ooh, that finish on #28 is lovely

Both of these, and probably most instruments moving forward, will get a Carbon fiber spine inside the neck

Out of curiosity what is the purpose of a carbon fiber spine inside an aluminum neck?

skoz wrote: Sun Apr 06, 2025 1:33 pm

Both of these, and probably most instruments moving forward, will get a Carbon fiber spine inside the neck

Out of curiosity what is the purpose of a carbon fiber spine inside an aluminum neck?

Not FM cjury, but I'd guess it adds stiffness. Some advocate using truss rods even with aluminum necks. Caveat: Not an expert, never owned aluminum neck instrument, just read some stuff.

Correct- Carbon fiber is there to add stiffness- since I'm kinda pushing the envelope as far as removing a shit-ton of the aluminum for chambering/weight relief. I don't have any fancy computer modeling/cnc- and it worked great on the oddball headless bass VI.

#28 is about a week out- Just need the new Schaller bridge to arrive- but in the meantime will wire up, etc. #29 is also going nicely- will post more pics this weekend.

#28 is still on hold waiting for a bridge to arrive mid-week.
#29 is coming along quickly- took this pic of the spine before I attached the fretboard and here is the body- cherry with shellac. getting good results with about 8-10 coats, sanding #400 between first few coats, #1200 before the final coat. Also- a 70 foot fir tree came down in my yard this week- so spent most of my time trying to deal with that- thankfully missed both my house and the neighbors house- just lost a fence. Going to be many weeks of cleanup. Will definitely slow me down.

Finally got the last of my parts- #28 is complete, wired up, and getting started on the long process of setting up. I usually start with throwing a couple junk strings on the high and low E to check alignment, adjust heights, etc. and last friday I picked up 3 guitars at pawn shops- a MIM p bass, a Dano Longhorn bass, and this guy- a 79-80 Washburn Raven it had a headstock and neck heel break- they were repaired sloppily. The headstock was solid, so I just filled/scraped and polished. The heel seemed more suspect, so I drilled and countersunk to add 2 stainless steel screws. I've always wanted a Wing Series (obviously the Eagle neck-thru version would be more desirable) If it sounds decent at practice I'll hang onto it

#28 is getting final setup- will get good pics before it heads out.
#29 mock up. Body is done, frets are installed and leveled. #30 will be a weird one. 500 style body, extremely thin neck and a few other things that will be interesting to figure out. Glueing up some Alder I had laying around that will be a good fit for this.

The grain on #28 is so beautiful. I love the curve of the neck heel too.

Agree ^^^^^ love that shape.

Chris these are really starting to look excellent.