6 String Bass Page 2

As of Sunday February 20th 2011 - At home

Finished heel

I decided to keep it simple. It will do the trick and keep it nice and strong.

Neck to peghead needs some sanding...

Basically everything at this point needs sanding... :)

Near finished neck

Made lots of nice shavings with my spokeshave. Constantly looking with a straightedge to work on the high spots.

Test fitting the pearl dots

This is pretty much as easy as it gets... I'll need to plug with colored glue and press the dot so there's lots of runout.

OMG what's that?

This is half epoxy mixed in with half cocobolo dust I had saved up from my fretting job.

The colour is nice...

No guessing just slap some fine dust with some 30 minute epoxy and voila! Just have to let it dry a few hours and sand everything flush.

As of Saturday May 7th 2011 - In MY workshop :)

Building my workbench

This is fourteen 2 X 4`s all laid on their side. I made two halves consisting of seven 2 X 4 glued together. Everything is tightly held in place with three 1/4 inch threaded steel rods.

Levelling the MOP inlay

This step is really ugly but you have to trust your sense of touch on this one. Our fingertips can detect very very fine differences in height when touching a flat surface. I first brought everything flat with 100 grit, then continued to the board with 150 grit then I more or less polished it with some very nice 220 grit. I count on continuing this grit progression up to 600 for an impeccable finish.

Excellence in a bar...

This is an active 9V humbucking pickup with one volume pot and one dual bass-treble pot included in the kit. Three quarter inches of routing depth is sufficient for proper pickup adjustment.

Preamp, 2 pots, 9V connector and pickup

Active pickups are much more sensitive then passives are. For touchstyle and two hand tapping, this is the best option to get nice dynamics.

Cocobolo dust is not nice to your lungs!

Wear a mask if you can. The finer you sand the deeper the dust will settle in your lungs. Woodworking has a lot of dust so protecting your lungs is important if you wanna do it for the long run.

Mmmmm shiny...

The color really comes out when the wood is freshly sanded. I plan to oil this fretboard up instead of covering it in lacquer.

As of Monday May 16th 2011 - In my workshop

Now for that intricate logo

Based on my initials, these are two pieces of hard maple being inlaid into a piece of cocobolo.

Always dry fit before gluing in place!

Looking good!

Tuner holes drilled, logo in dry fit, trussrod is free

The peghead will need to be a tad slimmer to fit the tuners just right. I'll to find a smart way to get about 0.25 inches off the back...

That logo sure is a headache!

I'll have to restart this part...

I'm off by 30 thousandths. I ran out of maple letters when I wanted to make everything flush with the peghead.

So I'm currently restarting my letters and I'll rerout it out again...

As of Saturday July 16th 2011 - In my workshop

My first mistake costs me 20 hours of work... :)

I can't just leave it like that... So after about 20 hours, I sanded down to flush sand the logo then I ran out of maple letters... Oh no...

Looks nice after it's all sanded though, look at the next pic.

Redoing the inlaid ED bass logo

I'm currently cutting out new maple letters with my jeweler's saw and this time the inlay will be ever tighter!

This the rear access panel

The eletronics will be tight but everything needed will be there.

This is a pic of the cocobolo rear access panel fitted inside the 1/4 inch MDF jig I made. The rout will only be one eight of an inch to seat the access panel just right.

Rear cavity piece in place

I was thinking of maybe inlaying a strip or two of maple in that would be aligned with the bass's center lines.

As of Tuesday July 20th 2011 - In my workshop

Pickup routing jig

I ended up trashing this one cause my router wasn't set up right... i ended up making another one out of 1/4 MDF and it worked perfectly.

Finished my electronics cavity

Using three different MDF jigs I did three depths. The deepest one is only 1/4 inch away from the top for the pots to be able to peek through.

Finished the pickup cavity

I'll need to install some kind of foam to spring up the pickup when securing it down with long screws. A hole will need to be drilled from the pickup cavity to the electronics cavity.

Trussrod cover is done

This was made from the same material I used on the peghead laminate. it is much thinner though.. only 1/8 inch.

As of Tuesday August 30th 2011 - In my workshop.

Taking an eight off the back of the peghead

Had to do this so the tuners will protrude just right.

Slimmed down peghead

I just need to sand the marks from the chisel and finish sand everything.

Slimmed down the neck....again!

It's a long process but I still intend on keeping the neck quite fat. This will make keeping the neck straight easier.

Joint - neck to peghead

Still needs some TLC!

Nickel plated strings will paint a bright tonal picture

I had to make my own nut from Graphtech material using what I had around the shop. I don't have the specialized files for the nut slots so that was a true handwork challenge.

Near finished nut and trussrod cover

I can't wait to string this baby up! The more I think about it... the more I want my bass to feel like a Warwick bass. No grain filler, just a few coats of polyurethane or maybe even well oiled and then well buffed and waxed? So many options!!!