Tales from my workbench

[DaveH]

That is simply mind blowing! Awesome work!

[slingblader]

2 minutes ago, DaveH said:

That is simply mind blowing! Awesome work!

Thanks, man, I appreciate it

[slingblader]

Haven't been around much lately, and haven't done much in the way of building this year. But I was able to get one project completed this summer, so here are some pictures and an overview. 

I bought this 1978 Jazz bass from a friend of mine (who owned a music store at the time) back in 2000... I think. It had been refinished several times and it had a natural finish when I bought it.

It is a typical mid-70's heavy-assed Fender with a fairly "gappy" 3-bolt neck pocket, but it sounds great. It has all original hardware and electronics, but 2 of the 3 pots are damaged.  I never really cared for the natural finish and always wanted to change it, but keeping all hardware as original as was practical. 

Anyway, I stripped the body and started to examine it more closely. Someone (or maybe multiple people) had oversanded the body severely in several areas. The only way to fix it would be to take about 3/16" off the top, laminate on new wood, and reshape, etc. It was at that point that I just decided it wouldn't be much more work to just build a new body from Alder instead of ash. It would be lighter, and it would be less work to refinish since there would be less pore filing. 

This is the way I bought it (I added the pearloid pickguard, but I have the original black one as well as all the chrome covers. 

 

Here you can see in the neck pocket some leftover finish from a previous refin... and that someone sanded a nice divot in the pocket with some 80 grit on a random orbit sander. Very nice work.

 

And here at the bridge end of the body, the contour is severely over sanded and shaped incorrectly. 

 

So, cutting to the chase here. I made a new 2 piece body from some alder that I had on hand. I duplicated the 3 bolt layout and other features of the mid-70's Jazz body as best I could. The original body was 5 pieces of ash, and from what I can tell, it left the factory with a natural finish. (the original markings are still in the bottom of the pickup cavities with clear poly over them. 

 

Here it is mocked up for a quick sanity check.

 

In the booth shot was a sealer coat.

 

Next was a black base coat.

 

I decided to stray from standard mid-70s Fender colors and shot it with a color shifting pearl over the black.

 

In the booth getting some clear over the pearl coat.

 

After polishing, on the bench with a fresh setup. It got new pots, a new bridge, new strap buttons and some new screws, but the rest is original. I wanted to freshen it up and get rid of the rusty bits. Of course I kept all the original parts.

 

And a few glamour shots on the sofa.

 

 

 

It sounds great, plays great and is about 1.5lbs lighter, which is great. I may put this one up for sale next year, and of course the original body and parts would go with it. I have so many basses at this point, I need to cut down the inventory.

[PaGator]

Wow, outstanding. Great color choice. Top notch craftsmanship as always. Thanks for sharing.

[hamerhead]

That looks phenomenal. I miss your build posts.

[Cboss]

Holy shit you do amazing work...

[cmatthes]

8 hours ago, slingblader said:

Haven't been around much lately, and haven't done much in the way of building this year. But I was able to get one project completed this summer, so here are some pictures and an overview. 

I bought this 1978 Jazz bass from a friend of mine (who owned a music store at the time) back in 2000... I think. It had been refinished several times and it had a natural finish when I bought it.

It is a typical mid-70's heavy-assed Fender with a fairly "gappy" 3-bolt neck pocket, but it sounds great. It has all original hardware and electronics, but 2 of the 3 pots are damaged.  I never really cared for the natural finish and always wanted to change it, but keeping all hardware as original as was practical. 

Anyway, I stripped the body and started to examine it more closely. Someone (or maybe multiple people) had oversanded the body severely in several areas. The only way to fix it would be to take about 3/16" off the top, laminate on new wood, and reshape, etc. It was at that point that I just decided it wouldn't be much more work to just build a new body from Alder instead of ash. It would be lighter, and it would be less work to refinish since there would be less pore filing. 

This is the way I bought it (I added the pearloid pickguard, but I have the original black one as well as all the chrome covers. 

 

Here you can see in the neck pocket some leftover finish from a previous refin... and that someone sanded a nice divot in the pocket with some 80 grit on a random orbit sander. Very nice work.

 

And here at the bridge end of the body, the contour is severely over sanded and shaped incorrectly. 

 

So, cutting to the chase here. I made a new 2 piece body from some alder that I had on hand. I duplicated the 3 bolt layout and other features of the mid-70's Jazz body as best I could. The original body was 5 pieces of ash, and from what I can tell, it left the factory with a natural finish. (the original markings are still in the bottom of the pickup cavities with clear poly over them. 

 

Here it is mocked up for a quick sanity check.

 

In the booth shot was a sealer coat.

 

Next was a black base coat.

 

I decided to stray from standard mid-70s Fender colors and shot it with a color shifting pearl over the black.

 

In the booth getting some clear over the pearl coat.

 

After polishing, on the bench with a fresh setup. It got new pots, a new bridge, new strap buttons and some new screws, but the rest is original. I wanted to freshen it up and get rid of the rusty bits. Of course I kept all the original parts.

 

And a few glamour shots on the sofa.

 

 

 

It sounds great, plays great and is about 1.5lbs lighter, which is great. I may put this one up for sale next year, and of course the original body and parts would go with it. I have so many basses at this point, I need to cut down the inventory.

Fantastic job, as always!  Love that.  It reminds me a LOT of my late son’s second favorite gigging bass… 

[ZR]

So cool to see the awesome talent people on this board possess!!

[BubbaVO]

That shifting Pearl … wow. 

[gorch]

Very nice bass and color.

[slingblader]

Hey gang, been a while since I've updated this thread. Hope everyone here is doing well. Truthfully, I've been going through some crap and my marriage is coming to an end. That drama should be over in roughly 2 weeks, although I'm sure I'll be putting up with aftershocks for quite a while.  I'm staying in the house, so I'll still have my garage and I'm pretty stoked about that. 

To top that off, 2 days after Christmas, my dog was attacked by another dog while we were out for a walk. I won't go into details, but it was literally the most traumatic event of my life. Long story short, there was a large hole in my dog's leg that had to be treated as an open wound due to the tissue damage. We have just now begun taking walks in the past week and getting back to our normal routine. 

To help me escape and just simply stay out of the house as much as possible over the past 8 weeks or so, I started a bass build to keep me occupied. The project is nearly complete, so I won't really be posting play by play commentary. Instead I'll make a few larger posts with the highlights. I have another bass build coming up soon that I'm making for a friend of mine, so I'll be sure to post progress as I go on that one. 

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to further develop the design that I posted last year.  Remember this one? 

I love that bass. I honestly play it all the time, it just sounds fantastic and plays great and is very comfortable. I decided to make a 5 string version in 37-34" scale length. I also wanted to widen the body across the upper bout. The bass looks bigger in pictures than it actually is and it is just tiny across the waist. I just wanted it to be a little more substantial. This version will also have a very thin body with a carved core and drop top glued on with vacuum clamping. 

I have a sort of an evil twin or maybe a yin/yang thing planned for the 5 string and it will largely be black to contrast its predecessor, which I'll admit is a little on the flamboyant side.  

Here is a shot of the original body template laying over the new body outline. It isn't a huge difference, but I like it. I also made the lower left bout shorter... although that is covered up in this picture.

I loved that laminated neck combination on the last one, so I did it again. Hard maple, mahogany and bloodwood all separated with black dyed poplar pinstripes. 13 total laminates.

Truss rod being installed and laying out reference marks. I decided to change my order of operations and leave the neck blank full thickness as long as possible this time. This made a lot of other processes easier, but I was concerned that I'd be screwed if the neck moved after it was cut down. 

Here I've attached headstock wings to accommodate the headstock width. I've also already cut the compound headstock angle. It's a little more work to do that, but you don't end up with an awkward triangular transition up by the nut if you use a compound angle.

Slotted and radiused the fretboard, then cut the taper using a template at the router table. 

Here I've routed the binding channel as well as the steps for the "winglets" for my headstock design. This looks extra confusing because the neck blank is still full thickness. 

Installed the headstock binding ala a Les Paul Custom.

Prepped up some bloodwood and black poplar veneers to accent my winglets.

I definitely wanted to use this neck mounting technique again. I am convinced that the brass is a big part of why there is such clarity in the lower register of that 4 string multi scale that I built. I mean the multi scale aspect does play a part, but this system is just so rock solid, it's ridiculous. It mounts with 6 1/4" 20 furniture bolts. 

The extra holes are for weight relief, not for more bolts.

Installed and trimmed the winglet accents.

Glued on the ebony fretboard and installed multi-ply binding. I love this look.

Fret slots still need to be cleaned out and that fretboard extension still needs to be trimmed flush, but it is coming together nicely here. 

 

OK, that was a lot for one post, I'll put more up over the next few days. 

[specialk]

Killer Diller, man! You have very good taste as well as excellent skills. Sorry to hear about the dog. 

[hamerhead]

Dooood! That is way too nice for a bass player.

Your vision - and your ability to make it a reality - is incredible. Thanks for sharing with us mere mortals.

[Dave Scepter]

Holy shit man... You've got some skills to die for!.. sorry about your current situation, 

 

Edited March 14, 2024 by Dave Scepter

[DaveH]

That is so killer dude! Love everything about the design, and the enhancements!

Sorry about your doggo, I'm glad he is recuperating. Also sorry about the stress of the divorce.

[Jimbilly]

oh my!!  - where's the "wow!!!" in the 'like' options?! 

[a.bandini]

I'm glad you are able to stay in your house, and your workshop. 

Your work is always especially impressive, thanks for sharing it. 

Good luck, to you and your hound!

[Travis]

Sorry to hear about all the stress and trauma over the last bit of time. Thankfully you have an outlet and an amazing talent with which to occupy yourself. Love seeing your build posts. You, sir, have a gift. 

[slingblader]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. This project has been a nice escape for sure. 

Here's some more progress shots of the 5 string project.

Got the neck fretted while it was still full thickness.

 

Here's the neck after it was cut to rough thickness on the band saw.

 

Got the fretboard extension trimmed flush and cleaned up a bit.

 

Drilled out the tuner holes and did a little sanity check to be sure that the washers weren't hanging out too far.

 

Here I've roughly cut the outline of the body and have started to work on the body carve by routing elevation changes in a topographical approach.

 

 

I primarily used scrapers to blend the steps together for the top carve.

 

Once the steps are blended by scraping, I switch over to sanding and smooth it out. 

 

I'm using quilted maple again for this top. In fact, it is cut from the same billet as the white bass. That bookmatched top was already glued together and brought down in thickness previously. Here I've glued it to the body using plastic resin glue and indexed with a couple of screws. The whole thing goes in a vacuum bag for a few hours until the glue sets. 

 

More soon.

[slingblader]

OK, much of the drama around here has ended, so here is some more progress from this project.

Pattern routed the body to its final outline, then used this rig to route the binding channel.

 

Got the bindings installed with lots of cussing, some patience and a heat gun.

 

Bindings were trimmed flush.

 

I laid out reference lines and carved the neck using the facet method.

 

Here it is mostly complete and finishing up the volute.

 

Drilled for bridges, routed pickup and neck cavities. 

 

Working on the belly carve here.

 

Got it all assembled, then tore it back down and prepped for finishing. 

 

I'll cover the finishing in the next post.

 

 

[slingblader]

Prior to this stage, I had used wood bleach in several applications to lighten the maple as much as possible. After that, I applied black dye a couple of times to get to this stage. I used denatured alcohol to strategically wipe back some of the black and to specifically highlight the figure lines. The picture below is after the dye application, but before the wipe back and cleanup.

 

Scraping the bindings here.

 

Next, I shot everything with a coat of Simtec sealer, which is a catalyzed sealer. 

 

Once that dried overnight, there were a lot of open pores in the quilted maple (that stuff can be a bit spongey), so I put on a few applications of Aqua Coat, which is a clear pore filler. I didn't want a super heavy build of the Simtec sealer, so I tried this to shorten up the process. That dried quickly, then I block sanded everything flat.

 

I shot one more coat of sealer on the top, then shot the back with black base coat. Then I shot 3 coats of clear on everything. 

 

 

I used the 3M Perfect it 1 Step program to polish it out. That consists of damp sanding with their 2000, 3000 and 8000 grit foam pads and their 1 step polish. It works fine, but I think their original 3 step program is a little better, just more messy. 

 

 

Some better finished pics in the next post.
 

[slingblader]

And a few shots from the sofa. 

 

 

 

This is definitely one of my favorite builds so far. I like the changes that I made to the body and it is still very light at 7lb 12oz. The 6 bolt neck joint with the inset brass bars is super solid and makes the fundamentals very strong, but to me it has more character than my neck through designs. Hard to put my finger on, but it sounds amazing and it rings like a Steinway.

[cmatthes]

As always, just fantastic work!  Great pics, and you seriously floor me with your talent.

 

Great to see ya back in the saddle!

[slingblader]

4 hours ago, cmatthes said:

As always, just fantastic work!  Great pics, and you seriously floor me with your talent.

 

Great to see ya back in the saddle!

Thanks, Chris! Good to be back. I'll be starting a P bass next month for a buddy of mine, I'll be sure to post the progress. Its going to be a unique mash up of sorts.

[kizanski]

13 hours ago, slingblader said:

 

I don’t know which one I like more.