Deja Posted July 4, 2005 Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 HI, im planning to build a body for a bass, in particular a gene simmons axe style bass. I need to know of a lightweight, easy to work with wood that is fairly cheap . I was also wondering, if i use the distance from the nut of my current neck to the bridge and cut the new body and put the bridge the same dist i could just then put my neck on the new body and it should be fine right? I know he has a kramer aluminum neck but i dont want his bass, i just want the style. Please help, ive never built a bass b4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 4, 2005 Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 Well, first thing you should do is read as much as you can! Read all the tutorials on the site. Keep reading and reading and reading. It will help, I promise. As for the wood, the obvious choice would be poplar. There are also a number of other woods including basswood, alder, mahogany, etc that are relatively cheap. Is there a reason it has to be light weight? One of my concerns with light weight woods is that you loose a lot of tone (although there are always exceptions to the rules!). However, thats just a personal opinion. About the neck, in general, you are correct. Personally, what I would do is measure from the nut to the 12th fret. Most likely it will be 16 inches (34 inch scale). What I did on my bass was set the saddles in my bridge to the center of their travel and then places those right on the measured line (16 inches from the 12th fret, 34 inches from the nut). That should give you ample room for intonation adjustment both ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fryovanni Posted July 4, 2005 Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 Bass wood is cheap and easy to work with, but is soft and dings up pretty easy. Alder is a little bit more but much more durable. The the frets on your bass that you are pulling the neck from should be set for the scale length from the nut to the bridge. If it intonates now and you copy the spacing it should work. Side note- You should do some research and understand what you are doing a before you try this. You will have a much better chance of creating a good instrument. Winging it will be a craps shoot and you probably won't even know you are doing something wrong when you make a mistake. Just my 2 cents. If you at least read through the tutorials you will do much better ( there is a ton of free information here, why not dig in). Peace, Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Posted July 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 i have decided to use mahogany for the body, just to let you know found out where i can get some good quality cheap stuff. are there different types of bass bridges for 4 string or are they generally the same Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 4, 2005 Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 They all work on the same principles, for the most part, but as with anything, there are good quality bridges and then there are bad quality bridges. Personally, I would stay away from the Fender style bridges. They have always seemed insufficient to me for some reason. I can't stress to you enough the importance of the planning stage. Especially as a beginner. I planned and read everything I could get my hands on for a year before I built my bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Posted July 4, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2005 does anyone know of a parts supplier in australia that supplies wood and hardware? im trying to go for mahogany or basswood, are these any good for basses. Also are there any good tutorials on building necks because the neck building tutorial page wont load for me on projectguitar.com Im planning on a through neck, by the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 5, 2005 Report Share Posted July 5, 2005 Perry might be able to give ya a hand with that. He is our resident Aussie luthier. Do a google search on building necks. Do a search on the forum, too. There is plenty of info out there if you are willing to search for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haggardguy Posted July 5, 2005 Report Share Posted July 5, 2005 Mahogany and basswood have fairly different tonal charactersitics and mahogany isn't really what I'd call light. I'd say you might wanna hit the books abit before you go out and buy anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulSimonon Posted July 6, 2005 Report Share Posted July 6, 2005 May I suggest alder? As has already been said, it's relatively light and durable while being a very nice tonewood. Pretty easy to find too. Swamp ash is all of the above as well. I personally find basswood to be very thin sounding, it always seems to suck out a lot of bass, since it is basswood, I guess it likes to keep the lower tones for itself. As for mahogany, it's not too light. Not as heavy as a lot of things, but it's sort of hefty. Nice warm tone from it though! If I were you, I'd investigate what sort of woods will give you the tone you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deja Posted July 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 yep, ill think about it. unrelated to that bass will the fender style bass bridge cover fit basically all of those style basses, caus i have an aria bass and i think it would look a lot cooler with one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 yep, ill think about it. unrelated to that bass will the fender style bass bridge cover fit basically all of those style basses, caus i have an aria bass and i think it would look a lot cooler with one ← It might, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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