Made some progress on the neck:

Next step is to make the veneers and thin the headstock part down, then glueing..

Today I did some thinking and puzzling on how to proceed. So not much to report, apart from this mockup I made (nothing new, just a cool picture):

Oh, and I weighed the body, it’s 1955 grams right now (4.3 lbs), so with the neck pocket and pickup routings it’ll be less than 4 lbs I guess. It feels very light (although it would’ve even been lighter without the Maple top, being a full Swamp Ash body). My previous Mahogany / Maple body was much heavier.

After almost a week, I finished my new 12 degrees scarf joint jig for a hand saw and a router. If you have about one hour each few days, it’s going slow, especially with those less exciting tasks you have to get past to get to the good stuff.. but I wanted this to be as perfect as possible, it’s a crucial part of the final strength of the neck construction to get this right. Getting tired a bit of only having a router, jigsaw and drill press, but I’ll get there.. oh well.

Due to the lack of decent machinery I’m going to have to cut the scarf joint by hand and clean it up with the router afterwards. This needs a jig and since I didn’t keep the previous one I’m making a new one right now:

This one will be decent and made to be used more than once. On the right a kind of miter box like jig that holds my saw straight and perpendicular to the workbench while cutting the neck blank at 12 degrees. On the left (not glued yet) the guides for the router sled.

I hope to finish this all soon so I can proceed with the good stuff again…

Routed the plain maple straight and clean (4S now) and it turns out to be a rather nice piece, with a very subtle flame. Fits the macassar ebony very well.

The heavily flamed maple piece has to be saved and receives a rosewood fb for another build, maybe my first electric guitar.

Visited a local cabinet maker today to get the neck blank planed and thicknessed. Before I went there, I saw there was some minor tear out on the blank, so I already new this wood was prone to tear out pretty easiliy. I told this to the cabinet maker and he especially sharpened the blade of the planer for me before feeding the piece through, but despite all efforts (different directions, taking off more or less wood at the same time et cetera) the end result was this:

Only a drum sander could fix this, but I do not have access to that and they’re pretty expensive around here.

So, the cabinet maker offered me a piece of regular plain sawn maple, good price and he planed it to the right thickness for me. Would be my third neck blank for this bass, not particularly lucky with that…

This is it:

And the other side:

It’s a very nice piece of plain maple, it even has got some subtle flames in it.

In the meantime I’m working on my scarf joint jigs….

After practicing on my MDF-dummy I decided to dive in on the Ash of the real body today. It still is a very modest tummy cut, but the effect is great! The comfort of the body when seated has gone up way more than I expected, just perfect!!

I tried it in a playing position, resting on my left leg. The deep curve on the upper bout of the body falls nicely against your chest, while the tummy cut takes away the ‘sharp’ edge. Together with the lightness of the body you’re hardly aware of the fact that there’s a lump of wood on your lap, which is a good thing imo. Hard to explain, but I will post pictures of that sometime, you’ll see what I mean – although you actually would have to experience it yourself .

I drew a pencil line of the intended curve and used masking tape to follow that line, making it more visible when carving and protecting the rest of the body in the meantime. Started out with the great Stanley surform file:

working with hand tools on wood really feels good. I used a fine coarsed file to smooth things out:

And here it is, finished and sanded up to 180 grit:

And from aside:

There were a few things that needed to be done on the body part: I finally (!!) finished all my plywood templates today (now I’ve got the pickup cavities and neck pocket template as well). I also finished glueing up a prototype body (curing as we speak) to test the tummy cut and neck heel.

Before I start with the body I will practice these carvings first, decide if I’d go with a tummy cut, probably do the tummy cut on the real body and I may even route the pickup cavities and neck pocket already. After that, it’s time to move on to the neck. Slow build, I know, but limited time and taking it step by step..

I planned working on the last templates tonight, but actually I’m fed up with those tempates…. needed to do something a little bit more fun.

So here’s a freshly routed pickguard:

I still need to route the edges to a 45 degree angle, and the pickup route needs some attention, it’s not as smooth and straight as I want it, but this is how it’ll look on the body:

And a nice shot with the pickup:

The next day I finished the pickguard.. dotted the I’s and routed the outer edges to a 45 degree angle. The result is pretty nice, I’m really excited about this. I will drill the holes during assembly.

Tonight I spent a few hours sanding the body with 80 grit to smooth out the roundovers and remove minor marks from the router and planer. Now the body is ready for further carvings / routings. Not much difference with previous pictures, but otherwise it would be a rather uninteresting post:

Furthermore I made these pictures to see how the Macassar fingerboard blank looks on the body:

Right now I’m a little bit in doubt about the pickguard and pearl block inlays, as they take away a considerable part of those good looking woods….

.. to be continued!