weird on flat tops anyway,though I HAVE made them on request. Even Segovia didn't need a cutaway. I WON'T do it on a classical guitar.

My side shape forms are made of 1/4" aluminum plate,connected across by 1/2" steel rods,necked down where they go through 3/8" holes in the aluminum forms. Guaranteed to survive for centuries!!

Lastly,their machine costs $3,000,000.00 whereas mine only costs $1,000,000.00.(Alright,I made that up!) Mine would HAVE to cost much more,sorry! I swear I'll post pictures soon. Unfortunately,you have to also be a machinist to make my machine. But,I guess that'll keep copyists at bay!!:)(Not that I'm in the side bending machine business.) I did go back and finish the video,where I saw the EXCESSIVE spring back he got when he removed the sides. Probably from too much water. Probably will CONTINUE to un bend if left lying about. My forms have OVERBENT waist and bout curves to compensate for any spring back. My sides REALLY DO fit my mold after bending.

[John Coloccia]

On occasions that I use my machine instead of hand bending, I use kraft paper lightly spritzed with water. As George says, the steam needs somewhere to go! Aluminum foil seems like a bad idea. The water is really just there to keep stuff from scorching.

[george wilson]

John,I may try your kraft paper myself. Just to keep light colored woods like maple away from the stainless steel. Sometimes I do get a few blue spots from the stainless. Kraft paper is thinner than the teflon,and would disturb the waist contours less.

Do you find that the paper tears apart at the waist as you add pressure when bending the waist?

[Shawn Pixley]

George, I'm with you. The side was already sagging before starting the bend. Over spritzing and aluminum foil was just wrong. The jig looked pretty cool but a bit unnecessary / expensive.

Instead of aluminum foil or craft paper, you could consider a really light cotton knit fabric. It has a little stretch and won't trap the moisture.

[george wilson]

Shawn,are you recommending underwear or side bending stuff???:)

[Shawn Pixley]

Shawn,are you recommending underwear or side bending stuff???:)

Good one. I should read my responses and consider other interpretations...

[Julie Moriarty]

On occasions that I use my machine instead of hand bending, I use kraft paper lightly spritzed with water. As George says, the steam needs somewhere to go! Aluminum foil seems like a bad idea. The water is really just there to keep stuff from scorching.

One of the videos I saw used kraft paper (see below). I was thinking the paper would stick to the wood like glue but it came off pretty easily. This whole concept is new to me. Prior to this, all I knew about bending wood was from the steam box method and that was all for furniture. This is a whole different world.

Kraft paper method with what looks like a shop made jig:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff_9n7-ejs8

[Julie Moriarty]

Since we're moving now, I decided to forget the binding and just finish the bass. I'll give that binding idea a try once we're settled into the new place. So yesterday I glued on the sides and today I sanded everything. I put some mineral spirits on to see how it would look natural.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_69.jpg


I'd like some opinions on the natural look. I'm not really thrilled with it and think the koa needs some toning. Applying dye to just the koa would be pretty tricky. I was also thinking of coloring the filler with a black or dark brown dye. But I'm not sure how much will be absorbed by the maple. If the maple absorbs any dye, I'll probably have to dye the entire guitar.

Any thoughts?

[george wilson]

I don't think it looks bad. You could get yourself into a lot of trouble if you apply dye to the koa,and some gets onto the maple. It won't look good. If it were me,I'd tape the maple off and spray the color on with shading lacquer. But,as said,I think it looks alright as is.

[John Coloccia]

I think it's nice too. Yeah, you definitely don't want to touch that maple. There are ways to do it, such as masking it off, sealing the maple with lacquer (or a couple of coats of shellac), and then proceeding from there, but it's somewhat risky. I'm with George that I would shade with lacquer before considering a stain, but I'd personally just leave it natural. :)

[Shawn Pixley]

Like George and John, I like it. If you were going to fill the grain, darker would be better. Seal the maple with shellac and mask off before the grain filler? I might go with just straight lacquer but I can see toned or tinted working. 'Course I like the blue or black 4001 that Foxton uses. But covering the Koa would be a sin.

[Julie Moriarty]

I wish I could see it like you guys. But for some reason it just seems blah to me. Maybe it's the pain meds (had a tooth pulled yesterday). But I completely agree, the maple needs to stay natural. On the first strat, I had to dye the sapele on the headstock w/o letting it leech into the maple. I had to use an artist's brush to do it. Not sure I want to tackle that again. Okay. It stays natural. :)

From the back:
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_71.jpg

After the previous post, I went to the workshop and took another look. Then it dawned on me that the grain direction on the upper horn may not be the best for strength. I've been thinking of drilling where the strap button will be and inserting a dowel down the horn to give it strength. Good idea or am I nuts?

[george wilson]

How hard is the koa? How much is the bass player going to jump around while playing? I guess the last question can't be predicted as the instrument may change hands. Most instruments get broken by getting knocked off stands,breaking off their pegheads.

I'll let someone else who is familiar with how much these basses weigh chime in. I'm not sure that a dowel might not serve to weaken the horn. It depends upon how well it fits,and how thorough the glue envelopes the dowel. Next time,make your bass out of 1 1/2" plate brass.:)

This is the trouble with these extreme designs. Perhaps the thing to do next time is stack layers of wood with different grain orientations. It could be sort of like the neck,with thinner pieces. Actually,it could compliment the neck,and 1 layer,or 2 could be set to go up the horn.

[John Coloccia]

I was at a great builder's shop and I noticed that he'd left some traditional reinforcements out of his guitar. I asked him if it won't just split if someone drop it on the floor. He said something to the effect of, "Maybe, but until he does that it will sound better than these other designs. I build them to play, not abuse". :)

Anyhow, definitely don't insert a dowel. The grain is running the wrong way and it won't hold the strap button firmly in the long run. If you do the trick of hardening the threads with superglue and think that fixes it, I can tell you from bitter experience that it doesn't. There's a decent chance that the dowel will eventually just break around the threads, and you'll pull out a neat little plug of wood. Don't ask how I know this, but I do :).

I think you'll be fine. No one else worries about this stuff. If it eventually ever breaks, you'll get some good repair experience and then you'll know for next time, but I would be very very surprised if that actually happens. I forgot who said this, but someone once described the process of building the lightest race car as, "Start taking away metal until it breaks...then add a little back." I think that applies to a lot of things.

[Julie Moriarty]

George, "hard" is one of the last words I'd use to describe koa. It scratches and dents fairly easily. But with its gnarly grain, the fibers could be enough to offer the strength a straighter grain wood might not have. The bass is staying in the family, probably even after my SO and I are gone. Brian will probably inherit it. Right now, he's a bit too careless to entrust this in his hands but I'm hoping when he's older he'll take good care of things of value. I'm not expecting abuse to be a factor.

John, I hadn't thought about the end grain issue with the strap button screw. Thank you for pointing that out. I really don't want to go through all that to reinforce the horn anyway. I guess if it ever breaks off, I'll get that repair experience you mentioned. :)

Late yesterday I took on the task of creating mountings for the pickups. Some Ric parts are impossible to find. I'm trying to figure out how to make the mountings and still allow as much of the koa to show as possible. I can only visualize some type of cover that will allow the pickups to be raised and lowered as needed. Here's what I have to work with now:


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_72.jpg


The purple sheet is micro-thin paua abalone shell fixed to PSA backing with a clear gloss sheet over it. It's meant for fishing rod decoration such as handles. To the right is an abalam-like material that flexes like plastic, is about .080" thick and you polish to a gloss. It has very nice depth. Sitting on the block of leopard wood is mother of pearl shell. The abalam sheet is strong enough to use it alone as a pickup support but I'm not sure about how that would work with the knobs.

I made a mounting block from UHMW for the bridge pickup.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_73.jpg

I've marked holes that match the screw adjustment holes on the gold coverplate in the neck pickup. About all I can think of at the moment is taking a piece of black ebony and routing it for a shell insert that would surround the pickup. I can't find a second gold coverplate. It looks like Ric stopped making them. I can only get them in black and chrome. The neck coverplate has a backing plate that holds the pickup and gives you the ability to raise and lower the pickup as needed. If I didn't use the neck coverplate, I'd have to epoxy something to the back of the pickup and mount it like I did the bridge pickup.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_74.jpg

If I found another gold coverplate, I couldn't use the backing plate because the bridge pickup is deeper than the neck pickup. But I could make something that works. Problem is I've looked everywhere and I'm convinced Rickenbacker stopped making them and every supplier is sold out. So if the two pickups are going to look the same from the front, I'll have to abandon the gold coverplate. Otherwise I can make something very different for the bridge pickup, like Ric does with that massive bridge pickup plate they use.

Where would you go with this? I'm open to anything.

[george wilson]

I can do gold plating IF my gold plating solution is still any good. I haven't used it since 2009. The solution cost about $150.00 last time I checked several years ago. The trouble is,I don't think you can gold plate over chrome. I'm wondering if the chrome could be removed by electro stripping. Or,if I could possibly copper plate over it. Then,I could nickel plate,then gold plate over the nickel.

Chrome is tarnish free because it immediately forms a transparent film over itself as does aluminum. That film makes it impossible to plate over,I think. I'll ask a jeweler friend about this. He's done more plating than I have. There are plating services you can send things to to have them plated,you know. They might be better equipped to deal with the chrome than I am.

Just checked. Gold plating solution is now $190.00. Plus shipping,I suppose.

There are ways to plate gold over chrome. You should Google plating gold over chrome and check options out. But,I think the best thing to do is to find a plater who can do the job for you.

[Shawn Pixley]

I think you'd need to remove the chrome and prep the metal. But using the bass you're going to wear the gold plating pretty rapidly. It would take lots of passes with the plating pen. Most of the pick-up covers on my guitars show wear very quickly.

[george wilson]

Obviously,you have to keep your pea picking fingers off of the pickup!:)

[John Coloccia]

I think you'd need to remove the chrome and prep the metal. But using the bass you're going to wear the gold plating pretty rapidly. It would take lots of passes with the plating pen. Most of the pick-up covers on my guitars show wear very quickly.

Same happens to me. I've actually never seen gold hardware over 10 years old that wasn't all pitted and ugly. I'm sure it exists. I've just never seen it.

[Julie Moriarty]

We've looked into the plating option. Every place we called said the order was too small and the price would be prohibitive. And the wear factor worried me too. So we abandoned that idea.

Yesterday I took a piece of maple and fashioned it into something close to the size of the Ric bridge pickup.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_75.jpg


I think putting the purple paua abalone film on the whole thing would be overkill and just wouldn't look right. I'm thinking about some type of border or some design that would break up all that purple. Or to maybe cut it down to halfway point between the pickup and edge. I still plan on using Gaboon ebony (solid black) and doing a roundover or bevel on the edges. But something is telling me I need to line the perimeter of the pickup with something to clean up the inside edges a bit. Maybe a sheet of brass cut to the thickness of the plate and inserted between the pickup and plate? But this may also be an opportunity to use the MOP to make a logo on the oversized ebony bridge cover.

I'll stop at Woodcraft today to see if they have any black ebony. If not, I'll have to head to the hardwood store.

[george wilson]

I would not use brass. It will of course just tarnish. And,if any sweat from fingers gets on it,it will turn green. A piece of polished aluminum would stay bright longer. But then,It isn't gold colored. Actually,your pole pieces aren't gold either. Best stop using gold appointments.

The gold plating on my Gretsch copy is fine,but my fingers do not make corrosion. I made it in the late 80's or early 90's. Anyway,it was before the new Japanese Gretsches came out. Their necks are too small anyway.

I think they are a very sneaky company. When I found out about them,I somehow got a telephone number for their so called "Factory" in South Carolina. I called there,and during a brief conversation,said,"so,they really are made here"? I was greeted with dead silence.

A friend,who has a music store with about 8 new Gretsch guitars hanging in it,went to a big musical instrument convention. He approached the president of Gretsch to say hello. The guy refused to speak to him,and told him to go speak to a salesman.

Well,what can you expect from a guy who calls himself a "Young Captain of Industry",and even uses a picture of his wife and kids as a device on their brochure.

I like the OLD guitars.

[John Coloccia]

The gold plating on my Gretsch copy is fine,but my fingers do not make corrosion. I made it in the late 80's or early 90's. Anyway,it was before the new Japanese Gretsches came out. Their necks are too small anyway.


Do you store it in the case? Just curious. I have a theory. You know how plastic out gases? I'm thinking especially celluloid. My theory is that the plastic out gassing is responsible for at least some of the corrosion I see on guitars. I'm guessing at that because I've noticed that a lot of "player" guitars, even very old ones that don't look like they've ever been cleaned, seem to do better than guitars that seem to live in their case all the time.

[george wilson]

I leave it on a stand. Agreed about the out gassing. When I made Queen Elizabeth's box,I had to be very careful to choose a fabric that would not out gas,and damage the silver saffron pot inside.

Some years ago I saw a Gibson L5 that had been kept in a case. It's metal parts looked terrible,and put me off of buying it.

[Julie Moriarty]

As a sailor, I should have thought about patina on brass... or copper. Hmmmm...

I went to Woodcraft today and picked up a block of Gaboon ebony. All they had was a turner's block but it was pitch black. I'll slice a piece off and see if I can come up with something aesthetically pleasing.

[george wilson]

For whatever it's worth: The best ebony is judged by how small its pores are.

Old Chickering piano keys used the finest grade of Gaboon ebony.

They used to girdle an ebony tree many years before they cut it down,to let the tree dry out some and reduce the already heavy weight. They had to tie the logs onto lighter logs to make them able to float down the river.

I wonder how much of a hassle it would be to get parts plated with Titanium nitride? It is a most beautiful 24 Kt. gold color,and it is incredibly hard. They coat milling machine cutters with it. It's harder than carbide. About 80 Rockwell C scale. High speed steel is about 63,for comparison. Carbide is about 70 RC. By now,there are several titanium based coatings in use in the machining industry. In several different colors.

Those "gold" emblems that you now see on some brands of cars are titanium nitride(TIN). It isn't a plating process as far as I know.It's a vapor deposition process. Totally impervious to oxidation and wearing off.

[Julie Moriarty]

The ebony is encased in a very heavy coat of wax. I tried using an old plane to shave it off but it kept getting clogged. On another thread I asked how to extricate the wood from the wax and they suggested a card scraper and either mineral spirits or turpentine, depending on what kind of wax it is. Once I free the wood from the wax, I'll know just how good the wood is. From what I was able to remove with the plane, it looks very black with very tight pores. I don't know when I'll be able to get to it though. My free time has shrunk considerably as I'm finishing all the projects around the house that haven't been 100% completed. It's taking a toll on this old body... but the house looks great! :rolleyes:

[Mel Fulks]

When you get to Florida just set the ebony out in the sun for a few minutes!

[Shawn Pixley]

I scrape the wax off first with an old plane blade, then with a card scraper. Using the card scraper first, clogs the burr.

[george wilson]

I hope the ebony is dry,and does not start cracking when it is freed from the wax. I am suspicious of wax encased wood. If it does,PM me and I'll send you a nice piece of dry ebony.

[Julie Moriarty]

George, I wish we lived closer. I could show you. I've done my best with the photos I've taken. I hope this is close enough to emulate real world stuff.

This is the shavings from the Gaboon ebony block I have:
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_76.jpg


I've never seen wood this black but I'm pretty new to this.

This is about where I'm thinking the bridge pickup should go. The ebony you see is a bit over 1/4" thick.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_77.jpg


If the maple was ebony...
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_78.jpg


So what do you think?

[george wilson]

A silly question,but do you think the treble pickup will come out too tall to have the strings be able to lie decently close to the fingerboard? Are you going to use 2 layers of wood there? Both the ebony and the maple? The bass pickup looks taller than the fingerboard too.

I have a vintage Gretsch single cutaway Country Gentleman which I don't see how could have ever been used to play high notes at all: The bass pickup was way too high. I had to chisel away about 1/8" of wood under the pickup to get it low enough to clear the fingerboard. That was the 2nd vintage Gretsch guitar I have had that never could have been played. The 2nd one was an Anniversary model which had a bridge that was impossibly too tall. The guitar was in mint condition because it was never played. I cut the bridge to properly fit the curve of the arch top,and then it was fine. Gretsch quality control truly was VERY BAD. I don't know how neither of these old guitars never were returned to the dealer,or at least repaired.

I'll tell you what I thinks looks cool; In one of my books,there is a picture of a TELE bass. I'd think a guitar made to look like it would be very nice. Can't think of the name of the book now,but it is in some musician's collection,I think. It has a Tele neck,but a Strat body. The edges of the body are not round like a Strat. They are barely rounded,like a Tele body. The pick guard is cool,too. Things would have to be altered to make the pick guard accommodate guitar pickup positions,rather than bass pickup positions.

[Julie Moriarty]

In the wacky world of Rickenbacker engineering, there seems to exist a set of priorities that defies common sense engineering. One of the complaints Ric bass owners have made is the engineering on the treble pickup does not allow the pickup to be raised high enough to suit many tastes. The solution Ric bass owners have come up with it grinding down the heads of the four corner screws protruding from the top of the pickup cover.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/R400xBody_zps305cad6f.jpg


If you look at my pictures of the treble pickup and compare it to the pickup installed with a pickguard, you'll see the pickup cover is partially under the pickguard. And when owners tried to raise it high enough to suit their tastes, the four corner screws hit the underside of the pickguard and they opted to grind down the heads.

In the design process, I'm trying to figure out what the minimum distance between the pickup and bottom of strings will be. Then I can make the ebony cover in such a way as to allow for unimpeded pickup height settings. The same for the bass pickup. This has been an issue from the start, as I haven't yet found those measurements.

[george wilson]

I have not paid much attention to basses in general,or Rickys in particular. But,that is an ENORMOUS treble pickup!!!

Why does it have to be so large when Fender made out with a normal size one? I am mostly an acoustic builder.

[John Coloccia]

Why does it have to be so large when Fender made out with a normal size one?.

Because Ric did everything wrong they could possibly do wrong. They didn't even use hardened truss rods. You have to be VERY careful on vintage Rics, up to about the 80s or 90s I believe. To make the adjustment, you have to manually bend the neck backwards to relieve the tension on the truss rod, and then adjust it. If you don't, the trussrod snaps. The entire design, from beginning to end, is an ill conceived monstrosity, IMHO.

I can't really account for their popularity, anymore than I can account for the popularity of Danelectro....another producer of fine, mass produced monstrosities.

LOL.

But as an answer to the question, they're strange like they are because they were basically winging it and got into guitar building from their experience building lap steel strings. I don't know this, and I've never researched it, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that their guitar and bass pickups shared an awful lot of similarities with their lap steel pickups, and thus ended up with a strange mounting scheme and size that doesn't quite make sense for conventional guitars. I believe the Fender bridge pickup has a similar pedigree, and possibly that's why it's shaped so much differently than any other pickup on the planet.

[Shawn Pixley]

It does defy logic. Still there is a sound from a Ricky bass that is unlike other basses. I think you are on the mark on the steel guitar pedigree. They had the bridge pickup guards on them for years. I don't know anyone who didn't take that off first thing.

I have a Danelectro Baritone guitar. No truss rod, cheap hardware, lipstick pickups, plywood body with glued fabric edgebanding. A bit of an object lesson in how not to do things. Still you can get some very interesting sounds from it.

[george wilson]

The NEW Dabnelectros are sort of fun. They sound sort of like a "supercharged tele" if you turn the treble pickup down to the bass setting,and leave the bass pickup on normal,playing with both pickups on. I can't properly explain the sound right now.

The new ones have a proper truss rod. They are still a cheap guitar,though they are made better than the old ones. I think their frets have no tangs,and they are glued on. MUCH better finish than the old ones,which looked like they were finished with a spray can.

The old guitars always had warped necks. They had the peculiar "hour glass" shaped bars of metal in their necks. Made of some hard alloy. They never worked. And the new ones at least do not have that piece of cloth glued around the edge,to hide the white pine interior glued up blocks.

I bought one because I liked the sound I've mentioned above. And,I got it cheap from a friend's music store.

[Julie Moriarty]

This whole moving thing is really putting a damper on finishing the bass. I can't do much more than 10-15 minutes work on it in a given day. Most days I'm too tired to work on it at the end of the day. The flagstone patio left me drained. Then a new AC condenser had to be installed and since I could save over $1K to DIY, I did the DIY. A new kitchen floor, finish up way too many loose ends (still working on that) and the luthier business is all but forgotten.

What I'm afraid of is moving to a house that needs work. That bass may never get done!

[george wilson]

You are amazing,Julie!!

[george wilson]

Julie,where are you? Moving,I think?

[Julie Moriarty]

Hi George, I'm in not so sunny Florida now. I was supposed to fly back home tonight but the flight was cancelled. I'll be flying back Saturday now. I've been looking at homes where I can set up shop but from what I'm seeing, there aren't many woodworkers down here except those who work on boats. I'm going to cut down a big palm tree and make the world's biggest flute. :D

[george wilson]

You are down there in the stormy season,I suppose,Julie. One think I HATE about living in the east is hurricane weather. It gives me a headache. So damp and dark. Many years ago I met a flamenco guitar maker in Hialeah(sp?) Everyone there apologizes for Miami. I went over there and bought a small milling machine one year,while my wife was laying on the beach.

You are going to have to invest in some kind of dehumidification system for your shop,or your instruments will crack,or move in the glue lines if they are solid bodies. Get down to 50% AT LEAST and keep it there. One trick in making acoustics is to measure the width of soundboards and warm them in front of a heat source,like a fire place or open oven door. Reduce width by over 1/32" for a guitar,then quickly glue it down. If you saw my movie,I was doing that to the spinet soundboard,reducing it by 1/16" before gluing it down. They did that in the 18th. C.. It worked for the spinet-it never has cracked.

I would do that both before adding the braces,and then again before gluing the top or back on. Don't over do it,or your spruce will suddenly radically suck in at the hottest point and get ruined.

[Julie Moriarty]

Now that I won't be moving for several more months, I decided to unpack what I needed to continue on the bass. I made up a template for routing the pickup pockets and routed away.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_84.jpg
The holes I drilled earlier for the wires ended up in just the right spots.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_85.jpg
The pickups fit very snugly. I may have to give them a bit more room.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_86.jpg
And the wires fished through the holes no problem :D Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do about mounting the pickups...

[Julie Moriarty]

I was in the shop experimenting with how I'm going to mount the pickups. I made another bridge cover out of Gabon Ebony but only trimmed it for the pickup.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_88.jpg
I was thinking of taking shapes from the headstock and using them to design bridge cover.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_87.jpg
Whether I used the maple (above) or the ebony, I'd have to create something less boring. Nothing I could imagine really worked. I had hit a creative wall.


After taking the pictures and posting them to my website, I decided to take another look to see if I could find a second gold pickup cover. Again, Pick of the Ricks was out of them. So was Reverb and a few other places. Then I went to the Rickenbacker website and they had them! Let's hope they don't cancel my order now. I think I'll get some gold mounting screws and see how everything looks with just the gold pickup covers in place. If they look okay, I may abandon any cover over them.

[Julie Moriarty]

Now that the move has been postponed, I unpacked the tools I need to start back up. I think we're getting closer to deciding which inlays to use. No one ever accused my SO of making snap decisions. :rolleyes: In the mean time, I'm starting on the Tru-Oil. I wiped on a very thin coat today.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_90.jpg
I was having a hard time getting the camera set so the true colors came through. It's a new camera. The pic on the left is closer to the actual color but still doesn't do it justice. Basement lighting doesn't help.

[Shawn Pixley]

Yay! She's back!

[Julie Moriarty]

Oh, good, you're here. Now I don't have to come and get you. :)

I've never done inlay. But since I knew it was the next logical step in my guitar education, I bought the tools I thought I'd need. That was probably 5-6 months ago. I've played with them a bit but haven't gained the skills that give me the confidence to proceed with the work on my own.

My SO still hasn't placed the order but I'm pretty sure these are the ones I'll be installing. There's talk about an inlay on the headstock too but that seems to be bringing about even more indecision than the fretboard inlays.

http://www.luthiersupply.com/files/IMAGES/SharkFins/SharkFin_TN.jpg
I think row #3 is the front runner. They call it Black MOP. #1 & #2 would stand out better with a
Gabon ebony fretboard. I'm having a hard time picturing #3 with the fretboard we have.
Any thoughts?



Anyway, my plan is to locate the top edge of the fretwire and come up about 1/16" to 1/8" and make that the bottom of the inlay. The pictures I've seen of inlays that run the width of the fretboard look like there's a small bit of wood showing between the fretwire and inlay.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/inlays_zps24e3f041.jpg
This looks more like 1/8"

But these look closer to 1/16"
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/inlay_sf_coco_zpsce467e48.jpg
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/Electric%20Bass%20Build/inlay_sf_rose_zps88c93204.jpg
The top inlays don't span the FB width but the bottom ones pretty much do. I don't know what we might be getting.


Now comes the part that I fear I may have created problems for myself - I already did the radius on the fretboard. At the time I was in autopilot and had no idea what would happen with inlays. I was thinking we'd just do dots.

Once the dots fell from grace and I started looking into Ric-like inlays, my plan was to score the edges of the inlay and use a Dremel to rout up to the scored lines. Problem is, I'm guessing those inlays will be pretty rigid and need a flat surface to be glued to. Shell doesn't bend, it breaks. The only way I can envision routing a flat bottom on a curved surface is to build guide rails along the neck.

The other thing I'm wondering is in regards to the thickness of the inlay. If I rout the center depth to the maximum thickness of the inlay, will there be enough shell left on the outer edges once they are sanded down to match the radius?

Is this what I have ahead of me if we go with this type of inlay?

[Ted Calver]

Just a thought from an unskilled observer, but by placing inlay so close to the fret (1/16") along almost the entire length of the fret aren't you creating a very thin raised ridge of chipable end grain wood between the inlay and the fret? Don't know how thick the inlay is, but it seems like an area for potential problems if the fret is a pressure fit? I always try and see what might go wrong so I can avoid it.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was thinking the same, Ted. But when I imagined the inlays glued in place and sanded flush with the fretboard, I thought maybe that would support whatever pressure the fret tangs apply. Another thought was the superglue holding the inlay might give. I don't know how much pressure those tangs apply.

[John Coloccia]

Julie, you're asking all of the right questions. Honestly, I don't know how they handle the thickness of the MOP the full width of the fingerboard. You'll need this calculator:

http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/sag.htm

It's not a terribly difficult formula to derive, but the calculator makes it easy. What's the radius on the bass?

I wouldn't worry too much about getting close to the frets. Some people do inlay work that essentially runs under the frets. Once it's all glued in place, it won't matter anymore. Just be diligent when you remove the frets for a fret job. Fixing a chip can be a little more work if you have to clean and polish the MOP again.

I'll also give you the admonishment that sanding a lot of the MOP will not do pleasant things to the figure. In general the prettiest figure is right on the edge of the shell, and the more you sand, the more you'll get into a more boring figure. Not a big deal, of course, but we worry about stupid stuff like this! Higher quality will have stronger figure the whole way through, but costs a lot more of course. :)

Normally, you'd inlay into a flat pocket, but I'm not really sure how to handle something like this. It's not anything I've every done or really have ever planned on doing because I don't personally like big fingerboard inlays. I'm really not sure how to do it without sanding the MOP away to nothing. I think you'll probably need at least .07" or .08" thick to make it work, and a lot of fingerboard inlays are only around .050, or so.

Calling George!!

[Shawn Pixley]

Julie,

Pick the aesthetic that you like. The difference in strength between 1/8" and 1/16" will not matter when they are glued in.

The best book to read is, "The Art of Inlay & Expanded: Design & Technique for Fine Woodworking (http://www.amazon.com/Art-Inlay-Expanded-Technique-Woodworking/dp/0879308354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420762157&sr=1-1&keywords=inlay)When you do a broad inlay across the fretboard, the inlay is typically completed before radiusing the fingerboard. You'll start with a flat inlay and your shaping occurs after the inlay is complete (It may be done before gluing, but the bottom and pockets are much easier on flat work). You edges need to be really square to get good seams. The inlay needs to be thicker than most as the outer edges would get thinned out substantially. You'll need to be careful. With some inlay materials the pattern on top may be substantially different than that below. For that reason, be sure that you are not using a laminated inlay. John's comments are right on target. If you were doing an old school Fender with a 7.25" radius, it would need to be really thick. Ricky fretboards are flatter, so that won't be as much of a problem. You can calculate the drop across the fretboard using either mathematics or by drawing in CAD / Sketchup.

I do my inlay with either a Foredom or Dremel with Stewmac's router base and various small carbide mills. All the edge work is done by hand and sharp chisel / knife. You will need good magnifiers, good caliper for depth, and get the work up close where you can see it. It can of gourse be totally done by hand as well, but it takes much longer. The fitting is a careful work up to the inlay dropping in the recess. If you try to force it, the inlay will break. The inlay can be pieced together to address the radius rather than one thick piece. I cut my own inlays rather than buying them pre-cut. I have commercially prepared blank stack as well as Abalone shell that I picked up at a garage sale. I prepare it with a water cooled ring saw and a watercooled belt sander. PM me if you want further detail. The knife inlay I did was ~1/4" thick. The inlay I did for my wife's Jade inlay is similarly thick (her will be carved as well).

When you are cutting/sanding the inlay, keep the dust out of your lungs. Silicosis is not good. I set up a shop vac behind the bench pin when cutting. Do the same when sanding.



(http://www.amazon.com/Art-Inlay-Expanded-Technique-Woodworking/dp/0879308354/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420762157&sr=1-1&keywords=inlay)

[John Coloccia]

Incidentally, one thing I normally do is I make the inlay pockets before radiusing, but I tend to glue the inlays in AFTER radiusing. The reason is that the inlay sands differently than the wood, and it can be difficult to radius evenly if you have a lot of MOP on one side and a lot of wood on the other. :) Once I glue it in, I take a relatively coarse file and get the inlays level with the wood. The coarse file tends to cut the MOP, but just mostly just skips over the wood without doing too much to it. My favorite file for this is the StewMac "fret leveling file", which I never actually use to level frets because that would be ridiculous, but I do use it all the time for this and fret ends.

http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Types_of_Tools/Files/Fret_Fingerboard_Leveling_Files.html

A bit pricey, but gets the job done. I wonder where they buy the blank for the file? Could be Nicholson but I doubt it...this file seems a bit nicer. Really, though, anything resembling something like a bastard mill file would probably work.

[george wilson]

I wonder if Nicholson files are STILL as soft as butter-those are made in Mexico now,you know. I'd call Stew Mac and ask if their files are old stock still made in USA. You will probably have to speak to a tech. Those are cut off,so the brand is eliminated,so you can't tell where the file came from.

I just looked at the files in your link,John. Those are actually LATHE FILES. They have been cut down to length to make them fit the wooden blocks. A horse file would do just as well,and they are very sharp,more so than lathe files.

I make files screwed to a wooden block for leveling FRETS by drilling a hole in each end of the file with a cheap carbide tip masonry bit. I use a 3/16" for the through hole. Run the masonry bits as fast as your drill press will go. The chips will be orange hot. Don't worry about it. The carbide takes the temper out of the steel,and scoops it out. Let off every several seconds with the drill. The brazed tip can melt loose and the tip comes off. Buy more than 1 masonry drill while you are at the hardware store.

I countersink the holes to receive the flat head screw with a larger masonry bit. You can run it slower since you already have made a pilot hole. Probably would screech loudly if run fast anyway.

Don't try to do this drilling with a hand held drill. It won't run fast enough,and probably the drill will skitter all over the file and ruin it.

For my FRET files,I just used an ordinary 8" mill file with the tang ground off. I carefully check the file by sighting down it to make sure it doesn't have an "S" curve in it. All files are curved a bit,it seems,except special files like pillar files. Drill your countersink holes so that you are screwing the hollow side to the wood. The wood will pull the file straight,or you can add some paper shims under the center of the file to make it straight,or slightly convex. I make mine slightly convex to prevent the ends of the file from whacking into frets as it is used.

For leveling the actual WOOD,I'd recommend getting a farrier's horse rasp. One side is a very coarse rasp,but the other is a real sharp extremely coarse cut regular file. You'll have to clamp the file TANG UP in a vise,cover the end sticking up with a HEAVY rag,like an old towel,to prevent shards from flying all over the place. They are very sharp where broken. Use a HEAVY hammer. I made myself one about 4" long. It is great for finish filing a guitar neck,eliminating any dips in the surface and making the back of the neck quite straight. I use both sides of my neck file,rasp first,then the file,to finish contouring necks. I really love my horse file. The FILE side teeth are very sharply cut. Great for wood.

If you are afraid to break the file,send it to me and I'll break it and grind the ends true for you. PM me for my address.

These horse rasps are not made by Nicholson,so are still made in USA as far as I know. And,it probably would be easy to pick out an old stock one that still says USA on it as they are not fast moving items.

P.S. Those horse files are thick enough I do not find attaching them to a wood block necessary. You may if your fingers are tender. But,I like using BOTH sides of mine. I'd just epoxy the file to the wood block if you decide it is necessary. Glue the RASP side to the block.

[John Coloccia]

Lathe file, eh? That explains why I couldn't really identify it. I don't know about current Nicholsons. I've simply stopped buying them.

It's amazing how that file takes shell right off, but mostly just leaves the wood alone unless you're really trying to do damage. I have to try the farrier's rasp. You've mentioned that before and I've never had a chance to try one. I'm surrounded by farms and stables, so I'm sure there's a local farrier supply place around here somewhere. No worries on breaking the file...it wouldn't be my first! :) Having been in the R&D biz for a long time, working with lots of robots and things over the years, I always seem to need to sneak a file into somewhere it doesn't fit. Noooooooo problem. :)

I guess you have no ideas on that inlay either, huh? The only thing I can think of is that the inlay itself just simply needs to be at least .010" thicker, or more, than the worst case dip due to the radius (worst case being at the body side). I guess if you want to cheat you can route it as deep as you need to not sand away the inlay, and then fill it in with a clear epoxy. I've seen some inlays done like that when they've had engraving on them, and it doesn't look too terrible.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks guys! I was pretty concerned facing what I was yesterday and would have been even more so after you confirmed my fears. But later on yesterday my SO looked at the pictures I dug up on the Internet with shark fin inlays and came to the conclusion they were too angular, or sharp or something like that. Then came literally hours on the Internet, searching for the right ones.

During that time I put second coats of finish on the new bathroom cabinet doors and drawer fronts, wiped a second coat of Tru-Oil on the bass, made a routing template for the pickup rings, milled a new piece of ebony and routed it out for the pickup ring. I had drawn a shape on another piece of ebony that incorporated curves from the headstock. My SO liked it and wanted to pursue using that as a cover for the bridge pickup. The images I have in my head are a mix of acoustic bridges and curves taken from the bass.


Here's what I'm giving my SO to work on this morning:
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_91.jpg
Graph paper, pencil, rulers and curves. I feel like a grade school teacher. :rolleyes:


But back to the inlays... After hours and hours searching and not finding "the one", the concession winner so far is the "inverted diamond"

http://www.luthiersupply.com/image_update/Inverted-Diamonds-B-FULL.jpg

This may be less of an issue across the width. At the 3rd fret location the FB width is 1-3/4". The last inlay will lie across a neck width of 2-1/4". The FB radius is 10". I'll have to do the calcs and get the actual thickness of the inlays before I'll know for sure.

The best inlay selection we've found so far is from Luthier Supply. They have many wide FB inlays so you'd think they would take into consideration the fact that the outer ends will be sanded down quite a bit. I can't find the thickness of the shell on their website except where they are offering pieces by the ounce. There they say it's 1.5mm thick. We'll call today and try to get some answers.

[John Coloccia]

Since the inlay is only 1 5/8, if I calculate it correctly a 1.5mm inlay will give you about .020" to spare at the edges (there, that should get the metric/imperial/fraction/decimal crowd really going!). DO DO DO double check me, though. I would inlay it as low as I possibly could...maybe even SLIGHTLY, just ever so slightly, lower than the fingerboard. Just enough that you're sure it's not proud of the fingerboard at the highest part. Then level the inlays, and then come back and do a final flushing up of everything. You probably want to do a final levelling on the fingerboard before fretting anyway, since it's surely squirmed around a bit after carving the neck.

Incidentally, it wouldn't be unusual to inlay shell just shy of the surface, and then bring the wood down to match the shell. It doesn't matter in this case where you're removing so much shell at the ends anyway, but doing it like that on flat surfaces (soundhole rings, binding, etc) preserves as much of the figure as possible. Something to consider for the future.

[Julie Moriarty]

I don't know how much this will matter, but I'll only be using 9 of the 10 inlays so I may get a smidge off the 1-5/8" on the lowest fret inlay.

Now that you've done the calculations, you've sparked my interest. I'll have to try my hand at that.

[Julie Moriarty]

I took out my Sagitta skills and put them to the test (Senior Motolla helped) and came up with sagitta of .033. The shell is .063 thick so that leaves .030 on the ends of the bottom inlay, if I'm doing any of this right. At the top I'll only lose .007 off the shell thickness. The owner said the shell is good enough quality that sanding to the radius won't be a problem. "It's not like you find on ebay."

My SO placed the order! Hip! Hip! Hooray!

[george wilson]

Julie,I have my doubts about using Tru Oil on an instrument. You need to listen to this: I finished a violin with Tru Oil years ago. It is a beautiful finish. This was back when I was Master Musical Instrument Maker. I was experimenting with different finishes back then. The violin hung 3 or 4 months in the shop(things moved along slowly due to dealing with the public every day). Finally,I had got the finish rubbed and some time later,strung the violin up. Some months(or weeks) later,I noticed goo around the feet of the bridge. Investigating,I found that the feet of the bridge had sunk clear down to the BARE WOOD!! Tru Oil never really hardens fully,though it seems hard to the hand. I had to strip the violin and apply another varnish. I think any instrument might become glued to the lining of the case it is kept in. The case lining might be ruined as well as the finish on the instrument trying to pry it loose. BE WARNED. This is real experience I had. A solid body bass is not a light weight instrument. It will not rest lightly in the case. I hope you don't have a tragic outcome using Tru Oil.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks George. I've been on Talk Bass and there's a lot of builders there who have used Tru-Oil. I haven't read anything about problems with it but I'll go back there and look deeper. I chose Tru-Oil because it seemed it was used more often than lacquer on bass guitars, and also, I didn't want to set up the spray tent again.

We got the inlays Monday. I measured the thickness of the bottom inlay. It's 0.0565" thick but only 1.454" wide. Using that link you provided, John, I come up with a sag of .026. If I understand this right, that should leave 0.0305 of shell on the outer edges. Now I have to dig out the mini Dremel bits I got from SM. I still haven't found those. I need to get some practice in.

[John Coloccia]

Tru-Oil is generally OK. I have a body finished in TruOil here. It's an electric, and I checked under the screwed down bridge. It's held up fine. I generally use it on my necks and they hold up fine also, even after being in the case for years at a time. I'm not sure what happened with the violin. Perhaps it's something to do with the truoil on spruce? THAT I've never tried. I've also never actually followed the Truoil instructions for application. They insist you should flood the area and then wipe off the excess. I, on the other hand, put a tiny drop on a little square of paper towel or cloth, and I apply many coats very sparingly, at least a 1/2 day apart. It takes me over a week or two to apply the finish, but it's only about 1 minute per day of work. I've done it in as little as a few days, but it takes longer to fully cure like that and it won't feel right until it is.

Every time George mentions the violin, I always wonder exactly what happened because it's usually much better behaved than that! I'll say also that those violin feet were probably exerting a lot of pressure in a small area. I should do a test here one of these days just to see exactly what's going on and at least understand it so that I don't run into the same problems that George had. It would be easy to dismiss if it were anyone but George, but I'm sure he did it right so there's some kernel of truth in there that needs to be understood.

[george wilson]

It could be that the 29 # down bearing on the 2 small feet of the bridge was too much for the never-truly-hard Tru Oil.

I used it on 2 flintlock pistols and had no problem,but I didn't put a lot of coats on them.

But,if you put your bass for a long time in a case with thick plush lining,and it sticks to it,you have been warned. I certainly would wait some months before putting it in a case. Once bitten!!

[Julie Moriarty]

Oh, I'm not ignoring George's advice at all. I just wanted him to know how I arrived at using Tru-Oil. It seemed like the "bass" thing to do.

I got the inlays in place, trying to figure out how I will mark them precisely and so I can see the line.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_92.jpg
Yes, the gave me one for the 1st fret too...

I read in Robinson's book to lay a drop of CA down to make the edges. He suggests using a 0.2mm lead pencil (or was it 0.3mm?). I don't think I've ever seen lead that thin. I have 0.5mm pencils I use all the time and somewhere I have an old mechanical drafting pencil.

What I did was try to hold the piece in place and, using a white lead pencil sharpened with sandpaper, I traced the outline but it still wasn't close enough for me. Then I took an X-Acto knife and tried the same thing. This was all done with the 3rd fret inlay, one of the largest. I'm trying to be as precise as possible. I don't have the advantage of working on all black Gagon ebony

I'm a bit apprehensive about using the CA. These things are pretty fragile and I don't have any raw stock to make another if I break one. I placed a piece of blue tape on each to number them. Even working with that was tedious. I'd like to find that shrinking machine so I could shrink myself and make this easier. :rolleyes:

[Shawn Pixley]

I apply blue tape over the area that will receive the inlay (okay so maybe not all the time). Then I use spray 77 to temporarally hold the inlay down. I transfer the outline by using a sharp Exacto or scapel to trace around the inlay. If taped, I lift out the inlay tape leaving the outline around. I then go to the Dremel or Foredom Router to hog out the bulk of the inlay. I creep up on the outline with a sharp chisel and dental picks. Don't force the inlay down; it will break.

Sorry, I should have noted that you can break the CA bond by heating with a heat gun. I don't like that technique, but it can work.

[george wilson]

I just put a LITTLE drop of ca in the center of inlays,such that when it is SQUEEZED FLAT,it gets no bigger than a B.B.. That means a much smaller spot to begin with. A little bigger than the head of a pin. Then,I trace with a sharp knife.

You have chosen a REAL DELICATE type of inlay,so you'll obviously have to be exceedingly careful about everything. That includes popping the inlay loose,delicately tracing and inletting the tips with NO pressure at all to make it go into the wood.

I use an old,antique bacon turner to get under inlays. They were tapered down VERY thin at the end to very nearly a knife edge not thicker than a beer can. New ones are crap,and way too thick. Easily found in flea markets. You might spend a day honing down a new made one with a big India stone,or against the SIDE of a Tormek wet grinder wheel(running,of course). Wonderful tools for removing tops from violins or any other task where you want to spread the wood as little as possible. They were made of good spring steel.

If you can pull this off,BRAVO BRAVISSIMO!!!

[John Coloccia]

One "trick", Julie, is to use a mechanical pencil and to then make a sharp bevel on a piece of sandpaper. You'll be able to mark with that really sharp edge and get right up to the inlay. I use this a lot when I'm making nuts. I can mark the edges, take it to the disc sand, and kind of just hold the nut and go right to the line. I very very rarely have to touch up. It's usually a perfect fit the first time. I have a nice drafting pencil and sharpener too that I use for layout, but when it has to be perfect I use the beveled edge of a mechanical pencil if I can.

You're biggest problem is that the fingerboard is already radiused. It's all so much easier when everything is flat :)

If you send me your address again, and don't mind waiting a couple of days for me to mail it, I'll lend you my StewMac dremel base if you want to try it.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thank you guys! Some nice tips here that never crossed my mind. The SMC braintrust comes through again!

John, thank you for that offer. Very generous of you! If you're talking this...
http://www.stewmac.com/product/images/6856/Precision_Router_Base.jpg
I have one. I just hope there won't be an issue with setting the depth. I still haven't found the box with the inlay bits and collets in it and I have looked EVERYWHERE! But when I tried to do some practicing with a standard Dremel bit, it was way too long. I had the base set to the highest it would go and there was still close to an inch of the bit protruding past the bottom of the base.

Right now I have the inlays marked in white pencil lines. I know it's not perfect but it's as close as I could get it. I used sandpaper to put a fine point on the pencil and turner's tape to hold the inlay in place. If I applied too much pressure with the pencil, the inlay would twist a little at the ends. The blue tape idea seems worth a try. What I found using a blade on the wood was it tended to hop at the hard grain lines. The tape shouldn't do this.

My biggest problem is finding the bits and collets. I'm also missing that purple shell laminate piece and I'm thinking the missing items are in the same box somewhere. I have unpacked and unwrapped everything. In frustration, I gave up looking for the bits and ordered new ones from SM. But I forgot about the collets. Maybe Home Depot will have them. Once I have everything I need, I'll practice.

Just curious - have any of you used the stitching method for outlining the inlay? Robinson says he's switched to that exclusively. He uses a fine bit and plunges it all around the the inlay outline then hogs out the interior. It seems very time consuming but this guy does inlay for a living and pros usually find the fastest way to do pretty much everything so maybe it is faster.

If you look around 8:50 in this video, he uses a mechanical pencil to make the outlined and holds the pieces down with a nail while marking. And yes, he's a pro and the pieces are smaller. He didn't stitch like I understand Robinson does but he certainly did this fast. I think I'll need some practice. :rolleyes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7gYBqLRdMo

[Julie Moriarty]

One other things - I have two different scribes. One is the one SM sells and the other a Starrett scribe. I'm going to experiment with those too. And I gotta find me a nail too. :)

[Shawn Pixley]

I found the Dremel bit to be pretty much worthless for this. The SM bits are down cut and well sized for the base that you, John and I have. The vibration can work its way loose, so check it every so often. When I started inlaying, I would use the router to within a 1/16" to 1/32" of the line. Now, after I hog out most of the stock, I'll rout right up to the line. Use bright light and good magnifiers.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well, I won't be able to use a Dremel bit with the SM base, even for practicing. The bits are too long. When I have the bits and collets in hand, I'm going to start working on the stitching method (plunge and move) and see how that works. The lower inlays come to a very sharp point on the ends. I'm wondering how the 1/32" bits will work there. I understand they break very easily so stitching may be the only way to go.

Since I had the time, I decided to try the blue tape trick.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_93.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_94.jpg


For me, it's much easier to see. I'm pretty far-sighted and nowadays anything up close needs serious magnification. I also found cutting the tape easier than trying to score the wood. One slice with a sharp blade cut right through. It looks like I may have stopped cutting a bit short on the ends, but I'm going to leave it for now. When I actually start routing, I'll see just how close I can get to a fine point with the 1/32" bit. If I can't make that sharp point in the wood, I'll sand a bit off the inlay to match the rout.

[george wilson]

Julie,you don't want the router to follow the curve of the fingerboard. I'm sure you know already. What I always do is rout using my drill press and a Stew Mac down cut bit. However,When I bought the Craftsman drill press new in 1963,I luckily also bought the Hi-lo speed attachment. This gives from crawling speeds for large drills to 10,000 top RPM,which I might go to the 8,000 RPM level to use with the router bits. It seems plenty fast enough. Of course,laying the fingerboard on the drill press table,I get a flat bottom cut.

I also can nibble very close to a knife cut scribe line,and remove the slight left overs with a small chisel later. The knife cut line offers a small ledge I can set the chisel on before pushing it down.

You probably don't have a fast drill press,though. I also made a router holder out of stacked plywood,to hold a whole router. The other end of the fixture has a hole that fits around the drill press column. It can be taken in half to put it around the column. The router's hole is slit,and there are a couple of wing nuts with through bolts to tighten the hole on the router body.

This fixture is about 4" deep,but it was made for a large router. I now have several,including a sweet little 1/4 H.P. aluminum Stanley router from the 50's or 60's. If you have a smaller router,or possibly a formica trimmer,or some other small router,you could make a similar setup. You need a threaded body with a ring around it so you can "drop" the router into your fingerboard with an accurately set depth of cut,which is,of course,very necessary.

Just a thought about what I've done. You can find old style routers on Ebay: Those with the threaded body and depth setting ring.

If you could find an old high speed DUMORE (Not Dremel) jeweler's drill press,they have a table that is adjusted upwards from beneath by a hand wheel. And,they go at the required high speed. They are usually not real cheap,though.Actually,I just reminded myself that DREMEL also offers a drill press attachment. One of those might also be what you could use,if it has the necessary depth adjustment. I'm sure it does. But make sure it can be adjusted to a STOP and made to stop there every time.

You know,looking at those knife edged inlays,you are going to have fun trying to get a blade in there to do those points! At least,you don't have to cut too deep on the ends.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was finally able to get in a little practice today. I took a flat piece of cocobolo and used the tape method and cut out one of the larger diamonds in the tape. First thing I discovered is I need something to get rid of the dust. I thought I had some old air pumps from my reef tank days but I must have thrown them all out. I then tried to put the nozzle attachment up close and vacuum it away but it didn't keep it clean enough. I'll have to get that air pump.

Next thing I noticed was how hard it is to see the border lines. I was using the start-in-the-middle-and-rout-out-from-there method and by the time I got to the edge of the tape I had a really hard time seeing where the bit was cutting. I was wearing an OptiVISOR with 2.75x magification but the problem was more about light. I'm thinking I'll need a very small, pinpoint light to get in there so I can work while routing. It would be nice if there was an LED light that could be attached to the base.

[John Coloccia]

Shadows are always a problem. When I'm doing close up work, I often wear a headlamp. Not sure how that works with the visor. I'm pretty lucky in that I have truly atrocious distance vision, with the happy side affect of having truly stupendous close up vision.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm just the opposite with eyesight, very far-sighted. My dad called it sailor's eyes, until it comes to reading charts!

I fashioned up an operating room, less the air pump. I just kept stopping and cleaning out the dust. I have a LED lamp I got from Rockler but it wasn't bright enough. So I used ty-wraps to secure a high intensity LED flashlight to the arm of the Rockler light. You can see the head of the Rockler light in front of the chisel on the left.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_98.jpg

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_95.jpg
There was no way the 1/32" bits could get even close to those tight points. You can pretty much tell where I had to stop.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_97.jpg
It probably took me 25-30 minutes to do this. I had to take a chisel into the tight points and then finish with an X-Acto knife. That took most of the time.


Those points are very delicate. On one side the bottom surface was beveled in toward the top.
I took some fine sandpaper to sand the bottom perpendicular to the top surface and it chipped right off. Luckily, the top surface stayed intact.

[Julie Moriarty]

I am REALLY moving slowly lately. It's like someone sapped all my energy. I have to force myself to keep moving on this...

I picked up an aquarium pump yesterday and today made a wider bottom plate for the SM base. I gave it a test run and that pump didn't cut it. It's rated for a 5-gallon aquarium and was the cheapest one PetsMart had but still $10. It's going back.


http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_99.jpg


I made two 3/4" MDF rails to run along the neck. The rails are a touch higher than the peak of the neck radius. I'm trying to decide if I need to make some adjustment capability to bring the crown flush with the rails. Probably, but I haven't yet figured out how I'll do it.

[Julie Moriarty]

Thinking the StewMac pump would take the guesswork out of what's the right air pump to have, I ordered one. It came today and I immediately took it to task. It was no better than the PetsMart pump. Sigh... Maybe it was the oil in the cocobolo that kept the dust from blowing away. All I know is the dust created from making the cut buried the lines I was trying to rout to. Using the shop vac with the crevice tool did a better job removing the dust. Tomorrow I'll get a piece of Macassar ebony and see how that goes.

[george wilson]

I would certainly discourage you from trying to blow dust away as opposed to vacuuming it away. Some people have dangerously strong allergies to cocobolo and some other tropical hardwoods. I heard about a guy who went blind for 2 weeks after turning cocobolo on his lathe. Then, there is the problem that one of the makers of the 2 lawyers saws has had. It is so bad he cannot make saw handles at all. Boxwood is carcinogenic. I would make all efforts to not breathe any of the dust from exotic woods. My COPD might be partly caused from the many years I have spent using Brazilian rosewood,ebony,and other tropical woods.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm all for vacuuming the dust away, George. Problem is getting something in there to pull the dust away and still be able to work. I clamped the crevice tool from the vacuum as close to the wood as I could and it pulled some of the dust away but there was still dust in the inlay pocket that hid the cut line. There was no way to get the crevice tool any closer without it interfering with seeing the work or moving the router around. I need a bunch of mini tools and a miniature me. :rolleyes:

[george wilson]

I'd just put the large hose fairly close to the router. It should make the "fly" stuff migrate towards the hose,even if the heavier stuff doesn't get sucked up. The fly stuff is what gets into the air,which you don't want to breathe.

Did you rub some chalk into the inlay line? That's what I do.

[Shawn Pixley]

Julie,

What I do is have the vacuum back behind the area I am routing. Periodically (every 30 seconds?), I blow at the rout area while not moving the the router. For me, I try to hog out most of the waste while staying off the line. Then when there is a lot less wood to remove, I rout to the line. With less wood dust, the line seldom get obscured.

I use a big bit to hog waste and a smaller bit to get the detail / edge work. That also helps to prevent snapping those really fine bits. I suppose you could set up a small cooling fan behind / beside you to sweep the chips / dust towards the vac on the other side of the work.

[Julie Moriarty]

When I was messing around with the practice piece, I found I had to blow the rout clean to see the lines. But I'm wearing a respirator. That's why I was hoping the SM air pump would do that work for me.

[Dennis Peacock]

Julie,
I have something like this that I use. http://www.nexflowair.com/tool-cooler-large.php
Now, I'm not instrument making "yet" but I will be very soon. But I use this flex arm and a small table mounted ball valve that I can connect a small hose to and run this and it's easy enough for me to mount it to my router or drill press without any real issues.

Just an idea to toss out there.

[Julie Moriarty]

The Nextflo looks pretty high tech but I can't justify the cost. What I ended up doing is removing the hose from the air inlet on the base and attached it so it's blowing straight down into the cut. That worked. I can see the lines when I'm routing now.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/Mac_100.jpg

[Julie Moriarty]

A miracle happened tonight. We're in the midst of finishing up some bathroom renos and I was waiting for finishes to dry. I've had nightmares about the abandoned bass (kinda) and I knew I had to get back to it but the microscopic surgery of inlay work overly challenged my far-sightedness. But I set everything up again and started routing. Problem was I just couldn't see the fine lines, even with 500+ magnification. My SO came down and saw I was frustrated. "Do you want to try?" I asked. My SO has electron microscope up-close vision and after a couple of minutes was routing away like a pro. No magnification at all and far better than anything I have ever done. I was ecstatic!

Now the bass has a new lease on life! :D

[John Coloccia]

Keep on chuggin', Julie! It's hard when you let something sit for a while.

[Julie Moriarty]

Keep on chuggin', Julie! It's hard when you let something sit for a while.
You're telling me!

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm posting this probably more as motivation to get back on the horse than anything else.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_02.jpg
Awaiting final surgery...

[John Coloccia]

It LIVES! Looks like the fun part is next. :)

[Mike Sherman]

Looking good, Julie!

[Julie Moriarty]

It LIVES! Looks like the fun part is next. :)

Ooh boy... I was working on the fine cutting for those arrow point inlays (they can impale your) and I discovered my SO's electron microscope eyes may have not be properly connected to the hands. I had to take an X-acto knife to get the points cut in but the robot I hired to do the Dremel work must have been working during an earthquake. :rolleyes: It's not pretty. I have no idea what to do. The grain colors on the fretboard won't allow an easy sand-CA-sand-CA-sand process without being obvious. I'm thinking I need to sprinkle in sawdust the same color as the adjoining grain then drop in the CA.

Today has brought all sorts of challenges. That's why I'm still up.

[Mike Sherman]

My suggestion would be to cut around the outside of the inlay with an X-acto or a graving tool, pick out the wood and use black epoxy to create a black border around the inlays.
Time consuming, but IMO it will make those inlays pop better against the fret board color.

[Julie Moriarty]

My suggestion would be to cut around the outside of the inlay with an X-acto or a graving tool, pick out the wood and use black epoxy to create a black border around the inlays.
Time consuming, but IMO it will make those inlays pop better against the fret board color.

So, enlarge the rout out creating a small margin around the abalone, then setting the shell in black epoxy, leaving a black epoxy border around it? Any advice on where to start finding, coloring then using epoxy? I'm a total newbie to this.

[Mike Sherman]

Correct. Certain inlay designs require a black witness lines to help offset the colors of shell and accent the overall design. An example would be white MOP next to gold MOP, it looks kind of washed out when used next to each other without a witness line. Having a black witness line helps with color separation. Stew-Mac and most hobby shops sell black epoxy. I prefer the slow-setting epoxy as it has a lower shrink rate. You can also add wood dust (or colored plastic dust)to epoxy for color matching.

[Chuck Raudonis]

I haven't tried it personally but I understand that India Ink mixed in with the epoxy works great. YMMV...test on scrap!

[Shawn Pixley]

I've used black dye or ebony dust in epoxy. Works great.

[Julie Moriarty]

Looks like I have some more experimenting to do. Thank you for the assistance. I just hope paralysis doesn't set in again. But I'm going to wait until the Micro Plunge arrives. It's already 10 days into the 3-4 week delivery time frame. I have plenty to do in the meantime...

[John Coloccia]

I'll just mention that unless it's really bad, you'd be surprised how much CA, or CA and dust, will hide. Do a test inlay in a piece of scrap, do a bad job, glue it in, and you'll get an idea of what you can get away with and what you can't.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'll just mention that unless it's really bad, you'd be surprised how much CA, or CA and dust, will hide. Do a test inlay in a piece of scrap, do a bad job, glue it in, and you'll get an idea of what you can get away with and what you can't.

I like high fudge factors. :) I'll give it a shot.

[John Coloccia]

Incidentally, save some old pill bottles, and get in the habit of saving some dust when you're sanding the fingerboard. I have several kicking around for guitars in process. It will come in handy for all sorts of things....minor chips if you need to yank a fret, for example. I also use it to fill in the ends of the fret slots. Sometimes I trim back the tangs, just like on a bound fingerboard, and then fill in with a little dust and a small drop of thin CA. On maple boards, I tend to use a lacquer stick instead.

Anyhow, I'm rambling now.

[Julie Moriarty]

A little over a week ago I wrote Micro Fence asking how the order is going on the Dremel plunge base. They got back to me a couple of days later and said they would be shipping early to mid this week. So far, no more news on shipping from them. I'm hanging my hat on this base being what I need to conquer my inability to see what I'm doing with the inlay routing. It's been a month since I ordered it and I'm getting antsy. I really want to finish this thing. :(

EDIT: 4 minutes after I posted this I got an email from Micro Fence saying the base was shipped Monday and should be here Friday. If this doesn't work for me, I'm done with intricate inlays.

[Julie Moriarty]

I've been to house selling hell and back! I had to gain some sense of normalcy so this evening I went into the shop determined to get the inlay work done, or at least moving forward.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_03.jpg
Much of the earlier routing done by my SO was done with a 1/16" bit. That was too large for the points. Tonight I put in a 1/32" bit and positioned the LED lights on the Micro Fence plunge base in a way that provided me the best light with those battery operated lights. It was good but I still want to work on something better.

Anyway, I forged ahead, knowing I'd have to fix the boo-boos with some sawdust. That plunge base is awesome! If I started the inlay work with that base I believe I could get it perfect. All the cuts I made tonight were right on. I especially like being able to plunge down and lock the depth, then release it when done.

I stopped after the 12th fret. It was getting late.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_04.jpg
There will be some filling required but I'm really happy knowing I'm going to get this done very soon. :D

[Mike Sherman]

Glad to see you getting back to the build. I did some inlay work myself this week...so I feel your pain!:)

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks for the encouragement, Mike. I finished the rest of the inlays last night and spent over an hour filling in the gaps with sawdust. I tried to get the filler to match the color of the grain. It was very time consuming. Once I dripped the CA on it, I realized the results will probably be mediocre at best. I was probably overly ambitious and definitely overconfident when I agreed to take this on. LOTS of lessons learned. But I'll walk away no longer afraid of doing inlay, though I still believe there's some magic involved. It looks so simple in the videos I've seen but it is anything but.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_05.jpg

[Shawn Pixley]

Julie,

Nice progress! Inlay isn't alchemy, but it is art. The only way to learn the art is with practice. It must be very nervewracking for your first piece to be on an expensive and lage piece. My first inlay (knife handle) was a total disaster. I worked all day on it. Looked at at it the next morning and threw it away. Re-did the whole handle with much beter results in less than two hours the second time.

My advise now that you are comfortable with the routing, is to learn when to stop the routing and go to hand tools to fit the inlay. I bought a box of dental picks (50 for $10) that I sharpen and modify to work odd corners, curves, etc. Need a left hand curve cut? Modify a pick accordingly. I think too many try to use the router for the entirety of the recess. I hog out material with big bit. Creep up on the line with a very small bit. And do final fitting with hand tools.

[Julie Moriarty]

Finishing with hand tools is great advice, Shawn. I was doing that initially but I didn't have anything small enough to get into the points so I used an X-acto knife. That worked so-so.

I know it's inadvisable (insane is probably more like it) to learn on something that already had a lot of time and money invested into it. I can get very impatient at times and then there's the voice in my head that tells me I have magical powers and can do what no one before me has done. :rolleyes: But that's me. I've always been that way. Good thing is my SO just wants something I made and something that plays well. That takes a lot of pressure off and I won't be engaging in as much self-flagellation afterward.

[John Coloccia]

Hold off judgement until you get the fingerboard sanded. Again, a bit of dust and CA won't perform magic, but once everything is nicely sanded it's not unusual that it maybe look a little better than you thought it might.

[Julie Moriarty]

I got a chance to sand it down a bit and it does look better. But the still some areas where I was overly generous with the CA and it's darker in those areas. And all the shell is flush with the fingerboard wood. I don't remember that when I did the dots. But the dots were drilled exact. I have no idea how deep that CA went.

[Mike Sherman]

The filler will be less noticeable once you oil the fretboard.

[Ted Calver]

Is CA the glue of choice for this? I messed up quite a few turnings filling cracks with CA and having it bleed and discolor the surrounding wood... which took a lot of sanding to eliminate. What about using thinned epoxy?

[John Coloccia]

I've always used CA, but remember that Julie radiused the fingerboard before inlaying...I think I'm remembering that correctly. You normally inlay first, at least a touch deeper than the wood itself, and it's not really a problem after you sand it. Ideally, especially if you use something like abalone, you want to touch the shell as little as possible as that preserves the best figure. A side benefit I'd never even thought of, though, is that it means any glue staining will simply disappear when you sand it.

I typically get a rough radius after I cut the pockets, but before gluing them. Then i glue in the MOP. Then sometime later, after the neck is fully shaped, I do a final radius/flattening just before fretting. Maybe Mike will weigh in with his process. I hate inlay, and do as little as I can possibly get away with!

I think in the end, this will turn out a lot better than Julie's self-critical eye is giving herself credit for. You're always your own worse critic. :)

Now, one trick that I have used on repairs/refrets is putting a touch of wax on the wood right near where you're gluing. After the CA sets, it will peel right off more fingerboard materials. I have a dulled micro chisel I use specifically for peeling that glue out from the corner of a fret.

[roger wiegand]

On ebony fingerboards I've always used a relatively slow setting epoxy with carbon black mixed in to set inlays. That gives me time to get all the inlays in place and then press them into place by clamping with a caul (waxed paper keeps the caul from sticking). A banjo might have 50+ pieces to get into place, using CA I'd surely have glued all my fingers together, and probably my finger to my nose before I was done ;-) Haven't done a pre-radiused fingerboard, CA and working piece by piece would probably be better for that. Carbon black is extremely fine and when sanded gives a final sheen and color that is near invisible on ebony. It's easier to come by than quantities of extremely fine, uniform sawdust.

[Julie Moriarty]

With all the house selling PITA out of the way, I got the chance to do some work on the bass. I did some more sanding on the fingerboard and then applied some FB oil. It looks much better but I can still see the flaws. Oh, well. It probably won't be sold until I'm long gone.

I worked on the nut slot and got the nut nice and snug. It's a Ric nut and is 3/8" thick. It looks like it's some sort of phenolic material. It seems everything this company does is weird. Anyway, I inserted it in the slot and it stands up like a violin bridge. The slot is a bit deeper than what I've done with my guitars. I guess they figure you need filing down experience. :rolleyes:

Before I do, does anyone know where I can find action numbers for a bass? I've done a Google search and I can't find any numbers for a Ric. I did find something at Stew Mac:


Bass
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
Bass E
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
Treble G
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif


http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif
http://www.stewmac.com/images/1.gif


Action at the 1st fret

.022"

.020"



Action at the 17th fret

.105"

.094"



Relief: .014" at the 7th fret








Would this work OK?

[Julie Moriarty]

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_06.jpg
I polished the fretboard to 12000 with Micro Mesh. I used standard sandpaper to 220 grit then switched to 320 & 400 Granat and then went through the MM grits.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_07.jpg
This is the violin bridge thing I was talking about. I think I need a bow. ;)

[John Coloccia]

That does seem rather tall. Are Ric nut slots a lot deeper than yours? I usually get the top of the nut pretty close to where I need it before I even start making slots. It looks like I'd sand right through the pre-made slots just to get down to the right height!

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm going to take it off the bottom of the nut. It's almost 1/4" higher than where I want to start. I don't know how deep Ric goes on their bass guitars but looking at it, I'd think cutting a slot that deep would weaken the neck.

[george wilson]

Not sure if you know this Julie. The strings are supposed to lay in the nut grooves only to 1/2 their diameter.

[Julie Moriarty]

Not sure if you know this Julie. The strings are supposed to lay in the nut grooves only to 1/2 their diameter.

Yes, I realize that George, but thanks for keeping me on the ball. :) I don't have any files for bass strings so I'm thinking taking material off the bottom would keep the filing down to a manageable level. But these house showings are really tying my hands. We had to leave for a 2PM showing but they didn't show until almost 3 and we had to drive around until they left, just a few minutes ago. We have two more this evening but both are second timers so maybe we can get this house selling thing done and get back to our lives.

[Julie Moriarty]

I must be a masochist because I agreed to do inlay on the headstock. My SO decided on the "OM" sign but rather than tackling cutting that out of abalone, we bought it with the fret inlays. Today we had no showings on the house (phew!) and I needed to feel worth something more than a cleaning lady, so I retired to the shop...

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_09.jpg
I think I could become the national salesperson for the Micro Fence plunge base. This makes inlay so easy! I might actually like it someday. :) Most of the routing was done freehand with a Dremel on the MF base. Give me 20-year old eyes and I could have nailed it perfect.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_08.jpg
Dry fit on the inlay. The big piece broke into four pieces when I was trying to extricate it from the cardboard it was glued to but I managed to keep it all together with some clear packing tape.

I just glued it in and it's under clamp pressure right now. I'll post pics later. Right now I have to spruce up the house because the dog and pony realtor show starts up again tomorrow at 9AM. :rolleyes:

[Julie Moriarty]

The CA dried pretty fast. I sanded from 80 to 220 then applied Tru Oil.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_10.jpg

I'm thinking of sealing the Tru Oil with shellac and finishing the bass with lacquer. It just seems like the right thing to do.

[Julie Moriarty]

Even though my enthusiasm is back again, progress is slow. We were supposed to have a showing today but they rescheduled for tomorrow. So I took that as a chance to get this project done.

I forgot the logical order of things, rust has set in, so I went to installing the frets. I almost screwed up! I was about to hammer in the outer ends of the fretwire when a light bulb went on in my head asking, "Are the fret slots deep enough?" :confused:

Since I hand cut all the slots and then went back and sanded down for the inlays, things have changed. After I checked, I found I had to cut the slots a bit deeper. I marked the fret saw for a little over the tang depth and reset the slot depth. When they were all pressed in, the tangs were just a whisper above the bottom of the slot.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_12.jpg

So this is where I am. I sanded everything and laid a coat of super blonde shellac down to seal in the oils.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_11.jpg

Tomorrow when we have to abandon the house for another potential buyer, we plan to shop for some strings.

[John Coloccia]

Good catch, Julie. I once asked William Cumpiano, "Do you still make big mistakes? How do you deal with them?" He said, "I still make mistakes, but I after a while you see the big ones coming." :)

[Julie Moriarty]

John, I almost missed it. In fact I had just hammered in the first couple of frets, but did so lightly. I think the voice in my head was screaming at me but I was partially deaf. :rolleyes: It's like when you are about to go on vacation and you think you didn't pack something. And when you get there you know what it was. Thankfully, I was able to remove the frets without damaging the fretboard.

I'm getting the bug again, John. Now I actually want to take on another inlay project. But I'm going to have to find a way to finance my addiction.

[John Coloccia]

I'm getting the bug again, John. Now I actually want to take on another inlay project. But I'm going to have to find a way to finance my addiction.

Just think of all that money you'll save by not buying that boat. Or did you buy it? I forget. If you bought the boat, I suggest selling the boat. Perhaps just give it away.

[Julie Moriarty]

Just think of all that money you'll save by not buying that boat. Or did you buy it? I forget. If you bought the boat, I suggest selling the boat. Perhaps just give it away.

Let me guess... You have a good donor in mind. :rolleyes:

No, no boat yet. That's my SO's responsibility. But that won't happen until we're situated in the new digs.

[Julie Moriarty]

Dry run # 4,642,897...

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_13.jpg

I'm still unsure how I'm going to finish the pickup areas. I had a piece of Gabon ebony that I shaped from lines on the headstock but the black wood didn't look right. I don't want a pickguard to hide the wood but I may do the pickguard thing but with clear material. I'm just not sure how high the neck pickup will need to be. I do know some RIC bass owners have filed down the screw heads, the ones mount the ring to the pickup, so they can get the right height.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_14.jpg
The bridge pickup will definitely be higher so I'll have to build something up. That's where I was experimenting with the ebony. I'll need some strings before I can really know.

[Julie Moriarty]

Yesterday we got an offer on the house and we accepted. If everything goes through without a hitch, we have to be out of here in a month. Vegas has put the odds of me finishing the bass before we move very low. And I was just bitten by the bug again.

[Mike Sherman]

You should try to at least get the finish applied before the move so it cures during the moving process.

[Julie Moriarty]

You should try to at least get the finish applied before the move so it cures during the moving process.
Great point, Mike. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. Of course my sprayer is already packed, but it's not a big deal unpacking it. But I'd have to spray outside, something I haven't attempted yet. I'm worried about dust and debris sticking to the wet lacquer.

My biggest challenge so far has been with mounting the pickups. I think I'm set with the neck pickup but am still trying to find an aesthetically pleasing way to mount the bridge pickup. I glued up some pieces of koa and maple, in reverse to the order they are on the guitar, to see how that might look.

http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_15.jpg

This is the attempt at creating something with ebony. It's just a rough design that I abandoned when we agreed ebony didn't belong there.
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_16.jpg

You can see what I'm trying to do. In coming up with a design shape for the koa/maple cover, we tried to once again take curves from the headstock but it just looked weird. What do you guys think? Do you like the reverse order of woods? Should I try to incorporate the wood from the fretboard? What about the shape? Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Julie Moriarty]

This got a thumbs up from the SO. Problem solved!
http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_17.jpg http://www.julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_18.jpg

Now I can go light some sparklers. Happy 4th!

[John Coloccia]

That looks nice, Julie. How is it mounted...or did you just glue it on there and go for broke?

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm going to screw it in place. I have to find some oval head brass or gold colored screws. I have brass flat head screws but I don't think that would look right. Still some engineering left to do before it sings. And we still don't have a bass amp. I really haven't a clue where to begin that search but we'd like to keep it under $400. Hartke keeps coming up in the store we go to and in the web searches I've done. But I'd like to take the finished bass and plug it in at the store. Would that matter? Or do most amps deliver close to the same sound?

[John Coloccia]

I'm going to screw it in place. I have to find some oval head brass or gold colored screws. I have brass flat head screws but I don't think that would look right. Still some engineering left to do before it sings. And we still don't have a bass amp. I really haven't a clue where to begin that search but we'd like to keep it under $400. Hartke keeps coming up in the store we go to and in the web searches I've done. But I'd like to take the finished bass and plug it in at the store. Would that matter? Or do most amps deliver close to the same sound?

Unless you're a bassist, you won't be able to really tell what's going on when you plug it in. People aren't usually accustomed to listening to the bass. My recommendation would be to pick up a small, used practice bass amp. You should be able to find something used for well under $100. After you've gotten into it a bit (or whoever decides to play), it makes sense to upgrade to something louder and more nuanced.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well, I was quite the bassist in 8th grade. Why, I could even play Gloria. That Sears bass and Silvertone amp should have taken me to the big stage. But then my dad told me to go do my homework. :p

Really, I know what sound I like, as does my SO. But finding that sound is the problem. We've just spent the last hour just trying to figure out what strings to buy. I'm going to let the musician in the family decide. I'll concentrate on finishing the bass. And packing up the house.

[george wilson]

I'd be hesitant to apply a finish before packing the instrument. It well could get printed from the packing. That happened to me when I packed a guitar I made up in 1957,when we moved from Alaska to Virginia. It takes quite a while for a finish to get truly dry. Even lacquer keeps drying actually for decades. That's why very old guitars will have a "glint" in their finishes that newer ones just don't have. The dryer a lacquer finish gets,the longer it takes for the thinner to escape. And,I don't trust Tru Oil,as I have mentioned before. It never gets truly hard. Certainly not if the finish has much thickness to it. A few rub ons on a gunstock are all right.

Why I am not at all a fan of Rickenbacker designs,your bass is looking elegant. You need to start trying to design your own shapes.

[John Coloccia]

Well, I was quite the bassist in 8th grade. Why, I could even play Gloria. That Sears bass and Silvertone amp should have taken me to the big stage. But then my dad told me to go do my homework. :p

Really, I know what sound I like, as does my SO. But finding that sound is the problem. We've just spent the last hour just trying to figure out what strings to buy. I'm going to let the musician in the family decide. I'll concentrate on finishing the bass. And packing up the house.

Well, for what it's worth I have a GK bass amp these days. It's a 2X10, and the speakers are very fancy and lightweight. The entire thing weighs about 35lbs! I've always liked GK's bass amps. The 10" speakers have a very fast response that I like. It's still has a tremendous bass response, though. The cabinet has everything to do with that. :)

[Julie Moriarty]

My SO did a lot of research and ordered a Hartke 1x15 and two different types of strings. Now the heat is on to get it playable ASAP. 1st coat of lacquer is drying as I type.

Edit: Make that 3 coats...

Edit #2: The amp is a Hartke A100. It's called a kickback but it reminds me of a Weeble - they wobble but they won't fall down. ;)

[Julie Moriarty]

http://julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_19.jpg
In the above picture, the pickup is mounted to a shop-made base made out of HDMW. Below that is the pickup ring with the (4) screws that will secure the ring to the base. Next are the springs that will be placed on the top of the ring and held in place by the (2) screws in the Maple/Koa surround.

http://julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_20.jpg
The pickup and base are set in the pocket. There is a notch in the bottom of the base that will accommodate the pickup wire as it enters the channel to the control section. The notch is on the right, just above the black wire.

http://julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_21.jpg
Pickup ring mounted to base

http://julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_22.jpg
Springs in place.

http://julimorcreations.com/Images/Guitars/Bass/Mack/MacB_23.jpg
And the cover screwed into the base. All that's left is drilling (2) holes for the screws that will secure the cover to the bass body.

All I need to do now is get some longer screws for mounting the neck pickup. I've got three coats of lacquer on the guitar now and I'm going to wait until we're settled in the new place. Right now I'm going to assemble it set it up so it's playable.