BlownCorona Builds a Stingray

[BlownCorona]

Third and final update for today, my custom one off bridge came in and boy am i stoked. this was the right choice and i love it. the surface finish wasn't super polished before plating (because i didnt pay for that) but its really only notible on these close up photos, im 95% sure i will leave it as supplied and once furnished will hardware and strings it will all just look pretty and remain a real center piece to the instrument. 

Gosh i love it. My 5 year old daughter who loves making noise with me (little digital drum kit) just about died from adoration of the cartoon. 







As you can see the adjustment screws are too long. this is just what i had on hand. i also need to clearance drill and tap all of the adjustment threads and source some M2.5 brass grub screws, probably from aliexpress. 
I think ill leave them "as cast/printed" on their own they look a bit rough but next to all the shiny the contrast really works.

i also will paint the two recessed bolt areas with black wrinkle, which was always the plan but does happen to be where the machining marks are that i wouldn't have been happy to live with, win win. 

you can also see the four holes for the mute pad kit, which you can buy from Music Man... if you live in america... didnt notice that part before i included it. It remains to be seen wether i fork out for freight forwarding the kit or make my own. 

[igor]

Love the engraved cat logo.

[BlownCorona]

over the last couple of days @NickJ very generously operated his awesome and massive CNC router, aswell as handleing the programming for the cad model i put together for my Stingray. we first cut one out of MDF (which will now make cool shed art) and then set to attacking the hardwood. 

It looks incredible. i have no words to describe how happy i am with it, and without the help of others, this wouldn't be possible. 

[BlownCorona]

[BlownCorona]

[BlownCorona]

And finished machining, put immediately into its case because im terrified of marking it before the finish goes on. 



I have plenty of finish sanding to do, and then a lengthy and involved process to apply the gun stock oil i have selected. but i wouldn't want it any other way, something this beautiful deserves the love and attention. 

I had better get to practicing so that i may actually be deserving of such an instrument. 

Once again, i cannot thank Nick enough.

[BlownCorona]

I couldnt help but lay some of the hardware overtop to see how its gonna look. Bloody amazing is how!

i am tossing up very lightly staining the pickgard area before the oil goes on. 50/50 at this point. 

[NickJ]

Was super fun to do, really sucks how work life kept kicking it down the order.

Very glad we had the mdf one to check process on, that really took the stress off after all the effort that went into making the blank.

This is by several orders of magnitude the coolest thing thats come off that machine, looking forward to the end result, no matter how long it takes to get there.

[BlownCorona]

It actually won't take too long, the finish sanding is going alot quicker than I thought. 

The thought and effort that went into your jig paid dividends with only about a half mm offset between sides. With my automotive sanding block, taking the sides down flush isn't a big deal. 

I'm only sanding at 240 grit at the moment but already the grain and character of the various woods is coming out and holy hell it's going to look amazing when oiled. 

[MACKAZ]

You’re a bloody magician. Freightliner Tutor in Melbourne builds custom one off guitars. There are some well known artists that exclusively use his products. Builds 2 or 3 a year time dependant 

[BlownCorona]

i definitley owe this thread an update, ive been spending a substantial amount of my spare time on this and its very nearly done. 

[BlownCorona]

I can offer a slight teaser with this photo of my cat, the logo inspiration, sitting near the headstock. She usually looks angrier so I must be doing alright. 

[BlownCorona]

So as shown above i got the best Christmas present ever of a chunk of wood that was shaped like a bass guitar. 
this fucked nearly all of my other plans for my Christmas break so the house and cars barely got touched as i got stuck into sanding and boy was there alot of sanding, not because the model was wrong or Nicks machine inaccurate, but because i found out why they call hardwood, hardwood  

My family graciously allowed me to turn our dining table into the most efficient dust production factory you've ever seen and i worked on it most days untill i was happy, it turns out i didn't take any pictures of this untill i started marking things out for truss rod install and tuning machine holes.





 Once i was happy with the finish sanding i built a basic rack to help with the application of finish. I initially started with Tru-Oil, i gunstock finish product and while it looked great i quickly realized the grain on the red oak was far too deep for this product to ever fill, so i went looking for an oil based polyurethane and landed on Resene Qristal, i picked up a high gloss and a satin with the intention of doing the recesses 'pickguard' satin for a bit of contrast and potentially the neck if i opt not to use the Tru-Oil here aswell. 





Very happy with the resene product, and que about 50 coats with sanding in between to eventually level off the surface and get a proper high gloss finish, but once done it looked absolutely incredible, unfortunately im not a great photographer so i cant really portray just how great this wood looks. the stripes of purple heart and Filipino mahogany look almost metallic against the soft tones of the beech and oak.


Starting to look like something...

[BlownCorona]

I got to the below point and was feeling pretty happy, i sent a pic to a good mate whos a painter in the airforce and a good guitar player, who crushed my dreams by informing me that it still wasn't done. he suggested i go look at my wifes squire strat (a good, but entry level guitar) and to come back and tell him if i saw anything but a perfectly flat surface, i didnt even need to go look because i knew that guitar was amazing, so he said my bass should be atleast as good as a squire. mother fucker it took weeks of effort to achieve that, but he was right. 



So i set to more applications and sanding off and eventually made it here. 


As you can see there were still a couple of defects which got sorted 


i think its at an even more polished state now but i havnt got any pics, it will get polished again after i fit all the hardware and then remove it again before final fitment. 

here it in in its current state with hardware either fitted or dummy placed. getting real excited now.

[BlownCorona]

I next started on the headstock logo/badge. i opted to try machine this on my little cnc router, que about 8 iterations while i learnt how best to do it. 

i started with an engraving bit which had many struggles, mainly the router isnt very stiff but also the brass was knocking the edge off the needle sharp engraving bit and was giving inconsistent results. 

i tried a few more times and with some different tooling but couldnt get it good enough. i then picked up a diamond tiped drag bit used for engraving, this tool doesnt spin up the spindle and simply drags the diamond over the surface giving excellent fine lines. 

i tried a couple different styles including a demo run on some stainless steel, though i prefered the brass logo against the similar tones of wood and the silver just didnt look quite right. i might clean up the edges on this one and attach it to the case though as while its not perfect, its not too bad either.

 

once i got the process nailed, i set to redesigning the badge itself as i wasnt actually happy with the actual design. the final part looks awesome and im very happy. 

pre cleaning up the bevel edges with jewler file and satin clear applied. 

 

Done and glued in place

 

apologies for bad, glary photos, everything is so shiny its a bit of a nightmare to capture but to the eyes everything looks awesome.

[BlownCorona]

A while back i commissioned a strap to be made for this after a late night browsing, it was advertised as a guitar strap so i got in touch with the maker to see if she could make a 3" wide one suitable for bass, she was only too happy to. She was in the process of moving and said it would take a while but i was happy to wait and im glad i did. its currently fitted to my Samick bass which i picked up for cheap to learn on, its a good instrument but its quite generic. 

the strap came from https://rockitmusicgear.shop/ which is run by a lady in California and has plenty of awesome designs, also a pretty accomplished musician herself and i was glad to be buying from a person and not another massive faceless company. 

as a pretty awesome bonus she had also included these little 3d printed cats and amps pick holders that she makes. the whole family loved them and they now live in our library on the shelf with various other little trinkets, and also the room where my wife practices. (i dont actually use picks, but i love cats and i love amps)