Bass build update 6

Did more work on me bass. pics coming next week.
Did some shaping and scraping - heel contour roughed out, more shapping on the top and all-around. Almost done, really.
Oh... wait... yeah... messed up the neck pocket so much I have now refilled the holes and I will need to laminate another piece of hardwood onto the body and re-carve it. Boooooo!
Or, do something else... either way, I'm waiting for the bridge to come in before I re-measure and re-attach the neck.
Can't wait to get the hardware...

Looking ahead to more basses

Was talking to Steven last night - there are more basses to be built and I gotta get on it!
Next builds, ready to go:
Sarah's Tele-shaped bass. Can't tell you more than that as it's a surprise.
DvR's Tele. Plain and simple Tele with humbucker in the neck position.
New templates for me. I'll build a new SG template, a P-Bass template, a J-bass template and a Thunderbird template before doing anything else.

Future builds:
Craft a neck and see how that goes...
Lefty Tele with a righty-strat neck. Yeah, weird but it'll work.
Lefty neck-through T-Bird for me.
Lefty, 35" scale bass (not sure of body style) for me (this one's tricky - I'm thinking of ordering a completely blank neck from Warmoth and doing the fret-work myself)
2 or 3 lefty Steinberger-style, small-body basses and possibly a guitar. I may get the body wood soon on this project. Bubinga. Is very niiiiice.

Bass build update 5

Ok, lots to update although I've done no work since last weekend.
Using the rasp I'm able to take huuuuuuge chunks of wood out and I can shape the edges any way I want. Oh the power, how beautiful it is.
My order shipped today from Ohio. I hope it doesn't take too long - it's coming USPS. We shall see. Sadly, I'm missing 2 tuning heads for my bass... they'll ship later. Sarah gets all her parts though.
Next, in no particular order:
Finish carving the body
Route pickup holes
Install bridge
Carve control knobs
Install sound block
Drill grounding tunnel to bridge post
Route control cavity
Find a pleasing stain colour and apply it
Buy an oscillating barrel sander
Finish-sand the body
Apply Danish Oil finish
Install neck
Install all electronics
Install strings
Set-it up
Plug in, play.

Bass build update 4

ok, no bridge saddles on ebony. I've ordered a tune-o-matic bridge instead. started the filing of the body curves. it's all very exciting.
more to come!

Bass build update 3

So I tackled the bass again yesterday and learned a lot more about wood-working and planning. I'm obsessively going against common-sense by building a bridge from wood. I bought these beautiful pieces of cocobolo for this purpose. I also bought another ebony fretboard scrap just in case. Anywho, after scrapping 2 good chunks of ebony with the router, I called my friend Steve and borrowed his mitre saw. Now we're talking! Carved a nice, big chunky bridge from cocobolo and recessed the body so I could slot it in solidly. It looks gorgeous... too bad it's too high! Bah. So I carved an ebony bridge form 1/4 inch stock. Much better. Now I have a nice cocobolo bridge that will just have to find a home... oh no... heh. So next is installing the Fender-style bridge saddles on to the ebony. I'm going to chisel out a small track and dremel-it round so I have a small half-barrel-like shape that the saddle will fit into. I'm gonna get at the intonation a little and hopefully I won't be too far off. If I am, I'm not worried, I'll dig up some more until I get it right. After that, time for the sound-block. So I'm doing string-through and instead of putting metal ferrules, I'll be inserting a block of cocobolo in the bottom of the body. The strings will go through that block, into the body, out through the bridge and over the saddles all the way to the headstock. I'm gonna insert the ground wire in there somewhere too.
After all that? Pickups and electronics. Strings. Finishing touches. 2 more weeks hopefully before I can get started on the other 2 I have to build.
Hooray!

Bass build update 2

Pics still in same location - you'll see I routed out the rough body shape. Ok. I learned a lot. 1 - really should create a template for the neck cavity. Lesson learned. 2 - check your router bits before using. In the 4th pic, you'll notice the right body countour has a gouge in it. The bearing to the flush router bit flew off and I didn't notice. D'oh. 3 - when you feel yourself running out of patience, stop. I didn't stop and now I have to get a new piece of ebony for the bridge. 4 - Never, ever, ever try to cut corners. Luckily, I didn't.
Next steps: bridge positioning, string-through holes to be drilled, bridge carving, stain testing, paint removal from neck, body top carving. Yeah - I'm carving the top. It's a little nuts, but I want something unique.