Another Bass Build

[Tedward]

This one is a neck through P-bass stile. Spalt maple top and ribbon mahogany body. Five piece flame maple and mahogany neck. Two dual coil home brew pickups and preamp.

Thickness sanding

Neck blank and wings

Now it is ready to cut


More to come
Tedward

[Fred Blom]

I imagine this will produce some fine sustain. Keep it comin'

[Tedward]

Now it is ready to hog out the body. I use a 1 3/8" Forstner bit and a drill press for the main part and then a 1/2" straight bit in a router to clean things up. I did rember to measure the cutting depth of the tip of the Forstner bit so that when I routed with the 1/2" bit I could clean out the little craters and still have enough thickness to the back, which is .330".

All cleaned up

To the band saw and rough cut the wings. I leave 1/8" to 1/4" outside the final shape to be removed latter.

The neck needs to be cut next. Head stock angle and thickness

With the wings glued to the neck. I used the cut off pieces from the wings to give the clamps a flat surface. Sorry no pic at the time so I did a mock up after the fact.



Tedward

[DaveAnderson]

Interesting..and looking good!

[Tedward]

Thanks Dave.
Time for the truss rod and carbon fiber. On this build I went with a dual action rod and carbon fiber Tow. The Tow is like a ribbon with carbon fiber strands that are a continual length. Where as the rods are short strands running parallel to each other. The Tow is supposed to be stiffer than the rod once it is epoxied. It comes in various amount of strands from 1000 to 80,000. I'm using 6000 strands.

When I ordered the Tow the tech told me to put it under tension while the epoxy cures. I had to think about how to do this for a couple days and came up with this idea. I drove a screw at the end of each slot at the body end and a 1/2" brad at the head stock end. All the holes will
be covered so I wont have to worry about holes. I tied the Tow to the screw and ran it up the slot and around the brad and back down to the screw and pulled it tight. Crossed over to the other screw and up and back like the first one pulled it tight and tied it off. I now have 12,000 strands per channel. Filled the slots with slow cure epoxy and let it cure over night. Scrapped off the excess to level it off and ready for the fret board.



The top pieces were glued together and thickness sander.

The "F" hole was cut and binding channel routed. I routed for the binding before the top was glued to the body because I wouldn't be able to rout up to the neck once it was glued. The block of wood strapped the dremel is to stabilize it. It would tend to rock with such a small platform.

Glued and taped the binding with super glue and let it dry for a few hours.


Now the top is ready to glue to the body. The fret board is next on the agenda.

Tedward

[Eben]

Coolness, really enjoying this one!

E

[Tedward]

Thanks Eben.
The fret board is next. I cut the slots on a Stew Mac fret jig before I radius the board.

In order to keep the fret board from sliding I use 1/2" brads dressed into the neck about 1/8" and cut off 1/16" above the surface. The brad is pulled out and the cut end is pressed into the hole with the pointed end up. The fret board is lined up and pressed onto the neck to mark the underside. The board is removed and glue is applied and replaced on the neck locating the holes and clamped.




Forgot to mention that the head stock plate was glued on, too. Epoxy with black powder was used to fill the voids in the knot.

I got carried away with the build and forgot to take pics of shaping the neck to the board, radiusing the fret board (16" radius), and setting the frets.




Tedward

[Andyjr1515]

There are some great technique tips here - great

The build is looking very good

Andy