Our Progress

May 22, 2025

We have typed up our grant proposal and printed it out into an official proposal. We have also filmed our commercial. Both have been linked on our website. We have also created our website, as well as all of our socials, and linked them in the "Links" page of our website. Our most recent update is setting up our YouTube page and posting our commercial. We are all set up to begin progress on our guitar by searching for materials and ordering them so that we can start construction.

June 15, 2025

We have created a GoFundMe and linked it to our website, in order to provide a place for any welcome donations to help fund our project. We have since raised $325, which should be more than enough to complete our capstone project as well as accomodate for any errors that may require extra purchases over the course of our construction. We have also begun scheduling a trip to the lumber yard in order to browse and possibly begin purchasing wood for our guitar, which will be our next step.

July 1, 2025

Before visiting the lumber yard, we realized that in order to finalize our guitar's measurements and make sure that they are accurate, we should first examine and measure some professionally made guitars first. We visited the Guitar Center to look at some of the bass guitars and take notes on the measurements of the different parts of the guitars. We were able to closely examine real models of what we are trying to make so that our recreation can be as accurate as possible. This leaves us more prepared to visit the lumber yard and purchase wood to start construction. We are also beginning to compile a rough purchase list online.

July 24, 2025

We have finalized our purchase list and will soon begin ordering our materials. Because of scheduling conflicts during the summer and us being out of town, we have not yet been to the lumber yard, but we plan to visit soon, which is the next step in our process, so we can begin gathering our physical materials.

August 15, 2025

To start off collecting our physical materials, we have finally visited the lumber yard. There, we were assisted in finding a sturdy piece of ash wood in order to build the base of our guitar, because of its acoustic properties. We purchased 7 feet of it, so that we would have enough for the length of the guitar as well as extra material for the other parts of it that need to be made and shaped out of wood. We will hopefully be starting construction/assembly soon.

August 16, 2025

To get our the remaining parts of our guitar we finally ordered hardware and electronics online. In addition, we have also received some of these parts for free and are awaiting their arrival in order to check their quality and judge whether we will be able to utilize them in our project.

August 21, 2025

We received some of the free parts today. This included a bridge, pickup, tuners, and wiring. We checked the parts over to make sure that they are usable and of adequate quality, and they seem good to use. We will make sure to account for these items and remove them from our budget. We also ordered more parts online and are waiting on updates.

September 1, 2025

We have started cutting wood and began the process of shaping the base of the guitar. We received help from Mr. Melcher in order to accomplish this and are currently waiting on the rest of the parts that we ordered to arrive. They should come in next week. So far, we have cut the wood into pieces matching the lengths of the base, the neck, and the headstock pieces out of the wood with a miter box saw. Next week, we will do the vertical cuts necessary to cut the wood to the correct width for the headstock and neck pieces using a table saw. The parts we ordered last week have shipped.

September 5, 2025

We received some of the parts we ordered online and had to return one part because we had already gotten one and accidentally ordered it again. We also went to Home Depot to get supplies to continue cutting wood. We realized that we needed a jigsaw in order to cut our small pieces more accurately, such as vertical pieces like the headstock and fretboard, and so we purchased a new blade for our pre-owned jigsaw.

September 12, 2025

Unfortunately, because of conflicting schedules, we were unable to meet this week or access the saws at Shamblin's house in order to continue cutting the wood. We will continue our construction next week, but as for this week we will attempt to complete individual research on this project and focus on collecting information instead of the physical aspects.

September 18, 2025

This week we are progressing with our physical construction. We replaced the blade in our jigsaw with our new blade, and we are beginning our vertical cuts, which are a little bit rough but will be sanded/cut down at a later date into neat and clean edges once we start putting the pieces together. We have roughly cut out the headstock and have begun cutting the neck out.

September 21, 2025

We continued cutting wood with the jigsaw. Because of rain we had to stop due to the fact we couldn't work on it in the garage. We are planning to continue cutting wood at a later date when it is not raining. We ran into some issues with our jigsaw along the way, so we had to switch to a handheld saw to continue cutting the neck out. We also bought wood glue so we can begin gluing together the base of the guitar.

September 28, 2025

We continued roughly cutting out the neck of the guitar, using a table saw this time because we gained access to it, and finished so it is now ready to be thinned out depth-wise according to the basic structure of a bass guitar. This will also prepare it to later be fretted. The neck needs to be carved out vertically as well so that the width of it can taper as it goes from the base to the headstock, starting from 2.75 inches at the base of the neck to 1.75 inches at the top of the neck. We have also received assistance from Shamblin's sister, who helped us with the jigsaw, and Shamblin's dad, who helped us with the table saw. We also sketched out the headstock of the guitar onto its designated rough chunk of wood to be eventually cut out.

October 5, 2025

We sketched out the base of the guitar onto two pieces of wood that we had previously cut out and designated to make up the base of the guitar, and sanded them down with a sanding machine. Then, we glued them together with wood glue in order to form the base. We clamped these two pieces together to hold them in place while the wood glue dries. Next, we will work on carving out the neck before continuing with the base.

October 13, 2025

We neatly carved out the sides of the neck using a table saw, assisted by Kristina's dad, in order to adjust the width to start at the base width of 2.75 inches and narrow down to 1.75 by the end of the neck. In addition, we adjusted and cut the depth of the neck accordingly as well so that it could be accurate, cutting it down from to be only 1 inch deep. With the neck completely cut out to its needed shape and width and depth, it is now ready to be sanded and shaped and fretted. We will need to figure out how to curve the back using accessible tools.

October 19, 2025

We are currently waiting for our band saw and router bit to arrive to continue working on the body and head stock of our guitar. We are also getting help from Mr. Barrett to curve the neck of our guitar since we had trouble with it on our own.

October 28, 2025

We have since received our band saw. In addition, we have received help from Mr. Barrett in roughly shaping out the neck of our bass guitar and gotten it back from him. We plan to sand it down to be smoother, and then add the frets to the top of it. Then, we will work on getting our headstock fully and neatly cut out in order to attach it to the neck and make alterations to the body as needed so that we can get everything attached.

November 6, 2025

We have discovered that many people recommend going to a professional in order to get your bass guitar fretted, so we have started more in-depth research on fretboards and their production. We will need to use the extra wood from when we cut out the neck in order to create our fretboard and then glue it on top of the neck. We will also need to fill the gaps and cracks in the body from when we glued it, and so we will use a mixture of sawdust and wood glue to do so. We will sand down and smooth the curve of our neck soon.

November 13, 2025

We created a paste with sawdust and wood glue to filling the gaps between the wood we glued together to secure it more. After we sand this down it will provide a smooth clean surface for us to later put finish on. We plan to get a band saw to cut out the body of our guitar as well as a router to carve out curves and holes in the body.

December 4, 2025

We met up in order to cut out the base of our guitar neatly and into shape. We began using a sawzaw, but we quickly found out that it was not an adequate tool due to how hard our choice of wood is. We used a table saw in order to make several shaping cuts along the curves and lines that would remove a lot of excess wood from the guitar shape, even if not completely cutting out the entire shape. We also used a miter saw to more accurately cut out most of our headstock piece from its block of wood as well. We were left with excess wood at the top of the bass's body in between the curves, and tried several different methods in order to attempt to carve it out, including using large drill bits to loosen it, and then also using a chisel to clean up the uneven edges that were left behind afterwards. We still need to clean up the edges, but we have the shapes mostly carved out for our headstock and body.

December 15, 2025

I continued to shape and clean the body of the guitar and the headstock. Because the spaces I needed to get rid of were in hard to get spots or were too small I went in with a chisel. While I cleaned up most of what was rest there is still quite a bit I need to take off.

December 22, 2025

I was unable to work on the guitar because I was out of town.

January 2, 2026

I finished cleaning up the edges of the body and most of the headstock with the chisel. While I have finished shaping the body, I still have to go in with my dremel to carve out the areas for hardware and electronics. I plan to do this next time I work on the guitar.

January 6, 2026

I went to Houston Hardwoods to get the wood needed for the fret board of the bass guitar. It is stenciled out and ready to cut and get the frets put into it.

January 11, 2026

I cut the fretboard to fit onto the neck of the guitar. I am doing extra research on how to attach the frets to the fretboard the correct way. I am planning to have all the woodwork done by the end of this month.

January 24, 2026

I started using a router to carve out the cavities in the body of the guitar. I used a chisel to fix any mistakes or anything that wasn't smooth so that all of the electrical elements and hardware will fit perfectly.

January 28, 2026

While trying to cut the wood it split, it is unusable so i have to start over with some new wood for the body and headstock.

February 8, 2026

I went and bought new wood for the headstock and body and plan to work on this this coming week.

February 11, 2026

Ive started cutting out the body with the help of my dad using a jigsaw. It is taking some time to get through it especially with the hard to reach spots so I plan to have this done by the end of next week.

February 15-March 14, 2026

I have been unable to work on the bass guitar during these days, but since we are back from spring break I have the time to catch up and finish.

March 18, 2026

I have finished cutting the body of the guitar as well as the headstock.

April 1, 2026

I have finished all the woodworking.

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