MIMF

Then I glued the fingerboard on. This is just to show you what it looks like when I don’t tidy up for the photo. HFN MIMF 040.JPG On to the next minor disaster… When I glued the fingerboard on I masked off the neck and fingerboard and the nut area to make it easier cleaning up glue squeeze-out. The ...

Well, the 'VIEWS' count keeps going up, so I suppose someone must be watching. Actually, I find it a bit annoying when I see there are new messages on a thread I've been following, so I click on it and wait for it to download, only to find that the new message is 'Awesome'. So I very rarely add that...

So now I could glue it onto the back of the headstock, and thereby hangs the tale of the second minor disaster involving this accursed bit of wood! To make sure the 1/16” maple (and the thin black dyed veneer I’m going to put under it) is pressed hard against the back of the headstock in the curved ...

The next job was to fit the backstrap veneer. First I need to take the headstock down to its finished thickness by removing the bulk of the material on the bandsaw. HFN MIMF 027.JPG Then I sanded it down to finished thickness on my home made ‘Luthier’s Friend’. HFN MIMF 028.JPG Here it is finished. ...

It's here Jason; it was some time ago.

http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2094

By the way, Jeremy makes some beautiful instruments. Have a look at his website.

Then planed and scraped the bindings flush with both sides of the fingerboard.

Thanks again Mark. Here's a bit more. I bound the fingerboard as I think it’s more in keeping with the ebony ‘framing’ of the tuner block and pickups so before binding it I had to cut the fret slots. To do that I made this jig following the instructions given by Jeremy Fullerton on the Australia/New...

Here it is in place.

Thanks Mark. Now to move on to the headstock veneer. I started by cutting out my headstock inlay using a jeweller’s piercing saw. HFN MIMF 015.JPG Managed to cut it out without breaking it (or the blade!). HFN MIMF 016.JPG But the problem now is that this MOP is just about the same colour as the map...

Now I cut the slots for the carbon fibre stiffening bars on the ‘router table’ in the same way as the truss-rod slot. The bars are1/8” wide and ½” deep and are partially let into the fingerboard as well as the neck. As the neck is mostly light weight mahogany, I thought it might be a good idea to st...

I’ve left out the ‘forest of clamps’ photo so here, after gluing, I’m trimming the filet down flush with the surface of the neck blank.

Thanks Jason and Chad. The headstock angle is 10°. Next job was to cut the slot for the truss rod. I actually have a cheap router table which would have done the job except that the guides on the table don’t move far enough away from the cutter at the limit of their adjustment (grr). Serves me right...

As I wanted to keep the instrument as light as possible I decided to make the neck from mahogany with a couple of walnut laminations and carbon fibre stiffening bars. I bought two mahogany billets 4” x 4” x 39” a few years ago and one of them was a lot lighter in weight (and colour) than the other, ...

Thanks David. Compliments from a real professional are always particularly appreciated.
But I must reiterate, this is a sort of time-lapse thread. If I'd posted as I was making the bass, the posts would be much less frequent. It took me about a year in all.

Erm... don't know if I'm allowed to point people to other forums for the same thread.

Although the shape of the covers follows the progression of the ‘fan’ and the spread of the strings, the pickups themselves only need a rectangular space which allows me to glue in reinforcement at each end. I made these from an off-cut of alder from the body. After sanding the block until it just s...

Thanks Chuck. Hope all's well with you and yours. I now moved on to the pickup covers. The first step was to cut another piece off that lump of ebony and transform this into 4 strips each with a small rebate along one edge. HFP MIMF 001.JPG Each strip was cut into over-size lengths and the ends beve...

Thanks Paul, here's a little more. I took one of the off-cuts from the top and sliced it up. Here’s a book-matched pair after jointing, gluing up, sanding and wiping with alcohol to show up the figure. HFB MIMF 006.JPG Now I went back and finished the tuner block cover. Although I don’t have any pho...

Hans Bezemer wrote:But now I want to know even more what the final result is

"Patience grasshopper" (that's showing my age).

You're making some good progress! I wish I really could work at this speed. I obviously didn't make myself clear at the beginning of this thread. The bass is actually finished and was the subject of a marathon blow-by-blow thread on another forum. As I know that not everyone visits every forum (imp...