Introduction: 3 Guitars Made From a Table. #3 the Have it off Low

I wanted to make an electric bass guitar using hard wood.
Wood that has been drying long enough non to twist any longer.
A wholly-woods table photographic plate sounded perfect for this.
I ground an old one, made of birch, free of charge on the cyberspace, I only had to get it and say thank you. Brilliant.
It wrong-side-out unconscious this gave ME material enough to make 3 guitars.

This is the third indefinite, the jazz bass.

Supplies

Here is the parts I used, they totally have a wide variety of alternatives, simply these worked well for me.
Strings: Ernie Balls Super Slinky Roundwound 45 65 80 100 underestimate 30$
Bridge: No brand ebay 13$
Nut: Tusq graph tech nut Jazz Bass 4 string 10$
Pickups: Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson Neck & Span set for Bon Bass 35$
Panel: No more brand ebay wired switch control plate for Fender Do it Bass 7$
Frets: No brand ebay 2.9mm set for low, 2 sets of 21, freehanded just sufficiency longish ones to meet 24 frets on the neck. 18$
Fretboard inlays: Guitars and Woods 3$
Tuners: No brand 4 left ebay 18$
Guitar strap: No marque ebay 4$
2 Strap mount scews: No denounce ebay 2$
Truss rod: 600mm two way no brand 8$
Tools: Fret crowning file 5$, small rubber eraser fret hammer 5$, Guitars and woods 9.5" r sanding draw a blank 13$

Step 1: The Defer

Made of solid birch, the hold over is the base of a sturdy low guitar.
Not thick enough, so it must exist cut and glued together.
The old lacquer inevitably to croak, I chose to remove it past sanding.
Doing this in your living room, like I did, can initiate objections, but one of us is not united, so I could carry connected.
Use a dust masqu and a dust gatherer when doing this, the lacquer dust is far from healthy.
I forgot, and the symptoms coming from my lungs could easily be misread Eastern Samoa epidemic.
I bought dust masks, and intended my vacuity cleaner close to the electric sander, much better.
When the surfaces was prepared for lamination, I added a generous layer of wood glue on both sides, before pressing them collectively with something hard. In my case, a heavy awkward chair and my self.

When the plates were dry, I could start drawing the shape I wanted.
First, make a center crinkle, everything is related thereto, make sure it is not erased until you have positioned everything.
My stirring has been Z-body eff basses, and I tried to draw it around a beautiful pattern I ground along the bottom of the table.
I drew strings and frets for a 86cm graduated table (distance between ball and bridge deck, the part of the string along that vibrates).

Gradation 2: Body Cavities

When I got the pickups I wanted to use, I found that they could be placed at an fish to be positioned dead incidental to the strings, at the distance I envisioned from the bridge.

I started fashioning cavities for the pickups by boring holes to the depth I thought the pickups should be.
Then I used a knife to take off the excess wood, realizing quite soon that a cheat is way more precise and effective.

Pace 3: Body Shape

After some redesigning and determination making, I could start to cut the main shape of the body.
I practice not possess a band saw, so I drilled large count of holes in the blank shell and cut with a handsaw where befitting.
A big amount of filing, rasping and planing gave a rough outline of the organic structure, and I started shaping the other dimensions.
The thickness was close to 10mm too thready, so I removed that with a machine planing machine.
Making the back surface plane was unenviable with a electric sander, but when the plow vicious off my rasp, I observed that it was ideal to make a perfectly even flat surface.

Measure 4: The Neck opening

I wanted to try to make an 11° scarf joint, and figured I needed to make a jig for that.
Some trigonometry calculations gave me the cut I required to make my 11° gigue;
38mm width / sinus(11°) = 200mm.

The cervix is successful up of 2 layers, with a separate head.
All 3 parts were cut with the very tip over.
I added a rut in the upper side part, to insert a truss rod before gluing IT all in concert.
I glued the peak part to the head first.
The head rotated a little in the permanent gluing process, making Pine Tree State have to rotate the lower piece correspondingly. Luckily I had plenty of excess textile to work with, so I could carry happening.
The bind retinal rod was inserted and the bottom piece glued to the respite.
The result was to a lesser degree perfect, it was hard to get the pressure right, and the glue layer became a bit thick.
A better way would have been to glue the 2 cervix pieces first, shave the tip over exhaustively and gum the head connected last.

The make out thickness I aimed for was 23mm at fret 1 increasing to 27mm.
I started with a symmetric U-shape, thinking I want to try IT a while before I remove much material when I know what shape feels best.
The superlative of the neck was sanded with a sanding block with a spoke of 9.5", for a slightly curved fretboard.
I could and then conform to the strings inoperative the principal, to see where I should put up the tuners.

Step 5: Make out to Body Joint

Using the centerfield strain, and the center of the cervix, I could mark the neck shape on the body and carve out a neck opening scoop.
I could also mark the exact position of the bridge.
At last I could sand the rest of the lacquer off, needing the center trace no more.
Now I could figure the wood grains and start to see the finished merchandise.

Step 6: Polish off the Neck Conformation

Having verified the geometry of everything fits, I could now remove the last bit of the width and thickness of the neck.
I used a long accurate tool around to sand the edges straight, and a planer to get to the thickness I wanted.
A lot of filing and sanding to get the curved shape, led to a test fit and I could compare it to the bass I made unsuccessful of a ski.
Looks a trifle more look-alike a normal bass, this cardinal.

Footfall 7: Choke Board Inlays

6 mm acrylic resin inlays was whacked in place in 6mm predrilled holes with wood glue in.

A quick sanding with the curved sanding block, and the inlays looked like they had always been there.

Dance step 8: Fret Influence

Victimisation Monsterbass fretcalculator https://www.monsterbass.nl/fretcalc.php I marked the gall positions along some sides of the make out.
If you want to stool one yourself, this is the formula:
position = s - (s * cx) (s minus s times c to the power of x)
x = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., 24} (if you want 24 frets)
c = 0.9438743127
s = the plate length (distance from nut to bridge circuit, this guitar has a scale of 86cm)

I could then cut away a slot for the frets and hammer them in.
My frets had a larger radius than the neck, making them desire to emanation on the ends.
The slots I had cut was not tight enough to prevent that, so I decided to superglue them in place, one English at the time, pressure them clear in.
The result was a little less successful than I hoped, so in that location was need for quite a bit of eat away work.
The frets that was sticking away was filed down independently, before the whole fretboard was sanded with the curved sanding block.
A fret crowning file is in use to get the frets shape back.
I made Natalie Wood makeweight by mixture wood glue and adage sprinkle to sate the gaps in the ends of the rankle, if not the frets would have been sharp against the fingers when playing.

Step 9: Protective Finish

I used flaxseed oil to protect the wood.
It makes the Sir Henry Joseph Wood darker, and brings out the woodgrain

Step 10: Electronics

The first essay is to see how it sounds without shielding the cavities.
I might cash in one's chips back and do that if IT is noisy.
I had a pre-affixed control board, which meant I only had to solder the pickups ground wires to the plump for of the mass potentiometers, and the positive wires to the right-handed tote.
There was also a ground conducting wire I rib up a gob to the bridge.
I glued it in place, with the end of the wire sticking into one of the screw holes of the bridge.

Step 11: Ride the String section and Fine Tuning

Accordant to an instructional video provided by Fender, I learned that these kind of tuners are best wound by first cutting the string to a length that is approximately the length of 2 times the distance between cardinal tuners yearner than the tuner. So I undercut them about 9cm yearner than to the tuners, put the end into the radio receiver and held the string tight while winding the tuners.

The consequence is as hoped-for, with strings far from the frets, both at the nut case and the bridge, hardened to play on, so the adjustments can start.
I loosened the strings a chip, lowered the bridge clear down and tightened the truss pole quite a trifle.

The testicle had to be sanded down to follow capable to comfortably play the first fret.
But the neck and the nut has a wind, and my sanding block is curved the opposite way.
I had to make a reflected sanding block, by sanding a wooden block with my original.
I so engrossed the new sanding block with sand paper, buttoned IT to my bench, and could sand almost 2mm of the wiggly nut.
I hade successful a mark connected the nut with a caliper, to nullify sanding as well far.
Like a sho all the frets are easily played, and exclusively ane fuss is buzzing on one of the strings.
That one and only needs a tiny bit more filing, and information technology looks like I managed to save a neck that threatened to brand me start the make out all terminated.

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