John's 5-string Series II

[mica]

Some fun stuff going on in assembly!  Third one down is your neck:

  Bandsaw aftermath:

  Gluing on the "ears" of the peghead:

  Your body is in this pile somewhere:

  I'll collect some more images for you very soon. Your bass is headed for carving, so it's farther along than these pictures indicate.

[dlbydgtl]

A bass  been conceived...Looking forward to watching it develop into a beautiful instrument.
 
(Message edited by Dlbydgtl on August 30, 2012)

[smuprof]

So everyone has been so busy manufacturing what is the pinnacle of Alembic evolution (in my humble opinion), none of us has had time to post any updates.  This has been such a spectacular process, I wanted to get some of the steps on record.
 
So Mica and Susan were very kind in indulging my quest for the best coco bolo for the top and back.  Here's what they picked out to start . . .  
 

[smuprof]

Of course my personality is no different from any other forum member, and Mica was kind enough to indulge my various requests for what if we flipped it, or . . .   Here's a couple of variations with the template.
 

[smuprof]

Here it is flipped.  We also looked at another slab of wood.
 

[smuprof]

I even went so far as to create a mask so I could better imagine what the top would look like and move it around to capture various nuances in the wood.
 

 
Susan was very sweet and kind to indulge lots of this iterations and discuss the pros and cons of each one so I could get exactly what I wanted . . . which was exactly what Susan and Mica drew up in the first place!

[eastcoastepic]

Wow, fantastic wood; if only the 'waist' wasn't so tight (so as to show more of the wood in that area)! I like Susan's original rendering, but with the outline moved up (towards the nut) an inch, but that's just my opinion. The almost 3D 'lava flow' effect is absolutely fantastic, even before any finish is applied.  
Best of luck!
Chris