devo_stevo's 2012 Challenge Build Thread -- COMPLETED

[devo_stevo]

Well........here goes nothing. I've got some wood in the garage and some parts in the mail so let's see what happens.

[jkingma]

Good luck with your build.

[devo_stevo]

Thanks a bunch. I'm pretty excited about this.

[RogerC]

I love it when people say stuff like that because they usually end up building something completely awesome!

Good luck!

[devo_stevo]

Thanks Roger. I've got something good in mind. Hope I can finish it on time. Good luck to you too.

[crazydave911]

Welcome and good luck!

Dave

[devo_stevo]

Thanks and good luck to you too Dave.

[devo_stevo]

It's getting crowded in here already. Just printed out the entry paper and will hopefuly have some time tomorrow to get things rolling. So excited to do this and to see what everyone else comes up with.

Best of luck to all.

[nosmo]

I'll be watching - Good luck & have fun

[devo_stevo]

Thanks nosmo. I am a bass player like you, but I'm builidng a guitar this time. I've built two basses and have decided to expand my musical horizons a bit and try to learn the guitar, so naturally here we are. I can't buy one now that I know I can build it. ;)

[devo_stevo]

Alrighty then. I got some time in the shop tonight to work on this. Was able to get the neck blank pieces all milled and glued up.

First things first. Here's the proof photo showing that this has started as rough lumber.


We've got a strip of maple for the center laminate in the neck along with some purpleheart that goes next to that and the outer laminations of the neck will be from the ash. There is enough ash to do the neck, and body. I'll use the quartersawn white oak as the top for the body and maybe the back as well...don't know about that yet. There is also some bloodwood for the fingerboard and I am going to try my hand at making a pickup cover from the blodwood also. Never done that before, so it should be interesting.

Here are the templates that I made about a month ago in preperation for this challenge.


It's going to be a neck through design with the above mentioned woods and a hartail bridge with a single P90 pickup. I'm a fan of simple electronics in my instruments, so this suits me well.

[RogerC]

With that wood combo, it sounds like it's going to rival my cement caster for weight . Yours is going to be a whole lot prettier though, that's for sure!

[devo_stevo]

First things first, I needed to use some boards to make a different board to make a neck out of. So I took some of the ash from the previous pic and cut it into strips and jointed the sides so that they were nice and straight.

I then placed the 3/8" maple strip in the center and the two 1/4" purpleheart strips beside it (these were leftover pieces from the last bass I built last year, that's why they were already milled and ready to use). Once I had them in place, I took the ash and clamped (dry, no glue yet) it to the side of the others.


I then checked to see if my joints were good by holding the whole thing up to the light. If there is light coming through the joint, it needs more work. Fortunately, it all looked good, so I spread som glue and clamped the whole thing up nice and tight.


Tomorrow, I'll remove the clamps and square it all up. Then it will be time for the scarf joint for the headstock.

See you then.

[devo_stevo]

Originally Posted by RogerC

With that wood combo, it sounds like it's going to rival my cement caster for weight . Yours is going to be a whole lot prettier though, that's for sure!

LOL. I hope it isn't THAT heavy. I guess we'll find out.

[nosmo]

I'm not a bass player. I'm barely a guitar player. I just have too many guitars so I figured I needed a bass. (Did I just say I had too many guitars? Somebody slap me.) Its pretty cool that I'm building a bass and you're building a guitar. Who'd a thunk it.

[devo_stevo]

Originally Posted by nosmo

I'm not a bass player. I'm barely a guitar player. I just have too many guitars so I figured I needed a bass. (Did I just say I had too many guitars? Somebody slap me.) Its pretty cool that I'm building a bass and you're building a guitar. Who'd a thunk it.

That is odd. And you're right. Everyone needs a bass.

Took the clamps off of the neck blank this morning and it looks pretty good. Nice and straight and should mill down to just about the right dimensions in the end.

I'll get pictures tonight along with making the piece for the headstock. Things are moving right along.

[devo_stevo]

Got some more time in the garage tonight and got a bit done. I took the neck blank that was in the clamps...out.

And I ended up with this.

After a few passes through the planer...I had this.


It turned out just right. Not too thin, but not too thick at just under 7/8".

After this, it was time to cut a piece of ash to use as a headstock.

This will do.

Resawed it...

And ran it through the planer to get it to about 1/2" thick.

[devo_stevo]

After all that was done, I put some masking tape on the neck blank and the headstock piece and use some double stick tape to attach the headstock piece to the neck. Like this.


Then I took the whole thing to the bandsaw and cut them both at roughly 13 degrees.

After that, it goes to the trusty scarf joint making router jig.

I ran out of time tonight, so this will have to wait for tomorrow night when I can get this routed and gued up. Hopefully I can get the truss rod routed this weekend and the neck tapered and headstock cut out too.

Then it will be on to the body next week...stay tuned.

[nosmo]

Nice. I like your neck better than mine.

[devo_stevo]

You're too kind. Thanks.

I'm curious to see how the ash turns out in the neck. I really like the way it looks and I'm hoping that it feels good as a finished neck.

Yours is looking good too by the way.