Finished - First ever build - Ampeg inspired fretless bass

idiotwind · August 2022

In the end I just shaped the fix by hand as my template was a bit damaged at that spot as well. Worked alright and got the rest of the body routed with just a bit of tearout between the neck pocket and lower horn. The patch is ok, but will need a bit of sanding as I undercut slightly when shaping and it's left a ridge.

Then once I've done the roundover I'll look at any more filling that needs doing.

Aside from that, I think I'll tackle the f holes next

Winny_Pooh · August 2022

Nice bit of wood there. BTW, does this have a trussrod and where will the adjuster go?

idiotwind · August 2022

Winny_Pooh said:

Nice bit of wood there. BTW, does this have a trussrod and where will the adjuster go?

Thanks. The only downside is that the body blank currently weighs 7lb 3oz, but I knew walnut was going to be heavy.

Yes, I was unsure what to do with the trussrod at the start, but I've gone for a wheel adjuster from Grainger Guitar Parts with a notch in the end of the fretboard like this

WezV · August 2022

The F-holes should act as some good weight reduction... make those as big as possible.

idiotwind · August 2022

Working on the f holes today

First drill a hole

Then a few more

Then connect them with the jigsaw

Fairly happy with it so far. I think I'll nibble away at the excess with some files, then give it a go with the router, though my tear out/break off round the outside has left me a bit nervous about damaging them. But doing it by hand I'd be more concerned about getting it square and even - f holes aren't usually done through 40mm thick wood.

idiotwind · August 2022

F holes have been fully routed with no major issues. Had one silly moment of lifting the router out as it was spinning down which nicked the edge, but I was able to just widen the template a little and re-route (and always letting it stop before lifting it out).

I'll have to do some sanding to clean up the line between the top and bottom bearing sections. Then I have to decide about rounding over. I don't want it as it is - already cut my knuckle on it, but I don't know whether to do a routed roundover or just sand off the sharp edge. I'm going 1/4" around the outside of the body, but I don't think it wants to be that big. I do also have a 1/8" bit. Not sure, might have to test it on some scrap to see how it looks in real life.

Weight is down to 6lb 8oz

WezV · August 2022

I would go for a bevelled edge on the F-holes, rather than a roundover, but i would test on scrap and see which looks better

idiotwind · August 2022

WezV said:

I would go for a bevelled edge on the F-holes, rather than a roundover, but i would test on scrap and see which looks better

Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I have 25° and 45° bevel bits, or could do it by hand. I'll try some things out.

idiotwind · August 2022

Decided to move forwards with the neck. I've spent a while straightening and flattening the blank - oh for a planer-thicknesser. Truss rod slot cut and wheel adjuster recess chiselled.

I almost immediately regretted my choice to chisel as the round corners left by the router probably would have looked better than the square ones. It was an odd kind of laziness where I couldn't be bothered to take 5 minutes to make a jig for the router so instead spent 20 minutes chiselling.

With that done, I've glued on the block to make the blank double thickness at the headstock end. Not too bad, you can see there's a join, but it seems alright.

I'm going to tackle the headstock first, that way if it's a total bust I've not spent the time carving the neck . The plan of action is:
1. Trim to width
2. Drill the tuner holes (to guarantee against blow out)
3. Cut out centre opening as a straight hole through
4. Cut the side profile
5. Clean up the centre to blend it in to the curves

Andyjr1515 · August 2022

Neat work on the f holes.

And yes, always wait for the bit to fully stop before moving or lifting ghe router - essential, yet rarely mentioned in 'how to' videos. Oh, and we've all done it and suffered the same consequences...

idiotwind · September 2022

I've been plugging away at this over the past few weeks. Basically it can be summarised as "a piece of maple getting smaller".

I followed my plan for the headstock, bringing it to width and then routing a small amount of the profile from one side so that I could get the position transferred as accurately as possible to the other side. With that done I could drill the tuner holes. Got a little tear out on one which is annoying but gets covered by the tuner.

After that I drilled, jigsawed and filed out the opening in the centre

Then I trimmed down some of the excess and routed the shape, coming at it from both sides. Wasn't easy as it isn't the widest thing to balance the router on

A quick test with the machine heads

Then followed (well, follows as it's still ongoing) a ton of sanding to even things up and blend things in

Next up is getting the neck routed to shape width-wise and sorting out that transition into the headstock

As a side project I also made some picks out of offcuts of the ziricote, maple and walnut

idiotwind · September 2022

Both the neck and fretboard have been routed to size, then taped together and sanded to flush them up.

My plan is to deal with the two separately, carving the neck without the board attached. The reasoning is that it's my first ever attempt at a neck, so if I mess it up I'd rather not have to try and get a very expensive board off it.

A quick question - I've seen people use locating pins but this often involves drilling through fret slots to put in cocktail sticks. But I won't have any fret slots. I was thinking off using something like panel pins in the neck, snipped off then indented into the bottom of the board. Would this cause any issues, or would I have to pull them out after making the marks and replace them with cocktail sticks?

I've also done a little proof of concept of my mini fret lines, done with 0.5mm maple veneer. For scale, that line is about 8mm long which I think might be a tiny bit too long. That said, I did see Ben at Crimson Guitars do a bass with this sort of line where he had slightly longer ones at 3, 5, 7 etc. I'm also considering some lines on the treble side from the 12th fret up.

With this, my thinking is that I can't do these mini slots without doing the fretboard radius first. That will allow me full control over the length, which would be harder if I did them and then put the radius on. That's also why I've already tapered it to the final width. I have a spare board that I plan on slotting first and using as a guide for putting the notches in the real one.

As a final, totally non-sequitur question - will a 90ml bottle of Tru Oil be enough to wet sand the body and do a few coats on the neck?

Roland · September 2022

idiotwind said:

A quick question - I've seen people use locating pins but this often involves drilling through fret slots to put in cocktail sticks. But I won't have any fret slots. I was thinking off using something like panel pins in the neck, snipped off then indented into the bottom of the board. Would this cause any issues, or would I have to pull them out after making the marks and replace them with cocktail sticks?

As a final, totally non-sequitur question - will a 90ml bottle of Tru Oil be enough to wet sand the body and do a few coats on the neck?

Snipped Panel pins are a recognised technique. Just make sure they won’t protrude through the fret board once it’s profiled.

You can get a couple of guitars out of a bottle of Tru-Oil

idiotwind · October 2022

I've been carving the neck over the last week or so. I used the facet method, though I did it along the whole length of the neck at once - some I've seen will do the 1st and 12th frets only and then just join it together. I did it by marking the points at the 1st and 12th, but then drawing a line between them and doing the whole thing.

I used two facets per side, working out the positions by having the cross sections in Illustrator. Took off the material with a Shinto rasp and Iwasaki file, then a sanding block and card scraper to clean it up. Then I knocked off the corners and did a lot with the card scraper and sandpaper to smooth it out.

The hardest part was the transitions to the headstock and the heel, mainly keeping them symmetrical which I probably haven't quite managed. The neck carve itself was fairly straight forward, helped by the fact that I wasn't trying that hard to match an exact requirement.

I've taken it to 240 grit so far. I think now I'll get the fingerboard sorted so I can glue that on and make sure it feels right as a complete thing. So far I've got the fingerboard sanded to the 12" radius, though just with 80 grit paper. I'm sorting out the slotting of my practice board which I am going to use as a guide for putting in the 5mm long mini sidelines, ready for filling with veneer.

Bridgehouse · October 2022

idiotwind said:

Both the neck and fretboard have been routed to size, then taped together and sanded to flush them up.

My plan is to deal with the two separately, carving the neck without the board attached. The reasoning is that it's my first ever attempt at a neck, so if I mess it up I'd rather not have to try and get a very expensive board off it.

A quick question - I've seen people use locating pins but this often involves drilling through fret slots to put in cocktail sticks. But I won't have any fret slots. I was thinking off using something like panel pins in the neck, snipped off then indented into the bottom of the board. Would this cause any issues, or would I have to pull them out after making the marks and replace them with cocktail sticks?

I've also done a little proof of concept of my mini fret lines, done with 0.5mm maple veneer. For scale, that line is about 8mm long which I think might be a tiny bit too long. That said, I did see Ben at Crimson Guitars do a bass with this sort of line where he had slightly longer ones at 3, 5, 7 etc. I'm also considering some lines on the treble side from the 12th fret up.

With this, my thinking is that I can't do these mini slots without doing the fretboard radius first. That will allow me full control over the length, which would be harder if I did them and then put the radius on. That's also why I've already tapered it to the final width. I have a spare board that I plan on slotting first and using as a guide for putting the notches in the real one.

As a final, totally non-sequitur question - will a 90ml bottle of Tru Oil be enough to wet sand the body and do a few coats on the neck?

WRT Fret lines...

I pretty much play fretless exclusively these days, and lines are really useful.. but the most useful bit of them is on the side, not on the board itself. Once you start playing standing up anything on the face of the board is pretty much impossible to see without some sort of odd movement - and so you rely on the side position marker.

My advice would be to make sure they are visible on the side, and include the usual marker dots as well - combined they will give you enough guide to get going.

idiotwind · October 2022

Bridgehouse said:

WRT Fret lines...

I pretty much play fretless exclusively these days, and lines are really useful.. but the most useful bit of them is on the side, not on the board itself. Once you start playing standing up anything on the face of the board is pretty much impossible to see without some sort of odd movement - and so you rely on the side position marker.

My advice would be to make sure they are visible on the side, and include the usual marker dots as well - combined they will give you enough guide to get going.

Thanks. Playing your Shuker gave me the confidence that I should be alright with sidelines rather than needing full lines. They'll wrap round onto the side and I've got some 2mm side dots which I'm putting in the "fretted" locations between the lines.

Bridgehouse · October 2022

idiotwind said:

Bridgehouse said:

WRT Fret lines...

I pretty much play fretless exclusively these days, and lines are really useful.. but the most useful bit of them is on the side, not on the board itself. Once you start playing standing up anything on the face of the board is pretty much impossible to see without some sort of odd movement - and so you rely on the side position marker.

My advice would be to make sure they are visible on the side, and include the usual marker dots as well - combined they will give you enough guide to get going.

Thanks. Playing your Shuker gave me the confidence that I should be alright with sidelines rather than needing full lines. They'll wrap round onto the side and I've got some 2mm side dots which I'm putting in the "fretted" locations between the lines.

That sounds like just the job.

As long as you can see the sides you'll be fine. Once you get used to it the hand and finger positions become automatic and you start to rely less on the position markers.

When it comes to selecting a preamp you really should put a John East in it.. If you were brave you could go piezo in the bridge as well!

JezWynd · October 2022

Love the headstock, very elegant and that's a lovely bit of wood you have for the fretboard. Shaping up to be a beauty.

idiotwind · October 2022

Mini side lines are done. Here is my setup for cutting them:

So, we have a chamfuta board (the cheapest Reid Timbers sold) which I squared up and slotted normally. I wanted this as a guide which I knew would hold the slots accurately - I was concerned MDF or something like that would be too soft. On top of that we have the ziricote board, radiused to 12", with masking tape marking a line 5mm from the edge. Then we have the radius block with a couple of neodymium magnets glued in to act as a saw guide. I would line up my square with the slot and use this to align the radius block, which I then clamped in place. I could then make the cut with my dozuki saw. It was a bit eyeballed and some have ended up a little shorter on the side than I wanted, but I'm at the point where I'm fine with minor inconsistencies for things like that.

With them all cut, in with little strips of 0.5mm maple veneer, sanded slightly as the kerf of the blade is also 0.5mm and it was a bit snug.

You can see one with a bit of ziricote dust on it - the saw just bounced ever so slightly on that one and nicked the edge of the slot, so the dust is to fill it in a bit.

Then trimmed and sanded flush. I've also cut the notch in the end for the truss rod wheel access, and have been putting in the side dots. Next step, gluing the fretboard on.

idiotwind · October 2022

Gluing the fretboard. As I don't have £500 worth of clamps for this step I've economised and borrowed an idea from Tchiks Guitars on YouTube.

I've got it clamped down at one end using the radius block. Then, I'm using a rubber resistance band which I've wrapped tightly around the board and clamped down. I then put an extra clamp at the nut end and halfway down the neck, just for belt and braces.

It's worked alright. The band released well with just a couple of little tears where it stuck to the glue, but it was easy enough to scrape and sand back.

I've got some Tru Oil arriving for the neck, and I'm just going to wax the board. That little test piece I did earlier was waxed and I'm happy with how that looks. There's a few little gaps between the board and neck which I might fill, I'm a bit undecided on that - my concern is that a bodged fill will look worse than the gap, but the ziricote is busy enough that it might not be noticeable.

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Finished - First ever build - Ampeg inspired fretless bass

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