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Hey all, was looking at Fillippo's Madrone build, and thought I would add one of the basses I am working on at this moment.

My name is Harold J Cagle, and am the owner and builder for HJC Customs in Portage, Michigan. I am kind of new to this site, and I do not hang out on too many websites, as I am in the shop 18 hours a day....LOL

One of the 7 instruments I am doing this build cycle(3 month segments) is an 8 string Extend Range Bass(or "Aircraft Carrier" as I refer to these things). I have never done an 8 before, 7's are quite common in my shop, and I have done a 9, so there is a bit of a learning curve on this one.

The specs:
HJC Customs "Prodigy" body style
8 string ERB strung B to B
34" scale
Maple and Purpleheart 9 piece neck
Poplar/Walnut/Curly Poplar body
Honduran Rosewood fretboard 22 frets
3 custom wound Kent Armstrong single coil pickups
Aguilar OBP-1 preamp
bone nut
Asian hardware(trying to get rid of all of this stuff from my shop)
Waterborne Lacquer finish(Target Coatings)

so here we go. Assembling the 2 body halves as 1 big sandwich


after the body halves dried, I surface and join then rout a wiring channel to make running the wires easier


Then glue the 2 halves together attempting to get the Curly Poplar top to have a symmetrical look(the top is NOT bookmatched)

Next I surfaced both sides in the drum sander, and Voila...a body blank


next was gluing up the neck blank

surface it



and resaw out the fretboard piece from a 6" wide piece of Honduran Rosewood

and surfaced both pieces...LOL could have been a cool top.....LOL


I cut and slotted the FB, extended the headstock and prefit the FB to the neck. Routed for the splayed Truss rods and fit the fretboard





started to trim out the neck on the bandsaw



I stop here for the moment to see how this comes up, and will continue soon, thank you for looking.

Continuing on, I squared up the neck taper with a straight edge and used one of my headstock templates to clean up both sides from multiple positions, as I do not have a headstock template this large'

I used this template to do the flourish at the end of the fretboard


I then started on the neck pocket of the body(something I do not do often as I usually do Neck through and set neck)
I remove the bulk after centering the heel layout, and clean up with straight blocks acting as a makeshift template



and start cutting out the Prodigy body shape

body cut out with template for trimming up with the router and a pattern bit


the body and neck trimmed up and test fit


not perfect but a good place to start the cleaning up process


I'll stop here for now, until I get a substantial amount of work advanced on this, thank you for looking
HJC

HOLY COW! that thing is a beast. Great work!

You sir are not joking...LOL 2 5/8" at the nut, and 4 9/16" at the 22nd fret, something I could take years to try to learn, but there are many who love these huge things...LOL

So, I got a few more little things completed on this, customers builds from Brazil, Costa Rica, and 2 in Chicago are occupying most of my time right now.

The rear taper of the neck from Volute to heel has been trued up in my little rear elevation jig(the epitome of simple engineering making a very useful tool) allows me to get a consistent angle on the back of the neck so I don't spend hours trying to level after the rough carve, instead, just blend as I start the sanding process after the spokeshave and microplanes


I have a large number of routers(my favorite tool) so I usually set up multiple routers to do pickups to save time


I did roundover the top with a 5/8" radius Whiteside Roundover, this has become my roundover of choice for bass bodies these days.
Next I set up this makeshift template for doing the 3 custom pickup set per Jauqo's desired configuration for this bass


As you can see I removed most of the excess with 3/4" forstner bit so there is less router work. I then routed the pickup cavities with a 5/8" freud pattern bit, and finished with a 3/8" Amana short cutter long shaft pattern bit similar to the Whiteside that Stew Mac sells. You can just see where the electronics channel is and how handy it is to do this before gluing the body together. I then dropped the pickups in to test for fit, looks like they will be a nice fit and finish after the lacquer is applied.




that's about all for now, will try to have this ready for sealer and finish in the coming week. Thanks to all who have peeked. And have a great weekend.
HJC

I'm surprised it's only a 34" scale. Also never seen one that didn't have multi-scale fretting (fanned frets). Have you had good success building them this way?

34" scale on my curbow bass makes the B feel kinda flabby. When I build one I'm gonna add another inch or two and fan it.

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This is actually the way Jauqo requested it. I like 35 for something like this, but I have had 34's work out well with ERB's. Floppy B's are always due more to the wrong tension string, or undersized string. As for Multiscale, I don't do them often, there are very few people that request them, they usually just go for a Dingwal or something to that effect. I haven't seen a lot of fanned fret ERB's. My buddy Jerzy doesn't do them often, and Bee Basses which seem to be the most popular(this week...LOL) seem to do equal scale. I think everyone is different.

Well I had time to get a few more things completed, I started with a one off curved control cavity that I did recessed sub cavities for the preamp and the mini switches. I did this because the Curly poplar is so light, I like to keep some weight, and to add a little extra structure to the cavity.





I was able to get the fret board inlaid





And shaped the neck




That's it for now, should be finishing up the build process soon, and off to the spray booth.