Today I machined the neck to it’s final shape (not the neck profile that is). I started out by cutting the neck well around the traced outline with a new jigsaw blade:

When done patiently and careful, this can’t go wrong, producing the rough shape of the neck:

After that I aligned my neck template and started routing. I did not tape the template to the neck, because once the tape sticks it’s hard or impossible to do minor adjustments, so I clamped it in place. Here I’m almost done routing:

As you can see, the protrusions of the neck template pretty much explain themself right here. I also benefited from a well made template, because the neck to headstock transition is almost perfect after routing already, as I spent a lot of time to get the neck template and headstock template fitting together perfectly:

After routing, this is what I got left:

Here you can see the other side of the transition and.. I’m happy that I got some flames left, as they appeared mostly outside the outline of the neck shape:

Did everything went well? No, sad enough, it didn’t. I had one very minor tearout where I stopped routing and started again after repositioning my clamps. That’s when I probably hit the grain in a delicate spot and got this:

So I dug into a pile of sawdust and wood chips and I think I’ve found the concerning wood chip, so, after some negotiation I found it willing to get the hell back where it belongs
This is what we’re waiting for right now:

Since I will bind the fingerboard and the neck will obviously be shaped, I guess most of the wood where the tearout appeared will be removed anyway, but just in case, I want to get this fixed before I proceed. Chances are good it will be invisble in the final product…

Carbon rods are glued in now, came out great! The wax paper really worked, didn’t stick at all – I used masking tape on my previous build and it was a pain to remove – and the rods lie in nice and flat. Very minor sanding to remove some excess glue and I’m done.

No further progress today, but I made this kinda cool shot, showing off the matching body and headstock wood laminates:

–

Before I was ready to glue in the carbon rods, I checked the depth of the channels a few times, made one of them deeper with a scraper and plugged the end of the left channel, because it was a little bit too long:

Then I prepared for glueing. I taped of the truss rod channel – don’t want any glue in there, masked the headstock for the same reason and attached a role of wax paper on one end:

I used slow setting epoxy from Araldite, gives you a 2 hour open clamp time, so no stress at all.

After applying a very thin layer of glue on three sides I carefully slided them in, wiped of the excess and rolled out the wax paper. I hope that this will be easy to peel off and it will definitely prevent that the clamping caul will get glued to my neck blank!

I used another neck blank as a clamping caul. I heard that such carbon rods tend to float out of the channel when using epoxy.. think I got that covered:

And I’ll leave it like that over night…

Onto the truss rod adjustment nut access cavity… I didn’t route the channel all the way to the headstock, but stopped just before where the nut goes. Then, I use a round file (and a lot of patience) to create this cavity. It’s not quick, but it gives you a lot of control, which I like for such task (you don’t want to remove to much wood at this spot and the result has to look good as well). After a while:

It took me exactly one hour to get a good fit and a nice result:

I test fitted all three rods and I think it looks good, so it’s time to do some finishing touches on the channels and glue the rods in. But first, the test fit:

Next stressful job is glueing the rods in with slow curing epoxy. I will probably only glue the truss rod at the end. I could also not glue it in at all, so I will be able to pull it out one day, when it needs a truss rod fix. The channel is tight enough so I think it’s possible. Not sure though…

So, I had another session with the headstock. More headstock pictures?? Yes! Sorry.. It just wasn’t finished yet.

First, I did some hand sanding on the contours / sides to straighten things out, remove burn marks et cetera:

The top surface of the Maple veneer still showed some marks from the band saw from when it was bookmatched. So I asked Sir ‘Skil’ Sand-a-lot to help me out on this:

And this is how it came out in the end.. I really like the flame!

And the shape!

Next, I’ll file out the truss rod access cavity with a coarse round file. If the truss rod fits in, I can glue in the truss rod and carbon rods with epoxy. See you next time!

Proceeding with the headstock, I shaped it roughly with a rasp, bringing it closer to the intended outline:

aligned the template and taped it to the headstock:

and routed it to it’s final shape. Say hello to Mr. Headstock:

And a note to everyone who wants to do it this way: don’t! The headstock is way too small to be a good base for the router. I pulled it off somehow, but it wasn’t a huge success. I had one tip over that I managed to fix and some minor tear out that I’m working on right now. It’ll be okay in the end, but on my first bass I shaped it entirely by hand and that was a much more satisfying and controlled way of coping with this task. On my next bass or guitar, I’ll either do it by hand again or find a better way to machine it.

Lastly, a not so sharp but cool close up:

Learning for the Microsoft exam goes well, so I treated myself with some shop time tonight.

First, I cleaned up the endings of the veneers with my router, the part that will go under the nut and the fingerboard ending:

That looks better. So I measured like five times and drew the final headstock outline on the ‘blank’:

One thought crossed my mind before I was ready to start cutting up my blank… I didn’t test fit the tuners yet, only made the drawing on my computer.. what if they do not fit in the end? Better do a test fit first, so I used the master template for that. Looks good, tight, but I like it:

Cutting with a jigsaw is scary at this stage, no room for mistakes. I didn’t dare to cut closer to the outline than this, so I’ll do the last millimeters with a rasp before I’ll route the headstock to it’s final shape. The rough cut headstock now looks like this:

And a sideview. The veneers came out perfect, the scarf joint reasonably well, maybe a bit better than I expected and almost in the same direction as the grain, which helps hiding it in the end:

That’s it for today.

Time for another very small update.

I glued the headstock veneers (0.6 mm Wenge and 2 mm Flamed Maple) on today, using a lot of clamps:

I did the alignment with cocktail sticks for the first time and I liked it! Spot on alignment and no shifting at all:

So, this is the neck in progress as I have it right now:

Not sure if I’ll make some progress next week, because I have to learn for a Microsoft exam on Friday, but I now only need to clean up the joint under the nut, file in the truss rod access cavity and then, I’m ready to cut out the neck! I might glue in the rods before I do that, but it’s going to be fun .

So, same story for the truss rod. First, a test run:

Then for real. This is a test fit (I know it’s upside down, but I did not create the access cavity at the nut yet, so the rod doesn’t go in all the way, and this way I can test fit the widest part of the rod):

A close up of the rod configuration at the body end:

And one at the nut (now, I flipped the truss rod over so I could see how it’ll fit when there’s room for the adjustment nut):

Now, I’ll first glue on the headstock veneers before I create the truss rod access / adjustment cavity.

I’ve made the simplest jig ever, but very effective. I needed to route the truss rod channel and carbon rod channels, both of different width. On my previous bass, I’ve made a sled with guides to route parallel to the edges of the neck blank, but since I wanted to route the carbon rod channels at an angle, I needed something else. So I came up with this: make a template containing a 17 mm wide slot, use a copy bit (17 mm wide) and I’ll be able to clamp it onto the neck in various angles, route in a straight line and use different sized router bits:

Routing a test channel for the carbon rods into MDF:

That worked like a charm:

So I proceeded routing those channels into the neck. I may put a little piece of wood into the end of the top channel, being a little bit too long, but overall I’m satisfied:

And a close up:

I hope to route the truss rod channel tomorrow…