Building Bass no. 5

The ash has magnificent flames but also greener tones than the maple and spruce, so I put some green in with the primer for the top and neck which has helped to balance it out. Tomorrow we can start with the colour varnish.

Today was a nice change of pace, going slowly and thoroughly over the whole instrument preparing the ground.  The three different wood types react quite differently with the stain. The differences will be evened out in the varnish process by adjusting the colour for the different parts. The flames in the ash came out so beautifully with the primer.

 Finished all the neck shaping and details and went over all the edges and glue joints so we're all ready to go tomorrow. All the measurements and angles are looking good and the bolted neck joint is super strong. 

 Over the weekend I've done the last details and glued fingerboard and saddle. So we should be ready to varnish tomorrow. It'll just be final shaping of neck and checking everything in the morning. 

Fitted and glued purfling on the back and carried on shaping the neck. Here you can see the carbon fibre reinforcement and the space for the next CF reinforcement around the neck bolt.

This morning the sun was out after days of rain. I had my morning tea outside. Then I finished planing the shape of the fingerboard and glued in a carbon fibre reinforcement into the neck. By the afternoon the bass parts had been in the dehumidifier for 3 days and it was finally time to glue them together. It was quite special to get to that milestone and also I really enjoyed planing the fingerboard. This is such an important part of the instrument as it is the main point of contact with the musician's hands.

Still working on lowering the humidity of the body before gluing. While that was happening I continued working on the scroll. It's nearly finished, just the button and the chamfering left. I'm waiting to get the exact neck angle before cutting away the pegbox below the nut. Axel 3-D printed fingerboard templates for me.