Marko Ursin's 5-string headless bass with alder/carbon fiber composite neck [Pictures] - created 10-25-2010
Ursin, Marko - 10/25/2010.13:38:24
I'm toying with an idea of making a composite neck for my headless 5-string bass. My plan is to make the core of the neck out of lightweight alder and vacuum bag laminate a carbon skin over it. Naturally I'm going to use a dual action truss rod too. Fretboard will be maple.
I was thinking of a 1,5mm-2mm thick skin. How does this sound? Is it too thin/thick skin? I figure it would take 5 to 7 layers of 200g carbon cloth to get the thickness.
Is there something on this plan that would not work? I see no such things.
Marko
Marko,
Please post some photos when you get going.
David,
I also have to make the tuner/bridge unit and pickup so it will take some time before I have anything to show.
Marko
Interested in seeing how this turns out...
There should be something to show after coming weekend. I have the core almost finished, just some minor touchup sanding to go. I'm planning to try my vacuum bagging system on Saturday and laminate the skin on Sunday. If the neck feels too flexible with 1mm skin I'm going to add some cf tubes on it. If it's too stiff... well then it's too stiff and I have to sand some relief on the fretboard.
Marko
Here's a few pics of the neck so far.
Alder core ready for carbon fiber skin.
In the vacuum bag. The dark spots are epoxy that's coming thru the perforated release film.
After 5 hours curing the vacuum bag is taken off, as are the release film and bleeder cloth. As you can see, the surface is not smooth. I'm hoping to make it smooth by sanding it lightly and brushing one or two coats of epoxy , then final sanding.
The neck is now in the boiler room (35deg C) curing. It's clamped on an aluminium bar to make sure it stays straight. After 24 hours curing I'm going to take the neck to sauna (65deg C) for four hours. No steam during this sauna session! Luckily we Finns have sauna in almost every house.
Marko
Marko,
Rodger
I did flex the core before laminating.It sure was easy to bend. I haven't tried it after laminating as the skin is curing at the moment. I hope it is quite a lot stiffer than before the skin. I'll try it tomorrow. I should have made some kind of measuring with some weight hanging on the neck while suspending the heel on the workbench. A little too late for that now.
Marko
That looks great!
This is the idea behind the Parker Fly necks. He used basswood with a carbon skin. He said he got the idea from lutes which often had an ebony skin over a softer wood core.
I ended up laminating two cf layers between neck and fretboard. I have glued the fretboard and filled the back of the neck with epoxy. Few coats of nitro sprayed to prevent the fretboard getting dirty. The cf skin sure makes the neck stiff. The neck reacts to trussrod very nicely, hopefully also after fretting. I have to make the fret slots a bit on the wide side so that they don't bend the neck to backbow.
Few pics of the neck at the moment. Some touchups with black stain is needed on the trussrod cavity before final coats of nitro.
The back looks nice.
Pretty!!
Marko,
That's looking great!
David: Not so much more hours. I guess 5 hours more work compared to a wooden neck with cf rods and truss rod, maybe less if the wooden neck is laminated from strips. The cf laminating itself is fast, about half an hour per side (back and front), as well as epoxy filling which is just like painting with brush. Compared to wooden neck the core does not need to be so well sanded, I left mine to 80 grit. Sanding the filled epoxy or cf under the fretboard is also fast as there is really not too much to sand. Most of the extra time is waiting for the epoxy to cure and harden. I guess the next neck made like this would take even less time.
Marko
The bass is finished. Alder body, brass hardware, 5-coil pickup wired passive vol/tone. The neck reacts nicely to the truss rod. It's a lot stiffer than my Moses Steinberger neck. Feels nice to play, some fine tuning left to do. You can hear a short sound clip at http://maihinnousu.net/s/10077
And the front. I'm trying to get a full pic tomorrow morning, it's too dark to get proper pics at the moment.
Marko
That really looks amazing! The carbon fibre weave truly is a thing of beauty - would have looked great as fretboard material as well. I've been wondering a lot about using carbon fibre myself, but I chickened out and resorted to using a prefabricated carbon fibre rod instead. Still, the idea of carbon fibre's strength an stability paired with the tone of wood really would appear to offer the solution to many a problem - I'm looking to ditch the trussrod... When I find the courage ;-)
Great work - and truly inspirational for a bugger like me.
Cheers
Eske
Wow... it looks really good! I love the design. Any comments on the tone?
Very pretty!!
Finally few full pics of the bass. I had to move the bridge a bit closer to the neck to get the intonation spot on. Easy fix, but when the bridge is recessed in a 3mm deep cavity it was not that simple. Had to do some routing and filling as well as respray the body but it looks good now. I tinted the last coats a bit to get a warmer colour to the body.
Marko
And the front.
Marko
Hey Marko! That neck looks terrific--well done man! Like David King said, very professional!
Season's Greetings!
Bill
Nice work Marco!
Do you have to coat the epoxy for UV protection?
Thanks for the comments. The epoxy is uv-resistant but I sprayed nitro on the neck also when spraying the body and fretboard.
Marko
Great work Marco. I want to make a neck like that now. :)