On the first day of my project started researching luthiery and the process of bass building. In my research, I got an idea of what needed to be done first and important measurements I should keep in mind to make the bass feel comfortable. I also got inspiration and ideas about the body shape from the research I did. I then started to design the bass body to scale, I went through a few design iterations before settling on the main features I wanted the bass body to have. After I decided on what main features I wanted I spent a lot of time refining the shape making sure it was symmetrical and proportional. After I finished the design of the body I started to come up with dimensions for the neck. I first choose the scale length (the distance from the nut to the bridge) I wanted. I settled on a 32-inch scale length which is considered a short-scale bass. I wanted my bass to be short-scale so it could fit into a normal size case and has less space between each frett which fits my playing style. I also decided on the shape of the neck which is essentially thickness and width of the bass I wanted the neck to be.  I did this by measuring my own bass necks to figure out what neck shape was most comfortable to me. The next day I turned the dimensions I made into scale drawing of the neck, from there I designed the headstock. I took inspiration from another common headstock design the open book design. I drew my own exaggerated open book headstock onto the neck spending a lot of time trying to get the curves symmetrical on each side. After I finished design I cut the neck blank to length. I then spent a lot of time trying to square up the neck blank to have the highlight width and length as even as I could get it throughout the neck. I used hand plains, sanding beam, calipers, and a straight edge to get the neck square. this was one of the first times I had used a hand plane so it took a while to learn how to use it effectively. I often fond myself chacing high spots on the neck either planing too much or too much or too little which made even more high spots. After about an hour and a half of that, I got the stock to around .06 inch tolerance, which means the thickness along the piece of wood varies from end to end around .06 inches which is straight and flat enough for my uses. I also dried and stabilized the wood in my oven keeping it in there at 250 for an hour, this minimizes the potential for the neck to warp after it’s been cut and shaped.