IB-6S -- Zhenya

[michael]

Thanks Scott. I'm taking the scenic way there, but I feel good about my destination.

Yesterday I finally determined the correct placement of the bridge.

I marked out the holes I'll need to drill, and also figured out what bits to use for the control knob expansion. I intended to do that drilling today, but a poor night's sleep and a full day of NFL playoff games here in the States kept me planted firmly on the sofa. Maybe if I have some free time tomorrow.

[Scott J.]

... a full day of NFL playoff games here in the States kept me planted firmly on the sofa ...

I hope you had the fridge stocked with plenty of beer! ... altho' being January in Pennsylania you could leave it out by the back door and it'd be just as cold! ... probably a better temperature for drinking rum!

Looks like Zhenya's coming along fine tho'

[michael]

It was cold enough last week (-10) to use the balcony as the auxiliary freezer but it's back up to about 0 degrees with yucky frozen rain today. This morning, however, I finally solved the fretboard problem.



(Excuse the error with the coping saw by the diamond inlay, I was sloppy!) I coated the fretboard with a single layer of medium CA glue, smeared on with the back of used sandpaper. After letting it dry for a few minutes, I buffed it with steel wool and wiped it smooth with a piece of cloth. It's not perfect, but better than any test I'd done yet. I have to perfect the application of the veneers in the fret slots (you can see some spilled glue on one line). I have bought syringes that will hopefully solve that.

[michael]

It's been a while since I've updated this thread, sorry. All of the action to this point has been over on TalkBass (my build thread there), but here's what's done:

• The fingerboard is done. I inlaid blue veneer in all fretslots except for 12 and 24, which got green. I put the Zhenya logo over the 8th fret, in honor of Zhe being the 8th letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, and 8 being my wife's favorite number. I coated the fingerboard with clear coat, and then over 15 layers of CA glue, and then wet sanded it baby-butt-smooth up to 4000 grit.
• I've stained the headstock with the blue stain I'm going to use on the spalted maple. I stained the back of the neck with a maple stain, but it came out uneven and I may sand it back and try something different. Or, I might live with it.
• All that's been done on the body was clearing out some excess wood in the control cavity for the Flexcore pre-amp and drilling the string ferrule holes. I'm waiting to visit my wife's uncle to use his woodshop to route a cavity for the 18v battery box I bought.

Here are some pictures of the finished fingerboard.

[Nickosaurus]

Glossy. Has a very modern look mate well done

[gavinturner]

hey Michael,
the fretboard looks awesome. She's going to be super smooth to play. I really like the Zhenya logo.

cheers,
Gav.

[michael]

Here's the stained headstock and the recently-restained back of neck.

[wokkaboy]

coming along nicely Michael, what colour is the body, will be the same as the headstock ? (I haven't been on this thread for ages !)

[michael]

Yes, it will be the same blue stain. The back and sides of the body will be stained the same walnut seen on the outer "wings" of the neck's back.

[wokkaboy]

sounds good Michael, when do you hope to stain the body ? Always good to see how the spalt cap looks !