Part 10b - Face-lift pictures

Took some pictures yesterday morning. First, the full-on frontal view. The oil brought out the quilting in the maple face rather nicely.



Next, an angle view.



Next, a detail view of the stain/oil job on the body. I used a small foam paintbrush when staining close to the maple face.



Last, a detail shot of the headstock. Used the same small foam paintbrush here as on the body. I'm still not entirely thrilled with the thickness of the headstock overall (note the practically straight angle of the thickest string between the nut and the tuner), so there will probably be some reshaping going on (I'll apologize to Mrs. Jimbug and the little 'bugs in advance for their patience).

Part 10a - Pictures

OK, here are some pictures of the (mostly) finished cello.

First, the cello, full-on frontal. The oil really brought out the quilting, as you can see.



The body finishing detail.
I used a paintbrush to get the border between the back and face of the body right.


The headstock "sandwich" detail. I used a paintbrush here too.


I took the cello over to my friend's house (we also managed to finish mixing and mastering our second CD yesterday, by the way). We plugged it in, and it sounds pretty good. Still some rough spots on the fingerboard, and I need to get the electronics done, but overall, this is now a

Part 10 - A face-lift

Did the finish-sanding on the body today, and stained it, then oiled the whole thing. What a difference. The back of the body and the neck are now a shade that MinWax calls Gunstock. Sort of a sienna red.

The headplate and the front of the body are still mostly natural, although a happy accident that occurred was that I oiled all the parts with the same rag, which has resulted in the quilt and birdseye maple having a slight reddish hue to it.

I'm definitely taking pictures tomorrow morning, after I put it back together.

Still to come, more finishing on the fingerboard, staining and oiling the tailpiece, and a newer, much better, set of strings.

This project could very well be done this week!

Part 9 - Sun and Sand(ing)

Have some holiday/vacation time coming up starting tomorrow.

I think it should be good, warm weather, so it should be a perfect time to finish-sand The Patient.

Part 8 - New headplate

I think 7 episodes of Part 7 is enough, don't you?

The only update for this week is the headplate. I finished carving it yesterday, and glued it last night. Some finish-sanding is in order, there are some tear-outs to get rid of. A tear-out happens during surfacing, where the planer gouges out a piece of the wood. This seems to happen more with knotty woods, birds-eye maple being one of those. You can see the gouges in the top of the headplate in this photo:



A side benefit to the extra finish-sanding is that the tuners will sit lower in relation to the nut. You need a bit of angle between the nut and the tuners, or else your strings can slip out of the nut grooves. Still, the carving and gluing went well. In retrospect, I should have thought of the headplate during my design phase, if only to make boring the tuner holes a one-step process, instead of the additional steps I had to do.

Then again, the design phase has more or less happened all through this project, partly because I think of new things that I want to incorporate, and partly because I come up against the limitations of either my tools, my materials, or my knowledge, and so I'm forced to adapt.

I like my attempt at the detail around the nut. It didn't come off perfectly, but with a little fill, it should be barely noticeable. Another detail I added was to surround the nut with the headplate.



Next up, continue finishing he fingerboard. It's getting close. After that, wait for some decent weather, so I can take the pieces out and stain and oil them.

After that, DONE! My estimate is another two to three weeks. Considering I wanted to have the whole thing done by the end of March, I'm over schedule, but since I'm not building this for anyone but me, it's all good.

Part 7g - Refinements 6

This weekend:

1. Shaped the headstock away from that pointy shape to a more rounded shape, that follows the horn contour of the body.
2. Tightened the fingerboard radius, for better ease in bowing.
3. Started carving the headplate.

The first two of this weekend's refinements were successful. The third is still in progress, as Mrs. Jimbug and the little 'bugs came back from their afternoon adventure much earlier than I'd hoped for. Also, that birds-eye maple headplate material is much harder than I thought it would be.

Pictures soon.

Part 7f - Refinements 5 - The headstock dilemma

What to do about the headstock? How to carve a headplate to match an already-existing headstock? (the headplate is the veneer-like facing on the headstock, for those not in the know about these things, including yours truly.) The easy steps in this process are to trace the headstock onto the headplate and rough-cut the headplate around the tracing. To do that, all I need to do is to remove the tuners, trace the headstock, and start sawing. The challenge happens after that, in boring the tuner holes. One way is to glue-tack the headplate to the headstock, and then bore the tuner holes through the headplate full-size, using the existing holes in the headstock as guides, and the 9/16" spade bit. A danger here is that if the bit goes wild, it can bore out the existing tuner holes in the headstock, so that the tuners will no longer fit. If this happens, it's Game Over for the neck. Another way would be to glue-tack the headplate, and drill guide holes through the headplate from inside the tuner holes. Then, use the Dremel tool to carve out the headplate holes to match the tuner holes in the headstock.

Part 7e - Refinements Pics

The new tailpiece. I've outlined the basic shape.


The bridge trench.


The greatly-relieved string angle between the tailpiece and bridge.


The neck, after shaping and rough sanding. Smoooooooth...


And lastly, the three-dollar endpin.

Part 7d - Refinements 4

After this week's play test, the fingerboard sounded like it would need less smooth-sanding than I originally thought. If I say so myself, not bad work with just a plane so far.

This afternoon, agonized over whether or not to stain the body and/or neck. I've decided that I'm going to stain the back of the body a red mahogany, and leave the quilted maple face natural. A real trick will be in the border work, between the back and front of the body. I have a plan for that too...

Tonight, sanded the neck down, smoothing out the rough shaping from last week. Also smooth-sanded the fingerboard.

Took the tuners off, and smooth-sanded the headstock. I ordered some birdseye maple headplate material, and so I'll be sanding the thickness of the headstock down by another 1/16" to 1/8". A nice plus is that along with the birdseye headplates (I got two), included in the sale is a fingerboard blank of the same material. Electric viola, anyone?

My motto on this is, if this project is going to fail, it will not have failed because I've not pushed the envelope far enough. Pictures tomorrow.

Part 7c - Refinements 3

This weekend's tweaks:

1. I did some shaping on the back of the neck, to round it, which turned out pretty well. The neck is pretty nicely rounded off all the way up to the butt, but it could stand a little tapering off at the headstock end.
2. Trimmed the fingerboard edges to meet the neck. Much nicer looking, and coupled with the neck shaping, improves playability greatly.
3. Made an endpin. I had ordered one from Zeta, and since they didn't know when they would get spares in stock, their Customer Service guy and I discussed ways to work around it. One way was to cut down one of those extenders that you get for paint rollers, and a rubber furniture foot (as in the feet that you see on crutches). So I did that, and after wrestling with the dilemma of "$99 to buy, $3 to make," I went with the $3 solution. Best three bucks I've spent so far.
   
4. I think I found the source of the buzzing on the F string. It appears to have been the string itself. When I took the F string off, and moved all the other strings down, and put on the high E string (from when I was in 6-string mode), the buzzing went almost completely away. There's still a little buzz, but I've isolated that to be in the nut, which isn't completely glued down. (I don't want to glue it securely, because I want to remove it when it comes time to finish the fingerboard.)

So, for the time being, this is going to be a 5-string cello with the range extended upward, instead of downward. I was really resistant to this idea, being a bassist, and therefore looking forward to a range extension downward into the bass range. After playing the E string, though, I must say that it has qualities of the harp and even the koto (to my ears) that I find intriguing.

Low notes? I've actually got plenty, between my fretless P-Bass (with an extender key on the E string that takes it down to a D), and my Stick (whose range extends to B below the E on a bass).

Part 7b - Refinements 2

Carved a new tailpiece, "carved" being a loose definition. Okay, I finally found my cross-cut saw and sawed off a piece of maple, drilled some holes, and fitted the new tailpiece behind the location of the old tailpiece.

The angle betweeen tailpiece and bridge is greatly relieved, and will be more so with some refinements.

Unfortunately, now I have to track down the source of a nasty buzz when I play the F string. I know (or at least I think I know) that the buzz is either in the bridge trench, or between the body and the new tailpiece, because it happens no matter where I fret notes.

So, this weekend will be spent doing detective work. No pictures yet, haven't had time.

Part 7a - Refinements 1

I need to carve a new tailpiece. The one that I've got now is too high for the bridge.

I've got some ideas, and should have a new one carved by the weekend, I hope.

Part 6 - The Patient Speaks

This weekend I carved a rosewood nut, carved the trench for the bridge, and bought a bow.

The nut needs some work, but the first pass turned out a serviceable piece for testing the rest of the instrument. The bridge trench brought the action down to a much more playable action.

And then the Patient spoke.

Right off the bat, I know I have more carving on the back of the neck. When I say "right off the bat", that's what the neck feels like. It's not rounded nearly enough, and it feels, like, well, a baseball bat.

The fingerboard has fewer problems than I thought it would, but I haven't brought the action down quite enough to know for sure. I need to deepen the grooves in the nut a little bit more, and perhaps use a slightly thinner piece of wood under the bridge. The action is currently about 1/4" at the end of the fingerboard, ideally I'd like that to be between 1/8" and 1/4", bearing in mind that bowing makes the strings vibrate much more than playing pizzacato. So, I will likely be playing with a slightly higher action than on my fretless P-Bass, but that's how the world works.

Up next: shaping the neck to round it off, deepen and fix the grooves in the nut, and more fingerboard testing, with and without the bow.

Pictures to follow.

Part 5b - a brief recap

I haven't updated the original steps in my project in some time. I'll do that now.

1. Settle on a design - DONE
   
2. Acquire the various parts for the body, neck, etc. - Done, except for the transducer bridge
   
3. Mark the neck design on the neck blank - DONE
4. Rough-cut the neck - DONE
5. Rough-cut the fingerboard blank to fit the neck - DONE
6. Do the fine carving and finishing on the neck
   
7. Cut the holes for the tuning machines, and fit them - DONE
8. Install the truss rod in the neck - DONE
9. Do the initial carving of the fingerboard, for the radius - DONE
10. Glue the fingerboard to the neck - DONE
11. Finish-sand the neck and fingerboard
12. With the neck attached to the body, take measurements for the bridge template - DONE
13. Cut a tailpiece template (if I can’t find a 5- or 6-string tailpiece that will work) - DONE
14. Cut a bridge template - DONE
15. String up the cello for a play-test - DONE
16. Assuming that the play-test works out, order the transducer bridge - should be done soon, within a week or two.
    
17. After the transducer bridge arrives, install it on the cello.
18. Install a preamp for the bridge. Most electric instruments of this nature have some sort of preamping, and I’m assuming that mine will be no exception - I doubt that this will happen, or if it does, the cello probably will not have the same type of preamping as found on, say, an electric bass guitar.
    
19. Final play-test.
20. Assuming the final play-test works out, disassemble the cello for final sanding and finishing.
21. Final sanding of the neck and body.
22. Finishing of the neck.
23. Finishing of the fingerboard.
24. Finishing of the body.
25. Reassembly.
26. Done!

Part 5a - Bridge, Tailpiece, Play Test

Another big step forward. A lot of HSMs occurred this weekend.

First, I carved the bridge template and rough-cut the tailpiece yesterday. The bridge template took longer than I thought it would, since I was carving a 1x2 maple block down to a piece that's about 3/8" thick, and 1-3/8" tall. Lots of sawdust everywhere, as you might expect.



The tailpiece was rough-carved from a 2x2 piece of red oak. I chose red oak because I couldn't put my hands on a piece of maple of the same size. Again, lots of sawdust, and lots of noise. The holes for the strings didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, note the angle of the lower string, as it passes through the bridge, and then tilts up to the bridge. During finish-carving, I want to even that out. I'll probably turn the hole into a slot to relieve that pressure. That's the kind of pressure that snaps a string off, usually in the middle of a performance or recording session.



I want to take a moment here to thank, profusely, my better half, the inestimable Mrs. Jimbug, for putting up with all the sawdust, and especially the noise. Imagine having a dentist's drill in your mouth, and a mosquito buzzing in your ear. Off and on, for a month. Picture that, and you have the sound of a Dremel tool carving maple, mahogany and rosewood.

Still, I am pleased with the results so far. I strung it up, and did the first play-test.



The objective of this first test was to find out how the tailpiece and the neck would react to the stresses of 5 strings under tension. The neck held up beautifully, and is straight as an arrow (thanks to that steel truss rod). The tailpiece lifted slightly under the pressure, but I'm going to add two screws to the three that are currently holding it down.



As you can see from the picture above, the action is still way too high to play-test the fingerboard. I'm planning to carve out a trench for the bridge to help with this. This trench will do two things, first, provide some stability for the bridge, and second, lower the action to play-test the fingerboard (and generally play the instrument, now that I think of it). The trench will also hold the adjustment system that I'm planning to cobble together, er, use. You didn't think I'd go all this way and not have an adjustable bridge, did you?

Part 4a - neck pictures

This post is full of pictures of this weekend's progress. I color-corrected them a bit in iPhoto, so they look a little more realistic.

First, the tuning machine holes were drilled into the headstock. Note the outline of some upcoming carving to round off he headstock.



Next, the back of the neck is carved.



Here's the incline bevel, so that the neck will tilt back from the body. This carving was a little complicated, because unlike most bolt-on neck cavities, the body that I'm using actually curves from one side of the cavity to the other.



Next, the fingerboard is attached to the neck. This was more successful than I expected, except for one point of separation. I'm not sure how I want to address that, it looks pretty minor in comparison to the rest of the job. I'll see if it affects the sound in the play test. I'm more concerned about buzzing than cosmetics.



In order to inspect the tilt of the neck, and also because I couldn't stand the suspense any longer, to see what this thing will look like put together, I attached the neck to the body.



Here's a profile view of the neck tilt. I have to say, I think it turned out OK. The other neat thing was the curve that I carved into the fingerboard. Since the back of the neck has that little whatever-it-is that borders the incline bevel, I thought it would look kind of cool if the fingerboard were to echo that same curve.



Last, here's a full-body view of the state of things so far.

Part 4 - The neck takes shape

Wow, lots of progress this weekend. I am truly surprised.

First, I carved the rosewood fingerboard blank. Even after carving, it had that little ring when I sound-tested it. It's still my theory that this ring means that the wood will be a good fingerboard.

Next, I shaped the neck. The back of the neck is now rounded. I originally thought that I'd have an angled bevel between the sides and back of the neck, but then thought that might be a little weird to feel when playing. So, in one more of a series of "hang on, here we go" moments, I rounded off the back corners of the neck.

I'd been thinking about how to angle the neck back from the body, in order to accomodate the bridge that I'll be ordering (the minimum height of the bridge has to be 1.25"). Shims? No, that little air space between the neck and the body might cause some buzzing. An adjustment screw, a la the 3-bolt Fender necks? No, same reason as the shims.
I decided to cut the incline I needed directly into the neck, starting at the heel, and moving back towards the headstock. Another "here we go", and there I went. This time, I had one the many "holy sh##, it WORKED!" moments (hereafter referred to as HSM). The incline seems to be just right, to tilt the neck backward from the body, to accomodate a healthy action, and the miminum height of the bridge.

At this point, it was time to decide, once and for all time, whether this was going to be a 5-string or 6-string cello. The string spacing, coupled with the finite width of the neck as it fits into the body, more or less decided for me that this will be a 5-string cello. If I want more strings, I'll have to make that electric viola da gamba that I've begun thinking about...

I measured out the spacing for a 5-string bridge, and cut 5 lengths of string, to see what the string layout will be on the fingerboard. As I think about it now, 6 strings would have been a little too tight for my tastes. So now I have a first set of measurements for my bridge template.

I scored a piece of heavy red oak for my tailpiece. No measurements taken on that yet.

Next, I cut the holes for the tuning machines on the neck. Not having a drill press, I had to rely on eyesight alone to ensure that the holes would be cut right. Oh yes, and since the headstock in at an incline from the neck, I had to find a way to make the headstock as level as possible. Enter a 2x4 lying around waiting to volunteer. After the drilling, another HSM. The holes were cut right, although one of the three on the left is about 1/16" out of line with its brothers.

Next to last, I drilled the holes for the neck joint. Another eyesight measurement, because remember, the neck joins the body at the incline. So, it wasn't just a case of drilling straight down into the neck. Instead, I had to eyeball the drill to be perpendicular to an approximate 2- or 3-degree incline. Now that was tough, but I was rewarded with my next HSM.

Finally for tonight, I glued the fingerboard to the neck. I'm clamping it down using cable ties, padded with old socks (yes, they're clean socks). Right now, the patient is resting comfortably. Pictures to follow, after I've removed the cable tie clamps.

Part 3a - Carving the Fingerboard

I got a lot of the checks sanded out of the zebrawood board last night.
Then I listened to it. I balanced the board on one finger of my left hand, and tapped each end with my right index fingertip.
I could hear a note, which was good, but there was no ring to it, which means that the wood might be OK to use, but it might also sound a bit dead.

I bought a second blank, of rosewood, about the same time I bought the zebrawood, and so I decided to see if that sounded any better.
I cut it down to fit the neck, and sound-tested it the same way I'd done with the zebrawood.
This time, I could hear a note, but also a slight ring after it. This means (to me, at least) that the wood should make a better fingerboard than the zebrawood.

About carving rosewood: This stuff is tough to cut, which in itself is an understatement. I've never sculpted in cast concrete, but I would imagine that the experience might be a bit like this.

As before, I'm going to take some pics and post them. I just need to get the camera in the same room as the cello.

Update 02/22: Here are some pictures of the rosewood blank, cut to fit the neck, before carving:



Here's a close-up of some interesting striping.

Part 3 - Carving the Fingerboard, 02/19/2008

Carved the fingerboard tonight. The zebrawood has some checks in it, patches where the planer made some chips. There was some checking already in the wood too.
Bummer.
I'm going to have to sand very carefully.
No pics tonight, I'll take some tomorrow night after sanding.

Update 02/20: I managed to plane and sand out a lot of the checking. Fortunately, I have a backup blank, a nice-looking slab of rosewood.

Update 02/22: Here are some pictures of the zebrawood, after carving. I think the carving went well, but there are some rough spots to sand out, if I'm even going to use this board (see later post about sound-testing).

First, the checking. You can see an example of it at the bottom of this image.

I put a couple of divits in the board. I was a little overenthusiastic with the Pocket Planer.

Now for the end grains. Check out that striping.

Part 2 - Work Begins, 02/17/2008

Here’s what I accomplished as of last night. I’ve done some steps out of order, because circumstances at the time dictated. So, I’ve decided to reorder the steps as I go from week to week, to document not only the build process in general, but also how that process changed over time.

Frankly, I was surprised at the progress I made, in one day of carving yesterday.

1. Settle on a design – DONE (I’ve finally decided to build a 6-string cello; in for a penny, in for a pound at this point).
2. Acquire the various parts for the body, neck, etc. – DONE
3. Mark the neck design on the neck blank – DONE
4. Rough-cut the neck – DONE
5. Rough-cut the fingerboard blank to fit the neck – DONE
6. Install the truss rod in the neck – DONE
7. Do the fine carving and finishing on the neck.
8. Cut the holes for the tuning machines, and fit them.
9. Do the initial carving of the fingerboard, for the radius.
10. Glue the fingerboard to the neck.
11. Finish-sand the neck and fingerboard.
12. With the neck attached to the body, take measurements for the bridge template.
13. Cut a tailpiece template (if I can’t find a 5- or 6-string tailpiece that will work).
14. Cut a bridge template.
15. String up the cello for a play-test.
16. Assuming that the play-test works out (that is, if the neck doesn’t snap in two), order the transducer bridge.
17. After the transducer bridge arrives, install it on the cello.
18. Install a preamp for the bridge. Most electric instruments of this nature have some sort of preamping, and I’m assuming that mine will be no exception.
19. Final play-test.
20. Assuming the final play-test works out (that is, if the neck doesn’t snap in two, or something else bad happens – in case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m
21. particularly worried about the neck that I’m going to carve), disassemble the cello for final sanding and finishing.
22. Final sanding of the neck and body.
23. Finishing of the neck.
24. Finishing of the fingerboard.
25. Finishing of the body.
26. Reassembly.
27. Done!

Some more pictures to show how that neck blank is slowly becoming a neck:

The headstock now has some more detail.



But wait, there's more. Look closer.




Here's a better shot of what I'm talking about. The headstock now has some backtilt, so that the strings won't be meeting the tuners at an angle (or at least they'll be meeting the tuners at less of an angle than if the headstock were straight).




This being a 6-string cello project now, I've embedded a truss rod. It's a square steel hollow rod. (or is that a hollow square steel rod?)

Part 1 - Early February 2008

Part 1: Why? Why build one, when there are lots of them available? What’s my time worth? Why not just spend the $3000 to get a really well-built, beautiful-sounding electric instrument? Well, partly because I don’t have the $3000 to drop all at once. Partly because I don’t want to rack up $3000 more in credit-card debt. And mostly because I want to play a nice instrument that I’ve built, mostly with my own hands. Well, OK, not all of it is hand-built. The parts of the cello that I’m planning to make with my own hands are the tailpiece, bridge template and the neck and fingerboard. The rest of it, the body, bridge, and various hardware, is either in my possession now, on order, or waiting to be ordered, pending a later step in this process. I’ve ordered all of the parts I’ll need, except for the transducer bridge. I can’t order the bridge until I:

1. Decide on the number of strings that I want. I’m wavering between a 5-string and a 6-string cello, but will most likely go with a 5-string design (especially since I only ordered 5 tuning machines).
2. Make a bridge template.

So, the steps to my finished cello, as I see them now, are:

1. Settle on a design.
2. Acquire the various parts for the body, neck, etc.
3. Mark the neck design on the neck blank.
4. Rough-cut the neck.
5. Rough-cut the fingerboard blank to fit the neck.
6. Do the fine carving and finishing on the neck.
7. Cut the holes for the tuning machines, and fit them.
8. Install the truss rod in the neck.
9. Do the initial carving of the fingerboard, for the radius.
10. Glue the fingerboard to the neck.
11. Finish-sand the neck and fingerboard.
12. With the neck attached to the body, take measurements for the bridge template.
13. Cut a tailpiece template (if I can’t find a 5- or 6-string tailpiece that will work).
14. Cut a bridge template.
15. String up the cello for a play-test.
16. Assuming that the play-test works out (that is, if the neck doesn’t snap in two), order the transducer bridge.
17. After the transducer bridge arrives, install it on the cello.
18. Install a preamp for the bridge. Most electric instruments of this nature have some sort of preamping, and I’m assuming that mine will be no exception.
19. Final play-test.
20. Assuming the final play-test works out (that is, if the neck doesn’t snap in two, or something else bad happens – in case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m particularly worried about the neck that I’m going to carve), disassemble the cello for final sanding and finishing.
21. Final sanding of the neck and body.
22. Finishing of the neck.
23. Finishing of the fingerboard.
24. Finishing of the body.
25. Reassembly.
26. Done!

Of course, these are the steps as I see them right now, but I see already that by thinking out the process this far, I have a much clearer idea of the path ahead of me. Up to now, I’ve been sort of just imagining and envisioning the finished project, without any thought of what I might need to do to get there. So far, I’ve done most of step 1, and most of step 2. I’ve just ordered a set of strings tonight, and have gotten shipment confirmation emails for a shipment of various other parts (tuners, nuts, etc.). The adventure begins in earnest tomorrow, when I start to design the layout of the neck on the neck blank that I have.

So here are a few pictures before I've started carving. The body is from a Zeta Strados Crossover bass. The neck blank (second picture) is Honduran Mahogany. The fingerboard (third picture) is Zebrawood.