Wood for bass guitar

[buych778]

I am building a fully custom bass guitar and was wondering if my choice of wood will be sufficient. I have a neck made of maple, which shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I am low on money, and all I really have is some standard 2x6 boards. I am not sure what it is composed of, they are fairly heavy. I am making a through neck design, so the width is no issue, but would those boards be good enough for the body? I can buy better wood for it, but I really would rather not. Also, do I absolutely need a rounded fretboard, or could I have one that is flat and just sanded on the edges to round it into the neck?

[ScottR]

Standard pine or fir 2x6s?

SR

[SwedishLuthier]

If you are building a neck trough, most wood will be fine for the "wings". For the fretboard question there are two answers, or maybe three. The traditionalist answer is yes you need to radius the fretboard. The more open answer is that anything goes. My answer is; have you ever played a bass with a flat fretboard? The radius is, IMHO, a major part of how an instrument will "feel". There are a lot of instruments out there with flat fretboards, from classical acoustics to Travis Bean aluminium neck guitars and so on. As an example I have only played one Travis Bean guitar. It had roughly the same width and thickness of the neck as the guitars I build. However the flat fretboard made it feel extremely strange to play, to me that is... So if you are accustomed to playing a more traditional bass I would really suggest that you use a radiused fretboard unless you have the opportunity to check out a flat fretboard bass first, and make sure you really like it, not just that it will be easier to make...