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5 string bass guitar
spuddevans:
--- Quote from: craynerd on November 26, 2009, 03:05:29 AM ---Tim. in your last photos, is there a slot in the back of the neck and is this for the trus rod? How is this fixed in the next and can you adjust the tension on it?
Chris
--- End quote ---
Chris, Yes that is a truss rod slot cut into the front of the neck,( some manufacturers do install them from the back of the neck, Fender is one example that springs to mind, they then cover the slot with a filler strip, often in a contrasting wood to the neck, ie a walnut strip in a maple neck, but I didnt want the hassle of making a filler strip that was exactly the right size for the slot so I made my slot in the front, under where the fingerboard will sit. ) it seats just underneath the fingerboard. You can make your own truss rod if that tickles your fancy, they are just a ali U channel with a steel rod thru the centre of the U, the rod has a flat washer fixed on one end to stop it from being pulled thru the U, and the other end is threaded with another washer and a nut ( usually a hex socket type nut ).
The truss rod is positioned so that the open side of the "U" is facing the back of the fingerboard. Then when the truss rod nut is tightened it will try to bend the neck backwards, and will actually do so if you tighten it too much. The goal is to just counteract the tension that the strings are causing on the neck. Without any form of truss-rod or neck stiffening, over a relatively short time the neck would bend forward. Some builders put carbon-fibre rods in the neck to add extra stiffening, and some use what is called a double acting truss rod, but I cant remember exactly how they differ from the truss rod I described above.
Whatever type of truss rod you use, it is fixed in the slot in the neck by just a couple of dabs of epoxy, or a thin bead of silicone. The idea is to stop the U channel from moving in the slot, but to allow it to bend the neck ( if needed ). Of course, you need to design your plan so that you have access to the truss-rod nut, as you can only adjust the tension on the truss rod when the guitar is finished and strung up. ( and even after stringing it up, you will have to adjust it after a couple of weeks as the guitar settles to the tension )
Tim
raynerd:
I`m with you. Thanks for the info.
The wood is lovely, can I ask how much it would cost for the necessary timber alone at the present time, very roughly? I know it was a while back since you bought this.
I believe the gluing of the through neck is quite ticky? - did you find it so?
Chris
EDIT Tim - just re-read your first post and you mention gluing the neck...ignore that then. How are the body laminates glued to the body side of the neck?
spuddevans:
--- Quote from: craynerd on November 26, 2009, 04:18:43 AM ---The wood is lovely, can I ask how much it would cost for the necessary timber alone at the present time, very roughly?
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Well, if I remember rightly, it cost about £35 for the Zebrano body blanks, and around a total of £30 for all the neck pieces. I got them from Craft supplies Click me, I've just done a check and the prices have gone up a bit since then ( I think I bought the wood in 2002, but didnt build it til 2003 ) It pays to go up there if you can, they used to have more stuff in stock than was on the website, and you can get to look at exactly what you are buying.
The price will totally depend on what sort of wood you want, and that depends on whether you want to have a clear / stained finish with the grain of the wood showing thru, or if you want a solid colour ( ie paint ). There are some lovely guitars that are either finished with a clear coat, or stained, made out of the top grade "Flamed Maple" ( grade AAAA ). They have an almost 3d look of them, but the wood is so expensive that most would just have a 3/8" to 1" thick veneer of the AAAA grade on the top of some cheaper maple or mahogany. But if you are going to paint a solid colour as your finish there is no point spending big buck on fancy looking wood, just use some good quality plain maple, ash or mahogany. The more expensive wood doesnt add to the quality of the sound IMHO, but it sure looks pretty when finished well. If I was to make another it would most likely be a Les Paul copy with a "AAAA" flamed maple top.
--- Quote ---I believe the gluing of the through neck is quite ticky? - did you find it so?
--- End quote ---
Umm :scratch:
--- Quote ---EDIT Tim - just re-read your first post and you mention gluing the neck...ignore that then.
--- End quote ---
Ok :lol:
--- Quote ---How are the body laminates glued to the body side of the neck?
--- End quote ---
With the way that I constructed mine, the process was a little complicated because I wanted to match up the grain as best as I possibly could, but I'll try to explain it. (boy I really wish that I had taken more pics when building this :bang: Oh well, here's a 1000 words instead :lol: )
As I briefly mentioned in the 1st post, the timber as supplied from craft supplies comes as 2 planks approx 7" x 24" x 2" thick ( they do sell 1 piece body blanks now ) I carefully marked up which surfaces looked best together as the front, and also marked up the opposite faces as the back. The reason for marking both faces will become clear.
I had in mind that I wanted the front to look like it was just made out of the Zebrano, ie I wanted to cover over the "Thru-neck" laminations of maple and purpleheart. So this would require that I cut off, or Resaw, the body blanks to get 2 pieces of Zebrano approx 10mm thick.
I also had in mind that I wanted the back of the body to be similarly solid looking and covering up the "thru-neck" laminations, and to complicate things further I also wanted to have the electronics cover match the grain of the rest of the back. So this would require that I resaw the rear of the body blanks to get a approx 8mm slice.
With all these resawing operations to do, the likelihood of getting the pieces mixed up was rather large, so I employed a cunning trick to be able to identify which piece was which and also which way up ( or down, or around ) each piece should be. On one of the 2 original body blanks, before making any cuts or slices, I made a shallow saw cut down one outside edge ( across the 2" thickness ) to a depth of about 3-5mm, this was at a point that would be eventually cut off when shaping the body. On the other body blank I drilled a hole (about 3-4mm hole) thru the 2" thickness, again on the outer edge in a place that would be cut away later. By doing this, once all the slices had been made, these holes or shallow cuts would only line up correctly if the all the pieces were assembled in the right order and the right way up.
Anyway, back to your question Chris. Once I had sliced up the body blanks and cleaned them up by running them thru the surface planer, I was left with 2 top pieces, 2 middle pieces and 2 back pieces, and of course the neck that I had already laminated up. On this pic you can see some feint pencil lines indicating the thickness that the "middle" pieces of the body were, and so the amount that would have to be removed from the this part of the neck.
Once this section of the neck was reduced to the same thickness of the middle sections of the body, I then carefull measured the width of the neck and removed half the neck-width's amount from the center of each middle body section so that when assembled, the grain from both top pieces would match as closely as possible thru the middle and back sections. Then it was just a case of gluing the middle sections to either side of the neck, carefully clamping it up while checking that nothing moves, then just wait 24hrs before removing clamps.
This electronic CoC might help confuse matters further
Then it became much easier for attaching the 2 top pieces, after making sure that the previous assembly was plained and sanded perfectly flat, glue was applied and then the top pieces were clamped on using as many clamps as I could lay my hands on.
The same process was used for the back, except on the back I had to rout out a recess for the electronics and I had to make the cutout for the electronics cover before gluing the back pieces on.
Basically it is all held together with good quality woodglue, there are no screws or bolts holding it together. ( why couldn't I have just wrote this at the start and saved boring you all :lol: )
Tim
spuddevans:
I forgot to say that I got most of my hardware ( tuners, bridges, pickups and guitar-specific tools from Stewmac in the US. The delivery was incredibly fast, I ordered on monday evening and it arrived on thursday morning @10am.
It was shortly after this that I found out about import taxes :lol:
Tim
EDIT
I've just had a look at Stemac's site, whoa :jaw: prices seem to have graduated northwards since I last bought off them.
Bernd:
Thanks for the indepth description of how an electric guitar works. Makes a lot more sense now.
Bernd
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