Tonight I took the plunge! The last routing job.. luckily it went just great. I first made a template of the backside of the headstock to determine the shape of the volute and drew it onto the neck:

Followed by a line that indicates the end of the routed part of the neck (the volute itself will be done completely by hand, of course):

Clamped the neck into the jig I made, checked everything about three times and started routing. I plunged it only about half a mm a time, so the play would be minimal (opposed to routing rather deep at once, stressing the bit a lot more and thus resulting in a less smooth routed plane). Here I am about halfway:

And we’re ready! I reached my desired thickness of 21.5 mm @ 1st fret rather well, just a few tenth of a mm above that, but I’ll probably sand that off in the process anyway. I’m very pleased it went this smooth! It’s the last job with the router, and a relief I didn’t had any accidents.. and my math was good too: no sign of the truss rod

And a close up of the headstock:

And one more from the side:

Now the fun part can start! See you next time,

… and I’m back again!

Cleaned out the shop, made some space again and started working on the bass. It’s not so warm anymore outside and it’s dark right after dinner, so we’re having better building conditions I guess.

I needed some motivation to start with and tried the neck with fingerboard, position marker dots, binding and frets on for the first time in it’s future home. I found it a pleasure to look at, seeing the body laminates, neck woods binding, markers and such coming together (but still without the pickguard):

I also made this preview shot of the back for the first time. It’s cool and a bit understated opposed to the front (even more with the intended pickguard on it), but that’s a cool contrast I think:

So, I marked the shape of the heel transition as a guidance for shaping the neck while it’s in there:

And the next step was to make a jig for routing the slope of the neck shape into the unshaped neck. I do not want to make this angle and straight line from the heel to the volute by hand, so I’ll route the correct angle in there before I start carving the neck. So tonight I made this:

It’s a tight fit around the neck, one or two clamps should be enough to fix it while routing. I only need to build in some stops to prevent cutting into the heel or the volute. I made the angle by drilling a hole and putting a dowel in at one end, which I then adjusted until I got the right angle, securing it with thin CA afterwards. Then I glued some blocks I had lying around to the rails to fix them in place and make them sturdy enough (otherwise they would rock on the dowels). The other end of the rails is secured by thin CA too. Very quick and easy to make.

So, when this is fully cured and I’m feeling lucky, I’ll starting routing the neck. That would be the last routing job on this instrument. After that it’s only hand shaping, drilling and sanding what’s left…

Just sayin’ hello.. didn’t make any progress over the last month, but I did not forget my build either. Just waiting for some time, courage and the right mindset to carve the neck. After that things could go fast.

I ordered my home brew (not by me though) wipe on poly in the meantime. So that’s sorted. Now only the to-stain-or-not-to-stain decision is to be made regarding finishing the bass.

I would like to make some progress, but life get’s in the way a bit.. been working on the house and having fun with my family .

Also, to be honest, I kinda lost interest. I’m sure it will get back in a while. I re-discovered an old hobby, model flying (and building of course). So I spent my free time outside, enjoying our nice summer, flying and getting my flight certificate. It’s going really great and I found an absolutely great club, I’m really addicted, honestly. But when it’s getting colder and less ideal flying weather, I will finish the bass.

I will absolutely finish the bass, don’t worry, I am pleased with the results thus far and I have all the parts lying around already. Basically, I think I own a great five string bass in parts with an uncarved neck. So it would be stupid not to.

But for now, I guess I’m having a summer break

Today I glued the side dots in. Instead of buying new CA, I used my tube of UHU Allplast, which I think is a perfect glue for the task (the binding and dots both being plastic) and it is easier to remove if you spill any. I did not apply the glue directly from the tube, but used a toothpick to apply the glue. This prevented using too much glue, as with the binding. All went well, and after cutting off the excess material and sanding the dots flat with the binding, I got this:

So, now it’s time to show off a little:

(The colour of the video doesn’t do the Macassar justice, but you’ll get the idea…)

Not much of an update, but I drilled for the side dots:

I planned to glue them in too tonight, but my tube of CA was toasted, almost empty and what was left came out on all sides but out of the nozzle.

I took my time marking the positions and drilling the holes. It’s hard to line them up perfectly centered on the slightly tapered binding (due to the radius) and if they’re not aligned, it shows rather well . But my patience paid off and I got them lined up pretty nice. The first fret mark isn’t perfect, a bit shallow and a bit wider due to movement of the drill press head when reaching the depth stop, but the rest is just fine. I hope I’m able to camouflage this small imperfection when gluing in the black dots.

And they’re all in!

Funny thing.. you might remember the neck bent slightly forward (cup) due to the fact that I glued the carbon rods in with very low humidity (~20%) and the fact that the maple expanded when humidity got back to a more average level. Well, after hamering in all frets, the neck bowed back a little, just enough to correct almost all forward bow. The slots weren’t tight at all, and I could’ve used a little more back bow, but all in all it’s as good as it gets I guess; the rest is up to the truss rod.

For my first build I bought a real fret cutter at a guitar parts supplier and paid over 20 dollars for it. They are supposed to cut the frets flush to the fingerboard, like the one from Stew-Mac does. But it didn’t, at all… more than two millimeters of fretwire proudly protruding the fingerboard. So I actually never used it… Yesterday, I bought a tiny end cutting plier from the hardware store, a little over five dollars.. and it’s great! Cuts the fretwire almost flush, leaving so little to file off, I could start using my fret beveling file right away!

Using these pliers it took me no more than a few minutes to cut away all the fret ends on both sides:

Here you can see my fret beveling file ‘in action’. Another relaxing task that doesn’t take long:

I filed the ends right to the point were the binding started to appear:

Here’s a close up showing the result. A little more sanding and filing and I’m ready to start carving a neck

I finally started fretting today. It’s a nice job that I really enjoy doing.

My cheap modified regular nippers that now serve to undercut fretwire work great:

Hamering some more frets in:

And I stopped after exactly one half of the fingerboard:

So far, so good…!