My Ebay Find... Check out this piece of redwood...

[Cerb 0]

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

 

 

I just won that piece of redwood yesterday, and I can't wait to get it in the mail. Once I recieve it I plan to use it as the topwood on the next few basses that I build. Hopefully I will be able to get about 5 or 6 tops out of it. I will more than likely laminate the back with maple.

 

I've talked with people that had bad dealing with this seller, though, so I'm a bit worried about the look of this piece in person. Apparently redwood has the tendancy to get small cracks along the grain, and these obviously would not show in the photos. So, with any luck this will be as nice as I want it to be. It's possibly the nicest looking piece of wood I've ever seen, and it would go great with the bass design I have drawn up to full scale.

[jlhaslip 4]

Wow, Good deal. $58US for about 7 Board foot of really nice looking wood. Less than $6 / Bd Ft.How do you cut the spalled piece out? Bandsaw the board into pieces and then cut veneers? I do woodwork, too, but not musical instruments. I am more of a general carpentry guy.

[Cerb 0]

Actually, in the instrument world (well, at least with bassists... we like our odd figure), the more figuring you can get, the better the instument looks. This includes spalt. I personally wouldn't call that spalt, as it seems from the pictures to be more of a mineral stain. That is what instantly drew me to the piece, though. The blotchiness of the stain in some portions actually makes it look as though it came straight from a lava lamp .I will probably wind up cutting the piece into 1/4" thick slabs for the topwood. The other 1 1/2" of the body would be maple, more than likely. The tonal characteristics of maple are hard to beat, in my opinion; very growly, focused sound.I hope to use this piece for my second bass. I'm still working on the first (cerb.trap17.com > Concordis > Progress Pictures), and it is coming along awfully slow. Being only 15 and having an after school job that pays just over minimum wage makes it extremely difficult to buy the loads of stuff required to build an instrument. Plus, being as I've never been interested in, nor have I had any experience in, woodworking until this project I've had to buy tools aswell. My next thing is to invest in is a few router bits (a set of 5 bits that I will definately need... about $105 O_O) for the Porter Cable router I just bought.I can see that it will be an expensive hobby that will most likely haunt me like a cocaine addiction for the rest of my life.

[Cerb 0]

It turns out that I will actually be shipping this wood to Larry Davis at GalleryHardwoods.com to have him resaw it for me. It will be cut into three topset of 3/8" per. The first of these three will hopefully cover the top of this bass:

 

 

[Cerb 0]

I had Larry Davis of GalleryHardwoods.com resaw it for me, and he did an excellent job. He was able to get three 3/8" pieces and a 1/4" piece. Here are a few pictures he took before shipping them off to me.