Okay, so I have been building my own bass for a while now, but haven't put up any pictures. I figure it is time to remedy that. The body is now hanging and the finish is curing, which it needs to do for another week or two to let the finish harden. So here are some pictures documenting progress from the very beginning with a brief description.
Here we have the wood straight out of the packaging from the supplier. The woods are, from left to right, walnut, flame maple and alder. Good looking boards.
This is the body blank being glued up. The flame maple is a 1/4" cap on the alder and the walnut goes all the way through.
The rough body shape has been cut out. You can tell that the figure is going to really be great on this thing.
This shows how I made the neck pocket. A template was made from oak and then I used a forstner bit to get rid of the majority of the material. Afterwards, a pattern router bit was used to clean it all up.
This is the headplate being glued on to the headstock (after ears were added). I did this because the headstock was a hideous shape and color. After it was all dried, I cut out the shape and rough sanded to get what you see on the right. Before gluing, I plugged the original tuner holes with hardwood dowel and re-drilled the tuner holes where I wanted them.
This is what the headstock and body looked like after several coats of finish. They basically look just like this right now, and they are just curing up. Once the finish cures, I will rub it down, install all the hardware, put it together and string it up. Pictures will be coming when that is done in a couple weeks. In addition, the control cavity cover is made of alder just like the back, the jack plate is made of walnut instead of metal and the truss rod cover is an inverted pattern of the headstock wood (walnut, flame maple, walnut).
I hope you have enjoyed the pictures. Let me know what you think. In case you are wondering, the hardware is all gold on the body, but chrome on the headstock (haven't had the money to buy new tuners yet).
