Electric Bass Guitar Build

[Julie Moriarty]

This whole moving thing is really putting a damper on finishing the bass. I can't do much more than 10-15 minutes work on it in a given day. Most days I'm too tired to work on it at the end of the day. The flagstone patio left me drained. Then a new AC condenser had to be installed and since I could save over $1K to DIY, I did the DIY. A new kitchen floor, finish up way too many loose ends (still working on that) and the luthier business is all but forgotten.

What I'm afraid of is moving to a house that needs work. That bass may never get done!

[george wilson]

You are amazing,Julie!!

[george wilson]

Julie,where are you? Moving,I think?

[Julie Moriarty]

Hi George, I'm in not so sunny Florida now. I was supposed to fly back home tonight but the flight was cancelled. I'll be flying back Saturday now. I've been looking at homes where I can set up shop but from what I'm seeing, there aren't many woodworkers down here except those who work on boats. I'm going to cut down a big palm tree and make the world's biggest flute.

[george wilson]

You are down there in the stormy season,I suppose,Julie. One think I HATE about living in the east is hurricane weather. It gives me a headache. So damp and dark. Many years ago I met a flamenco guitar maker in Hialeah(sp?) Everyone there apologizes for Miami. I went over there and bought a small milling machine one year,while my wife was laying on the beach.

You are going to have to invest in some kind of dehumidification system for your shop,or your instruments will crack,or move in the glue lines if they are solid bodies. Get down to 50% AT LEAST and keep it there. One trick in making acoustics is to measure the width of soundboards and warm them in front of a heat source,like a fire place or open oven door. Reduce width by over 1/32" for a guitar,then quickly glue it down. If you saw my movie,I was doing that to the spinet soundboard,reducing it by 1/16" before gluing it down. They did that in the 18th. C.. It worked for the spinet-it never has cracked.

I would do that both before adding the braces,and then again before gluing the top or back on. Don't over do it,or your spruce will suddenly radically suck in at the hottest point and get ruined.

[Julie Moriarty]

Now that I won't be moving for several more months, I decided to unpack what I needed to continue on the bass. I made up a template for routing the pickup pockets and routed away.

The holes I drilled earlier for the wires ended up in just the right spots.


The pickups fit very snugly. I may have to give them a bit more room.


And the wires fished through the holes no problem Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do about mounting the pickups...

[Julie Moriarty]

I was in the shop experimenting with how I'm going to mount the pickups. I made another bridge cover out of Gabon Ebony but only trimmed it for the pickup.

I was thinking of taking shapes from the headstock and using them to design bridge cover.


Whether I used the maple (above) or the ebony, I'd have to create something less boring. Nothing I could imagine really worked. I had hit a creative wall.

After taking the pictures and posting them to my website, I decided to take another look to see if I could find a second gold pickup cover. Again, Pick of the Ricks was out of them. So was Reverb and a few other places. Then I went to the Rickenbacker website and they had them! Let's hope they don't cancel my order now. I think I'll get some gold mounting screws and see how everything looks with just the gold pickup covers in place. If they look okay, I may abandon any cover over them.

[Julie Moriarty]

Now that the move has been postponed, I unpacked the tools I need to start back up. I think we're getting closer to deciding which inlays to use. No one ever accused my SO of making snap decisions. In the mean time, I'm starting on the Tru-Oil. I wiped on a very thin coat today.

I was having a hard time getting the camera set so the true colors came through. It's a new camera. The pic on the left is closer to the actual color but still doesn't do it justice. Basement lighting doesn't help.

[Shawn Pixley]

Yay! She's back!

[Julie Moriarty]

Oh, good, you're here. Now I don't have to come and get you.

I've never done inlay. But since I knew it was the next logical step in my guitar education, I bought the tools I thought I'd need. That was probably 5-6 months ago. I've played with them a bit but haven't gained the skills that give me the confidence to proceed with the work on my own.

My SO still hasn't placed the order but I'm pretty sure these are the ones I'll be installing. There's talk about an inlay on the headstock too but that seems to be bringing about even more indecision than the fretboard inlays.

I think row #3 is the front runner. They call it Black MOP. #1 & #2 would stand out better with a
Gabon ebony fretboard. I'm having a hard time picturing #3 with the fretboard we have.
Any thoughts?

Anyway, my plan is to locate the top edge of the fretwire and come up about 1/16" to 1/8" and make that the bottom of the inlay. The pictures I've seen of inlays that run the width of the fretboard look like there's a small bit of wood showing between the fretwire and inlay.

This looks more like 1/8"

But these look closer to 1/16"


The top inlays don't span the FB width but the bottom ones pretty much do. I don't know what we might be getting.

Now comes the part that I fear I may have created problems for myself - I already did the radius on the fretboard. At the time I was in autopilot and had no idea what would happen with inlays. I was thinking we'd just do dots.

Once the dots fell from grace and I started looking into Ric-like inlays, my plan was to score the edges of the inlay and use a Dremel to rout up to the scored lines. Problem is, I'm guessing those inlays will be pretty rigid and need a flat surface to be glued to. Shell doesn't bend, it breaks. The only way I can envision routing a flat bottom on a curved surface is to build guide rails along the neck.

The other thing I'm wondering is in regards to the thickness of the inlay. If I rout the center depth to the maximum thickness of the inlay, will there be enough shell left on the outer edges once they are sanded down to match the radius?

Is this what I have ahead of me if we go with this type of inlay?

[Ted Calver]

Just a thought from an unskilled observer, but by placing inlay so close to the fret (1/16") along almost the entire length of the fret aren't you creating a very thin raised ridge of chipable end grain wood between the inlay and the fret? Don't know how thick the inlay is, but it seems like an area for potential problems if the fret is a pressure fit? I always try and see what might go wrong so I can avoid it.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was thinking the same, Ted. But when I imagined the inlays glued in place and sanded flush with the fretboard, I thought maybe that would support whatever pressure the fret tangs apply. Another thought was the superglue holding the inlay might give. I don't know how much pressure those tangs apply.

[John Coloccia]

Julie, you're asking all of the right questions. Honestly, I don't know how they handle the thickness of the MOP the full width of the fingerboard. You'll need this calculator:

http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/sag.htm

It's not a terribly difficult formula to derive, but the calculator makes it easy. What's the radius on the bass?

I wouldn't worry too much about getting close to the frets. Some people do inlay work that essentially runs under the frets. Once it's all glued in place, it won't matter anymore. Just be diligent when you remove the frets for a fret job. Fixing a chip can be a little more work if you have to clean and polish the MOP again.

I'll also give you the admonishment that sanding a lot of the MOP will not do pleasant things to the figure. In general the prettiest figure is right on the edge of the shell, and the more you sand, the more you'll get into a more boring figure. Not a big deal, of course, but we worry about stupid stuff like this! Higher quality will have stronger figure the whole way through, but costs a lot more of course.

Normally, you'd inlay into a flat pocket, but I'm not really sure how to handle something like this. It's not anything I've every done or really have ever planned on doing because I don't personally like big fingerboard inlays. I'm really not sure how to do it without sanding the MOP away to nothing. I think you'll probably need at least .07" or .08" thick to make it work, and a lot of fingerboard inlays are only around .050, or so.

Calling George!!

[Shawn Pixley]

Julie,

Pick the aesthetic that you like. The difference in strength between 1/8" and 1/16" will not matter when they are glued in.

The best book to read is, "The Art of Inlay & Expanded: Design & Technique for Fine Woodworking

When you do a broad inlay across the fretboard, the inlay is typically completed before radiusing the fingerboard. You'll start with a flat inlay and your shaping occurs after the inlay is complete (It may be done before gluing, but the bottom and pockets are much easier on flat work). You edges need to be really square to get good seams. The inlay needs to be thicker than most as the outer edges would get thinned out substantially. You'll need to be careful. With some inlay materials the pattern on top may be substantially different than that below. For that reason, be sure that you are not using a laminated inlay. John's comments are right on target. If you were doing an old school Fender with a 7.25" radius, it would need to be really thick. Ricky fretboards are flatter, so that won't be as much of a problem. You can calculate the drop across the fretboard using either mathematics or by drawing in CAD / Sketchup.

I do my inlay with either a Foredom or Dremel with Stewmac's router base and various small carbide mills. All the edge work is done by hand and sharp chisel / knife. You will need good magnifiers, good caliper for depth, and get the work up close where you can see it. It can of gourse be totally done by hand as well, but it takes much longer. The fitting is a careful work up to the inlay dropping in the recess. If you try to force it, the inlay will break. The inlay can be pieced together to address the radius rather than one thick piece. I cut my own inlays rather than buying them pre-cut. I have commercially prepared blank stack as well as Abalone shell that I picked up at a garage sale. I prepare it with a water cooled ring saw and a watercooled belt sander. PM me if you want further detail. The knife inlay I did was ~1/4" thick. The inlay I did for my wife's Jade inlay is similarly thick (her will be carved as well).

When you are cutting/sanding the inlay, keep the dust out of your lungs. Silicosis is not good. I set up a shop vac behind the bench pin when cutting. Do the same when sanding.

[John Coloccia]

Incidentally, one thing I normally do is I make the inlay pockets before radiusing, but I tend to glue the inlays in AFTER radiusing. The reason is that the inlay sands differently than the wood, and it can be difficult to radius evenly if you have a lot of MOP on one side and a lot of wood on the other. Once I glue it in, I take a relatively coarse file and get the inlays level with the wood. The coarse file tends to cut the MOP, but just mostly just skips over the wood without doing too much to it. My favorite file for this is the StewMac "fret leveling file", which I never actually use to level frets because that would be ridiculous, but I do use it all the time for this and fret ends.

http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools...ing_Files.html

A bit pricey, but gets the job done. I wonder where they buy the blank for the file? Could be Nicholson but I doubt it...this file seems a bit nicer. Really, though, anything resembling something like a bastard mill file would probably work.