Saturday, yea. I got up late, showered, picked a few tomatillos and headed for town for coffee, then off to the farmers market. Pineapple guavas, oh yea, a cauliflower from Moreen, a chayote, a wee melon and a head of garlic as mine are running low. Mind, my garden onions and garlic are doing great with the new gopher wired bed.
A stop at Sally’s, I found a nice Jansen back pack in the bins along with glue sticks and a nice leather pouch that would make a good rune pouch.
That and an egg steamer pan not pictured as I was thinking of one as I was waking up. Mom had one, crack the eggs in the small cups and steam in a water pan to poach them even. Good scores and a dollar hot dog for Halloween. Home.
Break out the printed bass plans for measurements as I’m making an electric bass guitar. Last week I received the tuners, pickups and truss rod. By the plans I’ll need 44 inches, I’ll cut 45 1/2. Maximum depth with the head stock is 2 1/2. I have a 1 inch maple board and its warped. If I glue the two boards opposing together the warp will cancel out. I’ll need a third board to make the neck thickness. OK, I cut the board into 2 1/2 inch pieces. That was a mistake. I found another board, not sure what it is, hardwood 2 1/2 inches thick. I cut it down to 7/16 and added it to the other two. This will work well. I set all my clamps to fit this width, found a scrap trimmed for a glue spreader. Titebond alphetic resin even on, parchment paper down, clamps on tight. Wash it down to remove the excess glue, we’re good let it dry.
Time to cook something for lunches. A full TJ’s chicken breast, freeze the other two, onion, carrots, a stick of celery, some of the cauliflower with leaves, bouquet garni herbs from the garden and tiny orzo noodles. Great soup with chicken broth and a dash of white wine boiled down to perfection. Late lunch, three containers and another bite I just tasted, yum.
As the glue was mostly dry I cut the seven inch left over piece in half, sanded the cut face on the lapidary to book match it and glued it to the neck at an angle that fit, double clamped. We have a lot of material here, plenty to carve down to a beautiful neck, head piece and central body. My mistake was to cut half the board into 2 1/2 inch pieces, Now I’ll have to get another board for the wings, oh well. The walnut I have is too short to fit. I could use an old piece of ash I have, better to just get another piece of maple. It’s just wood.
The neck is clamped and glued up.
The head is glued on at an angle.
I’m looking at a few designs for the body to fit. I have a large excess of neck stock to carve down, this is good. I’ll use the band saw next to carve major parts down to close to size, then whittle it in to right on as the other parts join.
A good beginning, I pulled out the new parts to see how they will fit, the truss rod and tuner.
They will need to be fitted in, we will do this.
My friend Wayne Johnson is making a couple fret board blanks of Macassar ebony from wood I provided, an old 20 year stash. I’ll need to cut in the frets on order using the pattern I laid out on the milling machine using the digital read out, very accurate, the pen is the fudge factor and this is wood, it’ll be right.. A good day, more tomorrow
This is becoming a fun project.
8shotoflove8 