Fretboard cut

I cut the fretboard to size today. It looks great. I left a little swerve at the bottom of the fretboard, it was sort of in the plans right along, I figured if I didn't like it I can always just cut it straight.

Every video I've watched of neck carving shows the guitar with the fretboard attached. I was planning on carving the neck before attaching the fretboard, but I can see that you really want all of this together as you're carving.

So I guess the next step will be to secure the truss rod and glue on the fretboard. Kind of exciting and kind of scary. I guess now I get to start taking small parts and making big parts instead of the reverse.

Design decisions

I was traveling for business this week so I didn't get to do any actual work on the bass, but I was thinking that its time to make some design decisions. I really want to have something that ties the headstock, pick guard and horn designs together. I can probably still get any 3 or 4 hours of work in before having to execute a definitive design for any of those, but time is running out. Fear of commitment? Maybe.

Off for a ride on this beautiful Fall day.

Wings

I spent an hour or so cleaning up the neck, its looking pretty good now - I took out the "safety bumps" on both sides. I was thinking I might need to use them to connect the wings to the body, they're not needed so I took them off. I didn't take a new picture of the neck since it really doesn't look a lot different than it did. It was a solid hour of slow sanding, marking, sanding... repeat.

I'm itching to start putting the pieces together, but I need to tackle the back of the neck. I don't want to go out of order, but I'm thinking about making the wings just so I can settle my mind about how they will attach. That's probably not a very good reason to skip around though and more likely a feeble attempt at procrastinating that neck carving.

I have a piece of black walnut that I'm planning on using for the body of the bass - I'll make two "wings" then connect them over the neck - when I'm done you won't be able to see the neck at all from the front of the bass, which is actually a shame because the maple in the neck is pretty nice looking.

I did "mess around" a bit with the walnut tonight. I cut it into two pieces (just to make it easier to handle and work with) and I put both pieces through the planer. I had to take quite a bit off to get it flat - its amazing how a piece of wood looks nice and flat, you put it through the planer and see just how bowed  or warped it is.

I need to figure out how to cut the walnut to show the best figuring. If its possible I want to keep the grain parallel between the two pieces and still have some figuring that you can see. So far here's where I'm at:

Upper wing:

Lower wing: 

I like where the figuring shows up, but not really happy with how the grain will match between the two sides. I really would like to have it look like one piece of wood when its done. I'm not sure that's possible, but that's my aim.

I'm itching to spend some real quality time on the building, but I just don't see that happening in the next week or so, its going to be an hour at a time here and there.

Night terrors

I woke up early this morning convinced I had made a mistake in the sides of the neck. I figured the best way to calm my nerves was to make a template for the wings. Sure enough I had made a mistake, but the mistake means there's is too much wood left on the neck, which is a lot easier to fix than the opposite. As I said I'm making this body smaller than others I have made and I had accidentally started doing some measurements from the back end of the bass - the body on this one will be a couple of inches shorter, so measuring from a common point is important.

I got to cutting out my template - highly confusing for a bit there, but I got it figured it out. I'm not 100% sold on this exact shape, but it will be something like this.

The fretboard isn't cut yet, so it looks a little wonky, but here's what it looks like with the fretboard resting on top.

I need to figure out what kind of wood to use to fill in the fretlines. Its the one issue with the cocobola that I'm using for the fretboard, its not really dark (which would mean light lines would stick out, or really light (where dark lines would show).  I'll probably go for ebony, but that's a decision for later.

Neck - the long cuts

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I've never built a neck before. I've built two basses and one guitar, but I have always bought the neck from Carvin. Its adding a level of difficulty for sure, but so far so good!

I made the cuts on the back and sides of the neck. I wasn't sure how I would do this but I went with the tried and true (but slow) way. I did a rough cut with the band saw then use the belt and drum sander to bring it in and hand sanding to finish it off. It came out really good - nice and straight.

I had a few "crap, I didn't think of that" moments, once you remove this material you lose any square edges to reference off of. I had a few saves where I almost did the wrong cut first. after I cut the back off I realized that my plan of using the sanders was kind of shot. I figured out a solution by double stick taping the cut off part on the back of the neck back in place. While it wasn't perfect, I had a reasonably square edge to run through the sander. 

I also carved the volute - in pretty much the same way I did the rest of the cuts - rough cut with the band saw and final forming with the drum sander. It looks pretty good, but will look a lot better once I the the back rounded. Right now the whole neck is looking kind of 2 dimensional.

I'm still unsure how I'm going to do that rounding, I don't have a spoke shave, I think I'll have to get one to finish the neck off. I can probably get some of the way with a sander and/or power plane. 

Getting stuff done!

I did a bit more tonight - I sanded the headstock flat (nothing to see there) and I cut out the bottom of the neck blank where the body will go. Now its starting to look like something and I can really see why I cut those small cuts the other night. I swear sometimes I look at what I cut and I can't figure out why I made that particular cut. Its all coming together now.

Tomorrow is the long cuts down the neck. This will be interesting! The maple is so hard I wonder how I will form it into the neck shape. More challenges and I can't wait!

The Small ones are the worst

These two small cuts have had me thinking for a long time - its not a lot of wood, but its very hard maple, so using a chisel seemed like it was going to be an eternal job (and not guaranteed to come out straight). My second thought was to use a drum sander in the drill press, we talked about it and decided that with a carefully placed fence we could use a router. A bit terrifying, but it came out perfect. I know these look out of place, but trust me it will all come together. I have to square off the upper end of this, all the wood below this point will be removed. Essentially this is where the wings will attach to the neck.

When you really look at the lines on the neck blank it really is amazing how much wood you remove from it. Its probably more than 40% of the total wood by the time all is said and done.

Probably won't get to more before the weekend. The next steps should end up showing a bit more dramatic progress.