I needed a new bass, and wanted to experiment with bubinga as a neck wood.
It’s got a maple body, and the fingerboard is maple with an offset bubinga stringer.
(3/29/21 Update)
Before:
After:
Since we had updated our finishing methods, I felt that the old Tru oil method didn’t do this bass any justice.
Also, I wanted to try enhancing the grain reversal (aka figure) of the maple, with the application of black leather dye.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see all of the (updated) fun procedural documentation.
The Process:
Starting as most builds do, I snagged this piece of bubinga for less than $30. I made several cuts and glued them together so the end result would be a 3-piece neck.
As you can see, the bubinga alone was about a foot short.
So I grafted on some maple to the 3-piece bubinga neck, at a 60 degree lap-joint.
This was a very cleanly glued neck joint that will be buried into the body under the top cap, and body wings, so structural integrity won’t be an issue.
I designed this body shape specifically for this build.
It’s not too radically different from standard guitar/bass shapes, but we ended up using it for several other builds afterwards.
This fingerboard was an experiment of sorts, but I was rather pleased at the end result.
Body wings are glued to the neck stringer. Then the fingerboard is glued.
Next the neck is routed flush to the fingerboard.
Now for the top cap.
Covering the cap in naphtha will give you a pretty good idea of what it’ll look like with finish.
Note the subtle flaming.
Top cap is on and routed flush. Along with the headstock.
Now for the finish.
Finish is done, now for the frets. I used the super extra jumbo frets from Allparts.
Nobody else makes fretwire even remotely this big.
It’s amazing.
This was the finished product with the Tru oil finish.
Update: The Refinishing Process
This worked ok, but ultimately I got sick of how flat the grain looked.
The new finish was an experimentation of applying black leather dye to the bare wood, then sanding it back, so that the black dye would only stay in the areas of figured endgrain runout.
After that, a layer of penetrating butcher block oil was applied to enhance the grain, followed by the Brite-tone Crystallac clear-coat finish from LMI.
Wasn’t sure how it would come out, but since this is my personal bass, it happened to be the perfect guinea pig.
The first step was to strip the finish, which included a lot of sanding.
This took hours and was super tedious, and as such, I didn’t bother to snap a picture of it.
But you get the idea.
Once all the finish was off, the entire bass was coated with black leather dye, and hung up to dry.
The instrument was again sanded back, with careful attention paid to sanding the pigment down as evenly as possible, using a foam block with 180-grit sandpaper.
You can see in the above pic how the black dye accentuates the figure of the maple top.
I could have stopped sanding here, but I didn’t want to obscure the natural colors of the ambrosia and spalt, within the maple.
So I opted for a more subtle grain enhancement, and kept sanding through the black.
With the sanding finished, and only a small amount of black left on the body, I vacuumed off the dust and water-popped the grain.
The dye wasn’t affected by this, since it is soluble in alcohol, not water.
After the water was evaporated with the heat gun, the instrument got a light scuff sanding with 220-grit.
The maple looks like it got bleached, which was slightly concerning, since I’m not a fan of crisp white maple.
Fortunately, the color of the wood softened up quite a bit after the butcher block oil was applied.
This oil seems to penetrate and really bring out the character of the grain, without yellowing the wood or adding any unnatural coloration to it.
It provides a nice warmth that is absent from the other undercoatings/sealers I’ve tried, and is especially necessary when using a non-oil based clear topcoat.
With this method, the finished product has the depth and lustre of an oil-based finish, but with all of the “ease-of-application” benefits of water-based finishes.
As an added bonus, each coat burns into the previous coat, and it is totally devoid of any blushing (which can happen when applying in humid conditions), and is harder and more durable than the previous methods I’ve tried.
A total of 15 coats of Crystallac were brushed on, then level-sanded with 1000-grit wet/dry sandpaper.
Then sanded again, incrementing the sandpaper grit by +500, through 3000-grit, then polished on the buffer.
As you can see, there is a lot more depth with the updated finishing process, versus the Tru oil method.
The new frets have been installed, and are now being filed flush on the edges.
Due to the sheer size of these frets, this is quite the time-consuming task.
I also took some time to make a new nut.
This was not by choice – the previous nut was glued in a little too well, and ended up taking some chunks of wood with it, upon vacating the slot.
So, sticking to the experimental nature of this instrument, I made a 3-piece bone/ebony/bone asymmetrical scalloped nut.
Sonically, I can’t tell the difference between this nut and the old one, but it’s cool to look at.
At some point, I will add a 3-band EQ, so I relocated the jack to the side, and added a 4th knob to the face.
As you can see, the black dye that was applied early in the refinishing process is very subtle.
