The FireDragon Triplets

[Christine]

Oh no, it's her again! :angel:

Time to move on to the next builds, very much in the planning stage but this is where I'm at: Broadly they will be based on the Gibson Thunderbird which is as we'll all agree the sexiest bass on the planet, and that statement is beyond contestation, Moses had it as the 11th commandment but that bit broke off when the stone tablet toppled over and.. yeah well, it's a popular myth like many others
Through neck with the traditional Gibson Vee joint to the wings. Neck angle will be 4'5 degrees.
Trussrod, probably a double action again but this time with a spoke wheel adjustment at the heel to save weight and strength at the headstock
Fretboards will be Rocklite Ebano but there is a possibility one might be made from Satinwood as a treat for me
Pickups, one Mike Lull neck pickup ala Thunderbird II
Bridge looks like being a Warwick again but with a different tail piece/stopbar, a screw in one not one held by inserts. I'm having difficulty finding one at the moment so I mat well end up making my own and getting it chromed.
Headstock, well I think it will be a modified version of the one on the twins but with features of the Thunderbird standard.
Tuners? Probably Hipshot Ultralites again but possibly with the modern Y shape rather than the clover leave given the probable shape of the headstock.
Wood will be African Mahogany again, it's already sat in the workshop waiting.

So there we have it, I'm just waiting for my foot to get better as I've damaged it again then I'll be on it but I shall probably get it all drawn out early next week and hopefully the neck laminate ripped up to settle. I have a few ideas to hopefully improve on the original design slightly, not easy because the original was so good despite the knocking it gets

Oh and as you may have guessed from the title, I'm building three of them

[slinkp]

OOoooOooOoh :-o

[4stringer77]

Righteous! Does the FireDragon moniker indicate you plan on finishing them all in some shade of red? That would be hot if you do. 

[Christine]

Righteous! Does the FireDragon moniker indicate you plan on finishing them all in some shade of red? That would be hot if you do. 

Yes, well at least one of them, I want a red one for myself the one that might have the Satinwood fretboard, that will definitely be transparent red, the other two? Don't know yet I'm waiting for inspiration.

The name FireDragon has been sort of nicked from the Thunderbird's sister the Firebird mixed obviously with my Dragons

[Basvarken]

 

[slinkp]

Can anybody get me airfare to Wales?  I've always wanted to go, and I think I NEED to play some of these!

[doombass]

Eagerly waiting for these builds. 

[Christine]

Not much of a start but this is the wood I have in for these builds, messy workshop, I will have a good clean up before I start work again. I'm going to call CapitalCrispin on Monday and see what they can do in the way of constructional veneers for use as contrasting laminates in the neck. Gibson use Walnut or black Walnut as it's known in the UK but I'm tempted to go for something like Beech or Maple/Sycamore. Again Gibson use four Walnut laminates, I think I'm going to add another one dead centre to make it a total of 11 laminates for the centre section

So without further ado.... the wood!! Doesn't look like three new basses does it?

[Christine]

I got a little done today, just prep work. Ripped up the neck laminates and took a bit of wood off the wing blanks with the planer/thicknesser. There are a couple of patches on the wing wood that are a bit plain looking so they will go into mine as that will be veneered so it will never be seen. I've stacked them on sticks to breath and settle for a few days until the constructional veneers arrive (which I'll order tomorrow)

I did re stack the wing blanks better than that, I just laid them out like that to show you

[Christine]

One of the nice things sometimes about making thing on spec is being able to change your mind and I think I'm just about to do that. I think this morning you have to imagine a me digging a pair of high heels into the ground and doing a U turn, what is she going on about you may ask?

The trouble with buying Mahogany is sometimes you look at a board when buying it and it looks wonderful, just what you need but once you plane it clean it looks, well, just dull and sometimes you see a board and think straight grained and uninteresting, it will be ideal for framing (being a furniture maker) and you plane it resolving a surface that blows you away! As I said yesterday, the wood for the wings isn't quite what I hoped for, it's OK but not what I hoped for. After sleeping on it, the thought not the wood I have come to the conclusion that for a hand made bass with my mark on it, it's not really good enough, as a timber it's good but just visually no.

I had already decided that my bass in this trio would have a quilted Maple veneer on the front with a candy apple red burst fading into transparent red spray job with a Satinwood fretboard. Now I have already ordered the Rocklite Ebano fretboards for the other two, so I don't think Maple is the right wood for those, just wrong to me somehow, a contrast too far. I have decided then to veneer the fronts of the other two in Macassar Ebony and possibly the backs too depending on the final shape of them and thickness.

You may be and quite rightly be thinking two things at this moment, the first being why not use a solid laminated top not a veneer; well the solid top introduces a distinct lamination which is a tone changer and that I don't want to do, there is nothing wrong with the tone on a thunderbird as is and it will mean cutting quite heavily into the centre piece of the body. Whilst that isn't a bad thing depending on how you design it but on a Thunderbird type thing?  The other and more pertinent here is veneering a white of black wood which is only 0.6mm thick onto a red wood is going to look a little odd as well as having some vulnerable edges. How do we get around that, well we hide it somehow, we could use a binding, which I've been mulling over for a while. Imaging a Thunderbird with a decorative binding, it would be like seeing Joan Jett in a pink tutu! The other way is to blend it into the radius of the edges of the body so it is smooth and then paint over it as a burst so the edges are hidden, better I think? So that is the way I'm going, a candy apple red (over gold) for me and a black burst for the other two.

So now we have a new plan, not what I envisaged but I think it's better than my original and certainly adds a different look to a classic design. I am open to discussion on the colour of the burst on the Ebony pair if you feel you have a better idea

[Christine]

So what has been happening in the land of dragons and ladies in tall black hats today?

Following on from stacking wood yesterday afternoon I realised all my stacking sticks had disappeared, so I made some more and restacked my stash A word about stacking wood for those who don't know or want to know how to stack wood properly. Basically it needs to be on a flat service top of accurately machined battens (sticks) with all subsequent battens on top of the last so there is no bending load on the timber. This lets it breath and settle without added strain





After that, well there wasn't much I could do but I had a look for some Satinwood fretboard blanks I hid about 15 years ago for this very build or more accurately dream of a build. Then I gave it a bit of a plane to check how it looked, the answer was great. Satinwood is hard and interlocked, it is the most difficult wood I have ever worked with, thankfully this piece wasn't too bad but the face will just be routed then sanded to shape so it won't be a problem. Then I had a hunt through some old bandsaw cut veneers to use for binding and blocks for the fretboard. This is them with a wipe of white spirit on them to give an idea of how they will look



Out of interest to those who think wood isn't really that absorbent. That veneer was 2.76mm thick as you can see but if you look at the back you can see how the white spirit has soaked through the spring growth





Quite amazing don't you think?

[Christine]

Once I'd selected the piece I ripped off 2 8mm strips for use as binding and kept an off cut to use for inlay blocks. I marked a pencil line down one side for orientation while working with the piece, then I ripped it to the width of the widest block (19th), planed the edge marked it then sawed off the inlay with an old (yes I mean old LOL) Ulmina mitre saw and then ripped the blank down to the width of the next widest inlay (the 17th), planed it and so on. This will give me consecutive inlay blocks from the same piece, I doubt it matters but that's how I like to work so that's how it happens









And just for fun

[slinkp]

Pardon my extreme ignorance, not being a builder, but is a burst finish on ebony a subtle visual effect, or what? I can't visualize the color options. Or I guess if the bright section of the burst is opaque paint, like the "yellowburst" lpb1 I have, then why use ebony? or any veneer for that matter?

[Christine]

I'm only using the opaque part of the burst to hide the colour change between the veneer and the solid Mahogany as it gets blended in on the top edge of the curve at the edge of the body. So it will be a very small solid colour (black?) extending only about 1" into the top face and only one colour. The Macassar Ebony has some  paler stripes in it as well as not being quite black so the burst will be quite subtle but still noticeable.

A bit like the attached file/picture if it works

[slinkp]

Oh cool! Thanks for the explanation n. looks pretty!