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Finished building my workshop a few months ago and it's time to break it in for what I built it for: Guitars and Basses! I built my first two axes in a 2x4 garage where I had to sqeeze inbetween everything and pull tools outside to use them as I was covering my wife's stuff with sawdust. Not Good! Got a very nice piece of flame maple, plus some sapele for the back, had purpleheart already, and got some rosewood for the fretboard. Had a neck that I made before I moved just like the neck on the fretless bass, but I think I'm gonna make a flame maple/purpleheart neck instead. It is walnut and ipe and has no contrast between the laminates. I'll use it for another bass sometime.
First axe: Ash body and StewMac Neck

First Bass: Walnut w/ maple center and walnut/ipe neck. Ipe fretboard.

The wood:

Resawn Flame Maple:

Toys!
Resaw jig for bandsaw. New Spectrum Supply Flex blade.

New sandpaper for thickness sander:

Picked up a JBL K-140 speaker and built a cab for it too! Awesome!

Nice work,Jim!
That bass is really nice looking.
Is that a tung oil finish there?
Great shape to it.

Yes, Tung oil finish. I play it in church all the time. Now to build a fretted version. I was skeptical of the Ipe for the fretboard but it holds up well with roundwound strings and sounds good.

Had to go to school for a week. Wastewater school. Back from that adventure. Cut the flame maple for the neck today while I was making frames for a customer. Got 3 thin pcs of purpleheart I had resawn earlier and 3 very thin pcs of maple for the neck. Once I thickness sand them I'll get the neck laminates glued together.

I was going to use IPE on a project but was advised against it due to its toxicity. Yikes!

Haven't died yet! Play it every week. Have to google that.

Toxicity: Ipe boards can have a fine yellow dust on the surface that may cause dermatitis in some individuals that have skin sensitivities and/or cause allergic reactions in those who breathe it in... so wearing a dust mask is recommended. Ipe hardwood is an amazing wood but no sense in risking your health!

Looks like there might be some contact dematitis durung your build, and you may want a dust mask. I didn't but Might be a good idea if I use a bunch, probably won't. So don't be scared of it.

Managed to squeak out a little time in my shop this week, between OT at work and family crisises. Got the neck laminates cut, thicknessed and glued together. Flame maple and purple heart.

Always a good thing to get started.
Looks good.
I like laminated necks,
because they remind me of surfboards.

Got it joined and thickness sanded. Only about a hundred passes thru the thickness sander. Rubbed some paint thinner to show off the flame a little better.





Now to start on the wings and make a fretboard out of rosewood.

Starting to get excited about this build. I made a template off my 1st bass. Set up the wings and have the outline ready to cut the wings with. Then pulled out the rosewood board and started measuring it up for fingerboards. That thing's long enough to get bass and guitar fretboards out of one strip. Cool Beans! 8 fretboards out of 1 strip, and have plenty left for more. Once I have the wings and a fretboard ready to go I can start carving up the neck.

Been checking out hardware and pups. www.guitarfetish.com looks like they have most of what I need. Also Guitar Parts Central has the individual string bridges I like. I'll check out their pots as well. I'm leaning towards the Music Man pup, although a P and Jazz combination looks enticing.

Making more sawdust! Got the wings cut out, routed and sanded. Also resawed the rosewood and made 3 bass and 3 guitar fretboards. It was tougher than I thought it was going to be to route around the template. Still had to do a lot of sanding to get them even and smooth. Need ti thickness sand the body wings, then glue on the top and route it smooth.


Do ya think I may need to do some housekeeping?

A little more done today. Glued top wood to the wings, and thickness sanded and cut out the fingerboard. It just dawned on me, I didn't slot the fretboard, Crap! Got in too big a hurry. Well I want to make a fretless acoustic bass for myself, so I'll keep that one for it and make another one. Looks good anyway. Plan on using scrap from sides of the neck to add to the headstock to make it wider. Annie likes the smilie so I gotta include it.

After supper went out to the shop and thicknessed another fretboard and cut the slots. Went pretty easy. Made a template off my P bass and added the last 4 frets since cheap Fender only gives you 20 frets. I'll wait for daylight so I can see better to cut the sides of the fretboard.

Fiddled with the body wings and trimmed the fretboard to width. This is coming together too well.
Used my angle grinder with 40 grit sanding pad on it to shape the belly and arm cutouts. Rubbed alcohol on iot to get an idea of what it'll look like.

Ordered truss rods today from Allied Lutherie. One for my bass ands 2 guitar rods. Now to make a jig for my router to do a neat job.

Proof you can teach an old dog new tricks! Drawing up my neck to see where I'll make the cuts and found I'll have to deal with a tiny spot along side the fretboard where the wings hit the neck. Darn, that's gonna be tough to do. Then I was looking at guitar parts on the net and happened on carvin's site. Thought I'd look at their neck thru necks and there's my answer! The contour of the neck follows the fretboard all the way to the end, so no fooling around with that little bit of wood along side the fretboard trying to match it up with the body wings. So I drew a line to the end and found my neck is not wide enough.

Shoot! How about a piece of Purpleheart or Flame maple to fill it in? That dog ought to hunt! At least for this one as I plan on keeping it.

So lesson learned, and a new trick for the next ones I build. That will make these neck thru axes easier to build. Well, gotta get back to the frames I'm making for my friend and maybe clean up my shop, maybe!

After a couple of hours and 2 trash bags of sawdust and shavings, the floor is visible.
Next task, not doing what I did to my first bass when I routed the truss rod channel. Thank God for fingerboards to cover it up.
Got home from work and started pulling out wood, found a nice wide piece of spruce for the base and some pine 1x4's, and started fiddling around. Couple hours later I have a truss rod router jig. I'd try it but my better half doesn't want me to wake the neighbors this late at night. Have to wait till after work tomorrow.

Finally getting a few minutes to fiddle with my bass. Took a timeout to build a ukelele for my daughter for her birthday from a kit from Grizzly. I started off with a board clamped in a vise. Was going to use my router to shape it and changed my mind. Used the belt sander, the drum on my thickness sander, and the new drum sander on my drill clamped to the workbench to shape it.
Doodlebug's Ukelele. Finish on and parts not installed yet.

Started with a setup to hold the neck.

Big glob of wood for the volute.

Taking shape nicely

Cool headstock design. Pulled a tuner off my other bass and that dog will hunt!

Starting to look like a bass.

Picked up a drum sander. Works great for shaping the neck.

Back at it after working all weekend. Glued the wings to the neck. Waiting for the glue to dry so I started fiddling with a Les Paul I started before I moved. Got the neck bandsawed, joined, and thickness sanded, plus did a scarf joint for the headstock.

Sanded my brains out. I'm pooped! Sanded the snot out out of it, sanded the radius on the fretboard with a radius block (16"), made a purpleheart nut (not slotted yet), and made a truss rod coverplate. Also sanded some on the Les Paul. Also caulked in the truss rod. I lubed the threads with some vaseline to keep the caulk from sticking it up.
Bad news though. I got a wedding to pay for, so no buying hardware for a while. I did sneak in some dyes and finishing supplies from LMII, but I'm gonna have to watch my pennies til the big day in Aug. I'll just keep building with the pile of wood I have and later on I'll finish them up.
Headstock, nut and coverplate

Fretboard nice and slick

Body looking good

Les Paul

Keep looking at the les paul and I really want to add binding. Def don't trust myself to freehand a binding channel with a router. So I started fiddling with my router to make a jig for binding. Took a piece of walnut scrap, resawed it about 1/2" thick and thickness sanded it. Used the router base for a circle template and cut that out and smoothed it up a bit. Took the scrap sapele from the bass body and made a guide for it. Found a threaded knob I had stashed away for an adjuster, and a bolt with a wing head on it to hold it in place. Carved out for the nuts and superglued them in place. That sapele is hard stuff! Had all my carving tools out to notch it out. Finally found a dremel bit that did the trick, and a flat carving knife to finish it out. Now I need to find some bolts in one of my many coffee cans full of bolts, screws and other junk I've accumulated over the years, to attach it to the router base, so I can line up the guide on the walnut. Then drill, screw and glue it together. Ought to be heavy enough to stand up to my abuse.
I figure it'll work if I take it easy with it. Don't try to take off too much at a time and don't rout against the grain ( go "downhill" into the waist area). Then I thought I'd thin slice some purpleheart and maple for the binding.

Had to stop working on it as I had some chicken to BBQ on the grill, and after that my partner had a problem at home, so I covered the water plant for him. I'll get some pix later when I'm off work. My weekend is Wed and Thurs this week.

Started marking my fretboard for side dots. Was going to add position markers for the fretboard. Got some chinese turquoise dots from LMI, but got to looking at them and said, NAW, doesn't look right. Wiped the rosewood fretboard with laquer thinner and OH MY Goodness! What a beautiful rosewood color! That stuff glows! Now my question is how do I preserve that sheen? I'll take some scrap off of the board and try various things, lemon oil, tung oil, tru oil, etc. But I'd really like to accent that color and beauty. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Not going to put any kind of marker on this board. My fretless has side dots only, so I'm used to it. Makes them wonder, how does he play that? He, He, He!

Fiddled with the fingerboard today. Went ahead and installed the inlays anyway. Easy enough with a forstner bit in the ol' drill press. Then did my very first fret job. Finally used my fret cutters, hammer, files and other toys for the first time since I got them a couple years ago. Went very well. Had to superglue a couple of them in as they came loose. Finally got in a groove filing the ends and on the second go round got them looking good and feeling smooth. Went over the ends with a dremel buffer and rubbing compound which worked amazing well polishing them.
Not bad for a rookie.