Pete's Jack Bruce EB3-ish (SG) bass

[Andyjr1515]

I've alluded to building an SG bass in some of the other threads.  Well, I'm out of excuses and, with the custom semi-acoustic in transit back to its owner, the EB3 project is live 

Pete is our old-gits-band's bassist.  He idolises Jack Bruce and, some of you might remember, I built him a Jack Bruce Thumb Fretless tribute a few years ago:

Then, because he's actually a great guitarist, he asked me to build an SG-ish 6 string electric, funded by his good lady wife for a birthday present:

 

Not put off by the experience, Pete has asked me to build another nod to Jack Bruce - a fretted EB3-style bass, again funded by his mighty fine lady wife, for a 'significant' birthday in November.

Pete is no purist - he wants just two things specifically - 34" scale (JB's EB3...and most EB3's...was short scale) and red!

I'm still in the planning phases but have started to get some timber options together and started thinking about pickups.  I will post the thoughts so far shortly  

 

[SIMpleONe89]

Can't wait! 

Where are those threads on your other two builds? Would love to see them. What should I search for? 

[Norris]

10 hours ago, SIMpleONe89 said:

Can't wait! 

Where are those threads on your other two builds? Would love to see them. What should I search for? 

It would be nice if there was a way to search for (build) threads started by...

The search only seems to find posts by...

[ScottR]

Fellas, I'm pretty sure Andy built those prior to gracing our little site with his presence.....Andy please correct me if I'm wrong.

And Andy, that might very well be the best looking SG I've ever seen. We wouldn't hold it against you if you shared a few more shots of it......both of those really. We wouldn't consider you pretentious or boastful at all.

Inspirational though, we definitely consider you that.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

Fellas, I'm pretty sure Andy built those prior to gracing our little site with his presence.....Andy please correct me if I'm wrong.

And Andy, that might very well be the best looking SG I've ever seen. We wouldn't hold it against you if you shared a few more shots of it......both of those really. We wouldn't consider you pretentious or boastful at all.

Inspirational though, we definitely consider you that.

SR

Thanks, Scott 

And yes, you are right....these were quite early builds so are pre my joining this illustrious forum.

There are threads in other places, but I am more than happy to do a couple of summary threads if folks are interested. I'll see if I can knock a couple together over this evening and the weekend 

.....oh, and forget the normal use of the phrase....with me, flattery will get you most places  

[Andyjr1515]

OK - just posted a very summarily summary thread on the SG here.  I'll add a sound clip later this evening and also do the same sort of thread for the Jack Bruce thumb...

[Andyjr1515]

And here's the summary thread of the Jack Bruce Thumb Fretless Tribute for anyone who was interested....

[Andyjr1515]

So - back to the EB3-ish bass

 

Happily, as I say, Pete is no purist.  So my basic spec, still developing in my head, is presently:

• Mahogany back, stained red
• Figured Mahogany top, stained red
• Wenge demarcation veneer
• Weight relief chambers
• Mahogany neck with central walnut splice
• Ebony fretboard 34" (Pete's request)
• The infamous Gibson triple point bridge (to at least have ONE feature that looks vaguely period correct)
• DiMarzio Model One in neck
• Mini Humbucker bridge still to be determined
• Varitone

I've started assembling some of the bits together.  This is the top I'm thinking of using:

 

Now....Pete has stipulated, this bass MUST be cherry red, so I would be staining it.  With the mighty power of Photoshop, I present to you a fully simulated stained top!:

 

This is the bridge:

Note the high-tech supplier-fitted saddle-retaining sellotape....because there sure isn't anything else holding the saddles in! 

 

Still lots of stuff on the drawing board but I've ordered the rest of the wood today so this is pretty much live 

[ScottR]

Is that the actual top wood Andy--because there's a demon in it.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

10 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Is that the actual top wood Andy--because there's a demon in it.

SR

It is...and yes, there is!

[ScottR]

Should be easy enough to come up with a name for it then.

SR

[Andyjr1515]

11 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Should be easy enough to come up with a name for it then.

SR

You're right!   Bert it is, then 

[ScottR]

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

You're right!   Bert it is, then 

SR

[Andyjr1515]

Now this is the part where I always think I'm going nowhere, but if I skimp on it, I know most likely I really am going to go nowhere....it's the planning stage. The number of times I've routed out a weight relief chamber, and then gone to fit the bridge bushes and...ahhhh, now then, never thought of THAT 

The main issue here is about balance, weight distribution and scale reach.

Although the original EB3 was short scale (although they did do a few long scale ones later), Pete wants 34". He also wants it weight-relieved.  Alarm bells started ringing:

If you join the neck where the original SG bass was joined, you will struggle to reach the first fret and it will be neck heavy like there is no tomorrow. This is exacerbated by the short upper horn of the SG design - how's this for a comparison? 

BUT, if you bring the bridge rearward to shorten the apparent scale length, you won't be able to reach the upper frets, due to the relatively small cut-out of the lower horn.

So I have spent a lot of time this morning checking the maximum I can afford to bring the bridge back with where that logically means the fretboard needs to meet the body and what the maximum reach from the lower cutout to the 22nd fret would be (it will have 24 frets but I reckon Pete will only be able to comfortably reach 22 of them)

With a tiny tweak of the lower horn to deepen the cutout and a small extension to the upper horn, I reckon I can get it to work.

This works from a functional point of view:

 

Even when weight relieved and long-scale, it should balance on the strap with the strap button somewhere around the 13th/14th fret. There should also be decent access up to and including the 22nd fret. 

The upper bout to lower bout length difference is greater than a standard SG but I think visually it will look close enough for an 'in the style of' (as there is a size difference on the real ones, although not the slight offset), particularly once the bevels have been carved. Anyway, no point in building something Pete can't play so I think this is the shape and layout I'll go for.

Now I can work out the controls and weight-relief chamber positions and, hopefully, soon, start cutting some wood 

[Goodkingzog]

On 9 August 2016 at 1:36 AM, Andyjr1515 said:

Now this is the part where I always think I'm going nowhere, but if I skimp on it, I know most likely I really am going to go nowhere....it's the planning stage. The number of times I've routed out a weight relief chamber, and then gone to fit the bridge bushes and...ahhhh, now then, never thought of THAT 

The main issue here is about balance, weight distribution and scale reach.

Although the original EB3 was short scale (although they did do a few long scale ones later), Pete wants 34". He also wants it weight-relieved.  Alarm bells started ringing:

If you join the neck where the original SG bass was joined, you will struggle to reach the first fret and it will be neck heavy like there is no tomorrow. This is exacerbated by the short upper horn of the SG design - how's this for a comparison? 

BUT, if you bring the bridge rearward to shorten the apparent scale length, you won't be able to reach the upper frets, due to the relatively small cut-out of the lower horn.

So I have spent a lot of time this morning checking the maximum I can afford to bring the bridge back with where that logically means the fretboard needs to meet the body and what the maximum reach from the lower cutout to the 22nd fret would be (it will have 24 frets but I reckon Pete will only be able to comfortably reach 22 of them)

With a tiny tweak of the lower horn to deepen the cutout and a small extension to the upper horn, I reckon I can get it to work.

This works from a functional point of view:

 

Even when weight relieved and long-scale, it should balance on the strap with the strap button somewhere around the 13th/14th fret. There should also be decent access up to and including the 22nd fret. 

The upper bout to lower bout length difference is greater than a standard SG but I think visually it will look close enough for an 'in the style of' (as there is a size difference on the real ones, although not the slight offset), particularly once the bevels have been carved. Anyway, no point in building something Pete can't play so I think this is the shape and layout I'll go for.

Now I can work out the controls and weight-relief chamber positions and, hopefully, soon, start cutting some wood 

The current model of the EB3 available from Epiphone is 34", does anyone know if it has balance issues?

http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Bass/EB-3.aspx

[Andyjr1515]

25 minutes ago, Goodkingzog said:

The current model of the EB3 available from Epiphone is 34", does anyone know if it has balance issues?

http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Bass/EB-3.aspx

Yes it does - and it is said to be a pretty weighty body.  This is from a UK distributors review "There is a fully adjustable bridge and some hefty looking machine heads which unfortunately don’t help the tendency of the instrument to be somewhat neck-heavy."

With the changes I'm planning, though, I'm not expecting a problem.

[Andyjr1515]

The mahogany I am using is far from straight and planed.

Spurred on by @psikoT's recent post, I spent quite a bit of time making a much more substantial router jig to level and thickness the back panels. I have a decent thicknesser, but of course it's then 'banana in, banana out' syndrome when you are dealing with uneven surfaces on both sides, which these pieces are!

This is the rig I built out of some very stiff and surprisingly flat and stiff IKEA shelves we no longer use!  I have shamelessly stolen @psikoT's basic design:

...and this is one of the back halves after initial thicknessing:

These are how the two halves will sit, with the neck splices in the middle:

The 'devil's top' is going to take some thinking about.

Probably because of the grain direction (basically what gives it such a stunning figuring) the panels are VERY bowed. I may have to - it had to happen sometime - build the thing conventionally! That is, add the back wings to the neck, then clamp the top panels onto the flat surface. For those who follow my other threads, you will know I usually do it the other way round, which freaks out many a decent builder 
Anyway, to try to avoid such a shameful thing as convention, I am seeing if they will flatten. I thoroughly soaked the concave side, clamped it straight and will left it overnight to thoroughly dry.

That wasn't terribly successful, though.  The thicknessing with a router worked fine with the back slabs of mahogany but less successful with the top. As mentioned, the grain pattern encouraged a longitudinal bow.

Although the wetting and clamping seemed to substantially take out the bow, as soon as I started thicknessing with the router, the bow reappeared, broking the two sided tape bond allowing the panels to rise and the router to dig in.

In the end, I just used the Makita thicknesser - they will still be banana, but at least with a surface capable of being clamped dead flat!

So, that done, time to glue the two halves of the top:

 

[psikoT]

Those who steal a robber have 100 years of forgiveness, cause I stolen it from Prostheta.

 

[Andyjr1515]

36 minutes ago, psikoT said:

Those who steal a robber have 100 years of forgiveness, cause I stolen it from Prostheta.

 

[ScottR]

1 hour ago, Andyjr1515 said:

they will still be banana, but at least with a surface capable of being clamped dead flat!

Best you can hope for. They are thin enough you should be fine.

SR

[Prostheta]

1 hour ago, psikoT said:

Those who steal a robber have 100 years of forgiveness, cause I stolen it from Prostheta.

 

We're all standing on the shoulders of giants, let's face it. Me just as much as everybody else.

[Prostheta]

I'd tell your friend that he gets what you bloody well build Andy! I know a few luthiers whose entire careers have been defined by throwing customer's specs out of the window and instead building them what they need, not what they think they want. We need more legendary people like that, however people that try these days invariably just look like arseholes.

@westhemann knows the name that should not be named, for example.

[Andyjr1515]

2 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I'd tell your friend that he gets what you bloody well build Andy! I know a few luthiers whose entire careers have been defined by throwing customer's specs out of the window and instead building them what they need, not what they think they want.

Ah, but you are forgetting that through a subtle process of charm mixed with subterfuge, what Pete thinks he wants is entirely and only what I am prepared to give him 

[Prostheta]

That's another way of saying the same thing. I like it.

[Andyjr1515]

Well, the top gluing seems pretty sound and the panels - at the moment - are staying largely flat.

As we all know with figured tops, the best of the bookmatching is ALWAYS where most of the hardware goes.  

I assume everyone does the same, but I always pop a mask over the wood, dampened to see the grain, and place on some hardware paper templates or the actual bits if I've got them.

Here, the fretboard and bridge pickup are not intended for this bass - but they are in approx the right places. I haven't put any sample knobs on, but can envisage where they will be, including the big settings plate of the varitone.

I have a choice - this way round:

 

 

...or this way round

 

I think I know which I prefer.  For interest sake - because, folks, you KNOW I will ignore even a strong consensus if it doesn't suit me (or, as my wife would say, "why the hell do you ask me if you're just going to ignore what I think????!!"  )   -  which one grabs your eye?