Another small update. It doesn’t seem like much, but it did cost me two nights: I cut the neck template. It’s a very accurate job and I took my time, which paid off, ’cause it’s absolutely spot on.

I used a jigsaw to do the rough cut and then I used the sides of a MDF board, to route the edges dead straight. Now I should be able to route the neck without too much trouble.

I also cut the headstock template, but I’m not satisfied with the result, so I think I’ll do that again later on this week.

Before starting with the neck, I first had to design this part of the bass. I started laying out the neck to get the right string spacing at the nut, the right fingerboard dimensions and the correct tuner placement. I wanted evenly spaced strings (not measured center to center, but edge to edge) and the strings should run straight to the tuners, without bending at the nut.

After finishing this I went to the design of the headstock shape. And again, it was harder than I thought it would be. In total, I think I drew over 20 headstock designs. But after two weeks of messing around, I am totally happy with it and it’s rather unique too (I didn’t copy an existing design, but who knows it resembles some other design….).

Today I ordered the wood for the neck, a truss rod and a japanese saw with depth stop. I am going to make the neck from a single piece of flat- to quartersawn hard rock maple, with a nice rosewood fingerboard.

So after two quiet weeks, I’m back on it again!

Last week I rough sanded the body with grid 40 sandpaper, followed by sanding the whole body with grids 80, 120 and 150. All by hand (I do not have a belt or spindle sander). It feels really smooth already and I managed to almost sand out all router marks and rough spots.

Yesterday I rounded off the edges of the body with a 3/8″ radius bit. I routed the top slightly deeper and sanded it to an oval like shape (but only half a mm or less).

So the body is ready for now. I only have to route the pickup cavities and the neck pocket. After that holes have to be drilled for the control knobs, output jacket and wiring the pickups. But first, I move on to the neck!

Ps.: The quality of the pictures isn’t very high this week, sorry for that…

I glued the top to the body using my jig. After 3 hours I removed the clamps and cleaned up any excess glue. The next day I routed the top flush with the body and gave it a quick sand.

I think it came out great! The joint is really tidy and there are no gaps on the whole of the contour. Also, it’s aligned perfectly well, thanks to my jig.

Next: sanding, rounding over the edges and then I’ll move on to the neck!

I am going to glue the top to the body this weekend, but I wanted to make a jig for this first, because my top is only marginally bigger than the body; I wanted to match up the center lines of top and body perfectly; and the sound holes must be centered above the chamber.

So it had to be spot on! But I noticed when using Titebond, the top piece starts to ‘float’ on the glue when fastening the clamps. This easily results in glueing on the top completely wrong and ruining of all my hard work. The jig should prevent this and also enables me to put clamps around the whole contour of the body. The outer bars hold the body, the upright blocks hold the top and the cut out and legs are for easy clamp access.

I’m also going to mask all of the sides of the body with tape to prevent glueing the jig to the body and to easily remove excess glue.

This week I routed the control cavity and cut the cover. The cavity came out nice and only needs to be sanded smooth. The cover didn’t fit at first (did this on purpose) and needed some more sanding. It took me a while to get it to the right shape and finally it did fit. It’s flush with the body nicely and the fit is okay, but it was hard to get the space between cover and body equal at all places. Being a perfectionist I think it’s not very good, but after all I’m happy with it in a way.

I also have to think of a mechanism to attach the cover. Basically, I’ve got two options: screws or magnets. But I can deal with this later on.

Time for an update. First of all: I made the sound holes! I did it with a fretsaw (wich is quite a misleading term in the context of guitar building I think) and it came out very nice again. To ensure myself the technique worked and the holes wouldn’t create weak spots in the top, I did a ‘test run’ on a piece of scrap first. It was nerve-racking and a very slow process, but it came out that smooth, it almost didn’t require any sanding afterwards. One funny thing was that my saw couldn’t do cuts in all directions, because it didn’t fit around the whole top, so I needed to flip the saw and put it in backwards sometimes to reach those spots. Sawing backwards with a fretsaw isn’t ideal because you can’t push the blade through, but it’s doable.

Then I got to the control cavity. I want to handle this before the top goes on, so I don’t have to do a lot of routing with the body lying on the top (I don’t want scratches on it). I took a piece of ‘scrap’ mahogany and, since I haven’t any band- or bladesaw, sawed a 8 mm thick piece of with a hand saw. I routed it flat to about 6 mm and after I’ve made the cavity, I will cut it to the right size.

I want to get a nice and clean control cavity, so I am going to route it with a template guide (not with the ball-bearing), so my template needs to be a little oversized. 2,15 mm larger to be precise. I made some computer drawings for that, printed and cut them out. Finally, I cut the templates from plywood with my jigsaw and sanded them smooth. Next step will be routing the cavity and shaping the cover…

The last few days I worked on the cavities to convert this body into a semi-hollow one: designing, sawing and smoothing the template and routing them.

I did it with a router and a template guide, layer by layer (about 1 mm each time). Then, I used my template bit with ball bearing to do the edges (since my template is 1:1 size).

It came out very nice and the weight dropped like alot! Also, the sound changed remarkably when I tap on it. Much more percussive and acoustic. I’m very curious how it’s going to sound.

When I finished the body and picked it up I immediately thought I should do another cavity in the upper horn to get better weight distribution… So the next day I routed the extra cavity and it feels much better now!

Relief! I routed the body (after testing on some scrap piece first of course) and it came out sooo sweat!!! I was a little bit nervous, since it was my first router job, but the result is simply stunning!

So now I’m going to plan my next steps carefully and enjoy the result before I dive into the semi-hollow thing…

Today I did the second rough cut on the body, so that it is only 1 to 2 mm larger than the template. At the horns I removed most of the protruding wood with a rasp. Then I spent a lot of time reparing small imperfections around the outline, where the jigsaw or rasp took out some splinters. I did this by glueing in really small pieces of scrap wood and sanding them flush with the body. I really want it ready for routing against the template by the end of this week.

I extended my workshop with the most important solid body guitar building tool: a router! With 1.400 watts, 28.000 rpm and a 6 mm, 8 mm and 1/4″ collet it’s not a professional tool, but one of the best of the DIY range from Bosch. It also has a 1/10 mm precision depth adjustment, which is very accurate for a router. I ordered two template bits on the internet, one with the ball bearing at the end of the bit and one with the ball bearing on the shank.

With my new jigsaw, router, clamps, glue, rasps and all other stuff I bought, I’ve got almost all tools needed. Next month I might buy a spokeshave, drill stand and a lot of sandpaper.

So I guess I’ve come to the scary part: routing out the body. Well, first, I’ll clean up my ‘shop’. Then, route some piece of scrap wood, because I never did this before and then I move on to the body. After that, I’ve got to route out the cavities for sound holes and electronics, cut out the sound holes and glue on the top. I can’t wait to see the body at this stage…