MIMF

This is the first proyect for a client I got, lot of time in designing phase and the client just now have the whole money for the materials, this proyect have run for a few months, like 4 or 5 by now so yes, it's been hard but now I'm closer to finishing it, so I decided to open a thread on this.


it's a 4 string "metal" bass, active electronics, well, this picture say all the info needed.



I got this "Enzino", local wood, pretty similar to chestnut and Ash, but with some differences, its a bit more trebly than chestnut, and has that "open pore tone" taptone, not sure how to explain it, but this kinda of grain in hard woods have a certain tone that I just love it, in the beggining I was planning on using as a whole body, but ended up using up as a top with a laurelia back.



the cut is perfectly riftsawn, so I will keep some wood to make some necks, if I have the chance to.



laurelia for the back, this wood is lovely to work in a lot of ways, also in tone, very light in weight, but damn it's ugly.



designing this was quite a challenge, the client loves BC-Rich but I hate them, we had to make a balance with a "functional" model as well as "good metal looks", (also something that won't make me look as an idiot), people say it looks like a leaf or a batman, either way this is the design, I grew some liking to it even though it's still like an ugly the child of the family.



I use PSD for my designs, compare them to real life pictures of other basses designs to get an idea on how would feel.



it's quite comfortable for my surprise, the template I mean.



got the enzino cut in a local wood workshop, nice guy over there, in the end I got a thinner top that I would have liked, but still will work just as well.



this pictures are quite old, now I have better clamping system than this, it still gave a good fit.



I crafted this 3 piece lingue/sirari/lingue neck blank (lingue local high quality wood, quite sweet sounding, sirari is a bolivian hardwood similar to lingue but harder) but was too sweet sounding in my opinion, so I decided to keep the blank and craft another one with a more trebly tone to it, that's the tone the client was looking for.



this was a good neck blank...



individual string saddle, the client asked for a custom string spacing, "similar to a 5 string bass", i will deal with that later, this bridge looks difficult to place, but I'm sure I'm able to.


now here are some pictures that I was talking in another forum post, about working with warped wood.
(Jequitiba)


here is the middle piece of Cumaru, an stringer to make it more rigid and give a bit of its tone


the "warping" was mostly on the edges, you can see in this pic that the warping is quite little actually


So I decided to give it a try and clamp the 3 central pieces first


and maple to the sides then, damn I hate maple for some reason..., it's so expensive and so average in quality compared to my local woods.


working with a 10° sanding jig.


and glued, I need a better way to glue it, the headstock piece slided a bit with the glue clamping procedure.


some passes on the jointer and is good to go.


truss rod channel


43mm bone nut


Headstock design, it will be a reversed headstock with the tuners below, but I designed the "normal" way and then I switch the template for the need I have.


templates go well together, there is quite good synergy between both.



On my first guitar I was very dissapointed on how the tuners aligned with the strings, or how the tuners aligned themselves, now I developed a new technique on how to design and craft a template, now the string pull is straight, the technique to drill the holes will be explained later, here is a test on some pine



so, that's it for now, I'll post some more progress as the proyect unfolds, I didn't post most of the pictures just the relevant ones, the rest are on my facebook with spanish text, if anyone have questions on a certain procedure I can detail it better.

I used this video for the headstock design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n62UVoD-14w

it's VERY long and very inefficient in its explanation, but you can adapt a lot of tips from his work on how to design your own headstocks

Great job Leonardo. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the project come together. Keep up the fine work.

Hi there, small update.

I seriously need a better fret saw, this one is getting quite dull, I want to order the stewmac one, the most affordable one http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Ty ... _only.html

more pics.

I did this to shape the end part of the neck, getting a hang on where the 24th position is and where the neck P-bass pickup is located (on the template), I wanted the most neck projection I could, this is a "bolt-in" construction, it has 6 screws holding the neck I think.




Here I am gluing a small piece of maple to complete the headstock design, it's easy to rush this step but a glue line in the headstock isn't pretty at all.



Did the tuners positions and then routed the headstock, I use double sided tape to stick the nut, then make straight lines from the first and last string, then I calculate the center of the post for the string to be straight (take in consideration string gauge and post radius) then take a line and make the rest of the posts, I mark with a drill point as you can see in the pic, I think it's more precise that way.





not sure if I'm a fan of that part, but I will deal with it for now, i guess it's strange but I will get used to it and ending up liking it.


some scrap staining tests.







the Enzino doesn't take the red stain that well and the laurelia takes it wonderfully, but it has a shade of green so it makes the red looks a bit dark, I liked the streaked black and red top, I sanded the black and applied some red tint on it, looks great, but the client wants pure red for his proyect.

that's it guys!, I really want to carve the top but sadly that's the last part of the proyect, this one will be done in a month or 2, and will sound beast if I get it right.

Hi guys, more progress. [heavy image post]


further position, the only purpose of this is getting an idea how would it look once finished. wilkinson pickups MM & an split P-bass wilkinson pickup too.




"Ming" 3 EQ preamp, it isn't the cheapest, but apparently is good quality, let just hope it works as intended, made in china.



small question how to install the black box inside the electronics cavity?, I still don't grasp active electronics at its fullest.

fretboard glued and basic shape work.





I had a little problem in this, not sure if it was dude to the neck laminate, or "how" it was clamped (maybe the surface wasn't perfectly flat) but it had a built in Up-bow, this is a one way truss rod, but it still needs a lot of work for it to make the neck straight, and without the strings, so I'm a bit worried about it.

once I finish the neck profile it shouldn't be that rigid and I'll probably gain more truss rod influence on the total neck strength, with that I'm almost sure I'll get a the final setup I need, at most the truss rod will be "too tight" but I just need to wait and hope its right.

also, the fretboard doesn't have a radius, it will have a 16" radius afterward.


I had a problem, missed the drill bit radius, It's supposed to be a 3mm but I used a 4mm drill bit, when I realized my mistake I instantly switched to the 3mm and filled with CA glue, meh, I don't bother over it so much, it's mostly visual, but then again, I could do this on purpose and fill with something else, making a 2 layer side dot.








bought an stewmac fret saw, wow this saw is beautiful, fret work is now so much easier, yes, its weird to do this after the fretboard was glued, but couldn't wait for the saw to arrive from USA (I'm from Chile) to glue the fretboard on, all the fret positions are marked with a cutter.



early carving of the neck profile.




a bit blury, but you can see the progess on the body, sorry for not having in-between pictures, I didn't had anything to take pics with.



what's on the picture:
- neck pocker
- P-bass pickup routing
- MM pickup routing.
- control knobs position.
- individual saddle 18mm spacing (instead of 19mm which is the standard)
* this have some problems due to the pickup pole placement, it COULD work, but damn, I had to measure a LOT in order to make the perfect placement, I put the neck and had some strings to play and make the perfect position, hours of work in that.

- bridge recess (it needed it, neck was too deep on the body, the bridge minimum height was higher than I expected)





the carving is in process, I route the outline and then carve away the needed.







no glue/screws neck test, passes with flying colors.


control position.



I use a lot of geometry in the control position, it needs to be harmonic, and a good pattern looks good to the eye
-the closest is volume, the next in line is pickup blend, the bottom 3 are the 3EQ treble/mid/bass
-the 3 EQ are equidistant, treble, mid & blend knob make an isosceles triangle, both lines of knobs are parallel and are parallel to the carving line (I'll try to recess the knobs, which me luck with that)



I just love this bronze dots.

and that's it!, I'll post future progress, it's almost done as you see, only the electronics/battery cavities, some carving/sanding and the finish process, thanks for reading/watching!

Wow that bass has a lot of complex routing going on. Well done.