Bass guitar build Post #4

I spent about 12 hours yesterday working on this. I actually felt like I got somewhere with the project. After gathering supplies I spent about 4 hours creating my templates. I didn't realize that acrylic was such a pain to work with, however now I will be able to reproduce this build very easily if I choose to do so.

Templates complete

Next up came routing the channel for my truss rod. It was here that I encountered my first screw up on this project. I knew I was bound to have a few so I couldn't really get too upset. The router jumped away from my jig (my own fault) and left a couple shallow cuts next to the channel. These will be covered by the fretboard and pose no significant structural issue. Even so I have learned that routers are tempermental and should never be trusted.

Truss rod laid in place. Still need to lubricate the threads and install permanently.

The next stage of my work was attaching "ears" to my headstock blank. The headstock was not quite wide enough to accomodate my template.

Finally to wrap up for the day I laid out the templates for the body wings and traced the outlines on my 1-3/4" maple blank.

Next up: Lay out the headstock and cut to size, rip the fretboard down to the correct width/length, install truss rod, glue on fretboard, rough cut the body wings, and finally profile the width of the neck and add side marker dots.