erikbojerik Posted November 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2004 (edited) the offset shape kinda reminds me of the two basses Lex made a while ago. Where are those? Edit: OK found it, in the TUTORIAL SECTION no less! Man, those are nice basses (well done Lex) and the bodies are pretty much similar to mine except for the horns. That's what I'm shooting for, a smallish playable body that makes the neck look like its a mile long. Well...great minds think alike! I'm not totally settled on the body shape yet, I still need to make a decision on the body thickness issue before I cut the wings to shape. And see if I have enough room to rout for the MM humbucker without weakening the whole works. Edited November 27, 2004 by erikbojerik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted November 27, 2004 Report Share Posted November 27, 2004 Given your choice of woods, I don't see any problem with your body thickness. One option to consider: Have you ever played a Warwick Thumb bass? The entire body is curved so that the back is concave, which makes it very comfortable to play. If you made the wings thicker than the neck, and glued them up so the extra thickness was on the back, you could carve the body in a similar manner. It would complement the body shape nicely. Anyway, whatever you do is pretty much guaranteed to look good, so keep workin at it and post pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted November 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2004 That's a good suggestion ski, I've already been contemplating a tummy cut but now I'm shying away because of the thinness of the body. The Warwick idea sounds appealing, I'll try & find one in a music store to check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted January 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Wow...a month since my last update (holidays & all, and fixing screw-ups on another proj). Anyway, some adventures here. The neck blank thickness through the body stood at 19/16", which I thought was a bit too thin. So I went & planed down some walnut, which is at the back of two 1/4" sheets of cocobolo (top) and ebony (middle). Wings glued together fine with Titebond by wiping the glue surface of the coco with acetone prior to gluing. I still thought the body was a bit thin...so now I'm gluing up more 1/4" ebony and cocobolo for the back. I'm waiting to glue up the coco until I can cut the control cavity with a scroll saw (but first I need to buy the preamp to gauge how much space I need). Just about everything else I can do now requires the hardware for further measurements. I've got enough room for a 36" scale if I want, but I'm leaning toward 35". Here it is with the wings glued onto ebony spacers. The neck lams are padauk (center), ebony, walnut & maple. I may reduce slightly the waist curvature to capture that grain cluster on the treble-side bout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluespresence Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Looks ready to go to me! Throw some pickups in that bad boy, toss on a bridge and add some strings........seriously, those wings have some nice grain patterns in them. Whatever you end up with I'm sure it will look nice. I guess I better get to glueing on mine this weekend....I've put it off long enough. Time to email LightWave Tech with an order!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted January 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Changed my mind...decided to go with black hardware instead of gold. Truss rod came yesterday, now I can measure everything out and see if I need to raise the fretboard before cutting the channel for the rod. I'm going with 35" scale per skibum's recom. I've also decided to carve it around the edges, so it'll be awhile before this one's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted February 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2005 Since last time...cut the channel for the hot rod and rod access, cut out the control cavity cover from the laminate that will go on the back, then rough cut the body outline. I need to make the top waist less extreme and trim a little here & there. I'll do a 1/2" roundover around the edge, then start carving. I've left the horns purposely fat in order to carve out Carl Thompson-style scrolls. I'd also like to carve the heel extension like I've seen on some Alembics, if I can settle on a shape that I like (or else I may just whack it off). I'm trying to decide what to do with the scale; I only know that it will be 35" or longer. This first pic shows the bridge location for a 37" scale; this would require the heel extension to remain. The next pic shows the bridge location for a 36" scale, which would place it entirely on the body (then I could trim off the heel extension if I wanted). Does it look odd to have the bridge hanging off the end of the body like that, even with the heel extension? Bridge @ 37" scale: Bridge @ 36" scale: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted February 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2005 Oh yeah...and I found out last week that I don't actually have cocobolo, but bocote. Similar oily rosewood but with a bit more contrast in the grain than coco. Fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted February 13, 2005 Report Share Posted February 13, 2005 I think the 37" scale looks really weird. If you could have better integrated the shape of the extension into the body shape when cutting the wings, it would have worked really well. I'd stick with the 36" scale, if I were you. Other than that, things are looking really good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted February 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2005 Thanks ski....yeah the more I look at it, the more I have to agree. I just figured out a way to cut the slots for a 36" scale using the StewMac 34" fret slot template. If you take any spreadsheet-style fret spacing calculator, it is a simple matter to figure out that the fret at the "-1" position is 2.02" behind the nut. So, if you place your first cut 2.02" downstream of the nut, then you can use the StewMac 34" template to cut the rest of the slots (actually 36.02" scale). For a 35" scale template, the "-1" fret is 2.08" behind the nut if you want to cut the slots for a 37" scale (actually 37.08"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted February 14, 2005 Report Share Posted February 14, 2005 Very cool, man! Just one thing I've always wanted to try, myself: If you were to cut off that extension, it would be the perfect size for a 5 string bridge minus the saddles. You could carve it, and get (or even make out of ebony or bocote) some saddles, and then you'd have a bridge that matched up with the neck laminates perfectly! Kinda weird, I know, but just another one of my crazy ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted February 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 That's a cool idea! I'll have to chew on that one awhile. At one point I actually thought about going with a floating ebony bridge, like on an archtop, and having the strings feed through the end of the extension. But I really do want that Stingray growl, and I'm afraid I won't get it with a wooden bridge. On the other hand, I could just try the ebony bridge without it costing more than a few holes in the extension. Hmmmm....the possibilities.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parker_Fly Posted February 15, 2005 Report Share Posted February 15, 2005 i think that looks great! thats a sick design! cant wait to see it done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted March 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 Since last time...I trimmed the upper waist a bit more so it better matches the lower waist now. It took me 4 tries to get an acrylic template made that I was happy with, particularly the upper edge of the body and the scroll shapes; I'll rout to the template next week. Got a Basslines active electronics package with volume & 3-band EQ, it is a drop-in replacement for Stingray electronics but the volume knob, when pulled up, switches over to a special "slap" EQ. I routed out the cavity and drilled the holes for the pots (forstner bit). Bartolini 72MV5C is on order; it is the "deep tone" version which I hope will balance out the bright woods I've got on here. I glued on the headstock ears a couple weeks ago, but now that I'm playing around with headstock shapes, I decided I'm going to saw them off & replace them with maple. I've also gone with a laminated fretboard, ebony over padauk. The headstock, fretboard extension, and body will all be carved, using the Dremel sanding drum for the most part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Mailloux Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 Absolutely gorgeous neck Erik. I'm sure this'll come out really nice. You better not enter this one in GOTM the same month I put in my 6-string! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bassisgreat Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 That's looking fantastic!! I bet it'll sound great too! FWIW, Ernie Ball MusicMan basses are 34" scale, and I am becoming a fan of that scale length. This is a bit odd since I am pretty huge (6' 6" with monkey hands ) but I just find that it feels a bit more natural to play. I think less about the actual physical part of playing, which theoretically leaves me more mental space for the musical side... Although the 35" on my old Modulus did keep my technique on it's toes... The B string was great on my MM AND on the Modulus, and I tuned a whole step down for a while. I am of the school of thought that the scale length has slightly less to do with the B than the overall fit and finish of the bass. I've never jammed on a 36" or larger, but I can imagine that requires a pretty good stretch in first position! In any case, it's looking great! Keep us updated on your progress!! I am about to get a MM style pickup for a bass I am building (my first) and I was looking at that very one, so I'll be interested to know what you think of it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted March 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Hey Phil, at the rate you are going on yours...and at the rate I'm going...you'll probably finish a year ahead of me! All the same, there's no sense in splitting the bass vote in one month, that's for sure! FWIW, Ernie Ball MusicMan basses are 34" scale, and I am becoming a fan of that scale length. Yeah the bass player I jam with has a Stingray 5 and a Ken Smith 5 both are 34". I'm actually a guitar player, and this will be my first real serious bass, so I'm really not wedded to any particular bass scale length. Just figured I'd try out the 36" for fun. At 6'6" a 34" scale must seem like a guitar to you; no wonder you're a bass player, you were built for bass! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted July 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 OK...finally got some time to work on this again. I managed to carefully bandsaw out the outlines and centers of the scrolls, and routed the body edge to my plexi template on my new fold-away router table in the garage. Also bandsawed out the headstock outline, and routed to template. Then I hit the body edges with a 7/8" roundover bit on the table (in 4 passes), all around the edge back & front except the scrolls and where the bridge sits on the front. The 7/8" did a good job of exposing the ebony laminates in the body...I may hit it yet again with a table-edge bit or something. Now the fun part, carving! I'm doing everything with the Dremel sanding drum. I first drew a line along where I wanted a small ridge in the scroll, then went to work with the Dremel on ~50% speed. Fast enough to make progress, but slow enough so that you can work it and get nice smooth outlines. Bocote & ebony dust are killers, so the shop vac is on constantly. Here's the back of the top scroll, part way through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted July 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Back of the upper scroll, almost finished. Still some work to do at the mid-point to expose a little more ebony, and more carving is needed in the cutaway, but its coming along well, I'm pretty happy with this way of doing it so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Man that looks awesome. I love the exposed ebony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skibum5545 Posted July 23, 2005 Report Share Posted July 23, 2005 Woooowww... It's the projects like this that keep me here at PG, even when I think I can't take much more of the crap... thank you thankyou THANKYOU for building such a cool instrument! Can't wait to see it done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted July 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2005 Scrolls are done! Well...mostly done, I need to fine-sand 'em, but I'm finished with all the contours. The bocote top & back plates were a little on the thick side (5/16"), so on the horns I used a router to thin them down to 3/16" then started in with the dremel. The inner parts of the horns & scrolls were done entirely with a dremel & sanding drum, the outer parts of the horns with a random orbital sander (both 60 grit). Here's the back of the small scroll (treble side). Still some work to do in the bottoms of the cutaways, but coming along pretty well. I'm quite pleased. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted July 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2005 After the scrolls, finally found some time to work on the neck heel. I roughed the contour using my newly-assembled duplicarver. Not in dupli mode, just free-handing it to remove the larger volumes of wood. I had left the neck blank quite thick on purpose in the heel area, time to remove it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted July 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2005 Here's the neck heel after the rough carve and some randomly orbital sanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zephyr7 Posted July 30, 2005 Report Share Posted July 30, 2005 I'm going on the record. This IS the most beautiful guitar/bass I've ever seen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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