Orange!

The neck is looking good so far - time to get some colour on the headstock and refinish the back. The back was easy once the sanding was completed. A layer of Danish oil, let it dry for a day and then apply a layer of wax. Once this is fully rubbed in it is impressively smooth.

The headstock was degreased and treated to 2 coats of grey primer from a spray can. Once dry (a few hours) this was gently rubbed down with the 2500 grit wet&dry before a coat of Ford Focus Electric Orange was applied. I had used this for the front panel of the valve amplifier and it is a great colour.

My wife Nicky had to break the sad news to me that my orange paint was in fact now gold. Perhaps it doesn't last for 18months in a cold wet garage. Maybe all the juicy orangey bits had gone mouldy? But the end result was not orange and therefore was not going to be staying. Another wander off to Halfords and I came back with a can of fluorescent orange paint. Even being *slightly* colourblind I knew I was on to a winner as it had orange written in big letters down the side. I also discovered spray glitter. I now knew what had to be done!

The previous gold was sanded back a little and 3 coats of the solid bright orange paint were added. Again, this was allowed to dry for a few hours before a light sand and a couple of glitter coats added before another 5 coats of clear lacquer were applied.

This was allowed to dry overnight before a further light sanding (to remove the bobbly finish from spray can painting) and then the T-cut was used to buff to a shine. Photos just don't do it justice. The paint is toooo bright for the ageing camera ;-)

Body Work

Now the neck is done apart from fitting a nut at some point, my attention turned to the body. I spent some time looking into hardwoods that combine a decent amount of strength and machinability and it boiled down to good ol' maple. I found a decent plank 2m x 22mm x 220mm at the local timber merchant for less than £20.

The tricky part of the body is the bottom section. This is mostly because there is no top section (see earlier sketch) and this has to take the full string tension whilst looking like a micrometer. I am going to use a stainless steel bolted sandwich style re-inforcing technique which I have mulled over with a few other engineers (thanks Robin / Chris)

To get the strengthening to fit together properly I'm going for a constant radius for the lower section. I borrowed a router (thanks again Chris!) and swapped the parallel fence for a pice of bent rod and this allowed me to cut out several semi-circles. There will be three glued together (with the steel in the middle one) eventually before it will be shaped to a round cross-section.

I need to draw out the shapes for the top horn and the pickup holding section too before I start getting the glue out in earnest. I can see this is not going to be a light guitar, but if it is rigid enough such that tuning one string doesn't mess up the other three then I'm happy!

Orange cocktail sticks!

The perspex fboard slots are looking fine, and the next job is to get a smooth radius across it. Fortunately I already had a small piece of ash left over from MoonBassAlpha that I used to check the neck radius (around 12" or so), so I was already ahead of the game. No substitute here for sandpaper and elbow grease. Give me a power tool and I could really mess things up badly, so its a case of getting the 60 grit paper out and 'aving a rub. Don't bother with abrasive paper from the cheap shops as the sand disappears at the first sign of action! Insert your own political comment here ;-)

It is the usual case of getting the shape roughly right with the 60, and then progressing through the grades (80, 120, 180, 240, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 2500) and then getting the metal polish/T-cut out to finish off. I couldn't believe that Halfords did 2500 grade paper - it's smoother than a smiling salesman covered in baby-oil. I expect.

Due to the neck widening near the heel, the constant radius causes more material to be lost at the edges there than at the head end. Because of this, the neck had to be put back on the slot cutting jig a second time so that from around the 8th slot onwards the grooves could be deepened. I suppose I should have realised this whilst cutting the slots originally, but I must have been getting hungry at the time ;-)

The frets were then pressed into the slots. Where I had recut the slots, they seemed a little wider as though the circular saw alignment was a bit adrift. A tube of superglue came to the rescue here, but on the whole, the acrylic was a good material to press frets into. None of them have fallen out yet which is the main thing.

The fboard was protected with masking tape and the frets were lightly levelled and dressed before being polished. The edges were chamfered a bit so I don't cut my pinkies.

At this stage I also sanded off the old black paint off the headstock, and the scratched lacquer off the back of the neck / head. This came up very nicely and it is starting to look like a new piece of neckery instead of a lump of old flea-bay. The visible ends of the frets were also treated to some white paint so that they do not stand out too much. I think it is safe to say this is cheating.

I then considered my options for neck dot inlays. I did not want to spoil the i-bass look from the front, so I just needed side markers. The perspex is a bit too thin at the heel end, so the markers are best placed in the carbon fibre section. I wanted to get hold of some orange plastic rod which could be cut into short lengths and would look great. Nobody I could find makes 2mm orange rod.

Whilst observing somebody in the pub with a complicated drink (ie not a pint), inspiration hit me in the form of plastic cocktail sticks. Not literally though. I scoured the local shops and online and realised that everyone is now using wooden cocktail sticks. What is up with the world? Why use environmentally friendly wood for culinary articles when cheap nasty plastic could have done the job in a much more tacky way? Plastic cocktail sticks must have gone the same way as the Kenwood sodastream, space hoppers and nylon slacks. Smeg!

The second choice was 2mm dia aluminium wire. I drilled 2mm holes in the carbon fibre (which was tougher than I thought) and then bashed the aluminium wire in, followed by some filing down and light sanding. Shiny. Quite nice and up-market looking. I still would have preferred cheap and trashy, but that's me...