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Firebird Bass And Viszikon Guitar


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Hey People-

Just wanted to stop by and post some shots of my 2 latest (completed) projects. The guitar's been done for several months, and Rob (aka The Skullsplitter) is very happy with it. I finished Firebird a couple months ago, and I love it! It's become my #1 bass.

Firebird specs:

35" scale

28 stainless steel frets

Canarywood fretboard with 7-wood Firebird inlay

Neck- 3-pc. African mahogany/walnut, through

Body- African mahogany back, fire-dyed sycamore top, hand-rubbed polyurethane finish

Headstock- mahogany back, sycamore top

Pickup- EMG MMTW with single volume control/on-off switch, all 3 coils tied together

Chrome hardware (including drop-D tuner, not pictured)

Special construction features: headstock is a "cap" joined to neck by a mortise and tenon joint; overall length of the instrument is a whopping 53" (I guess I need to start building my own cases too)!

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Viszikon specs:

25.5" scale

24 nickel/silver frets

Ebony fretboard

Neck- 1-pc. royal mahogany, waxed finish on back, through

Body- nicely striped African mahogany, gloss lacquer finish, Vixen shape

Headstock- African mahogany wings, Beast shape

Pickup- single EMG 81 with on/off toggle switch

Black hardware (including Sperzel locking tuners)

Special construction features: string-through body; fretboard positioned completely above body; very thin v-neck

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Those are cool, in a very in-your-face pointy way :D.

My only criticisms would be that the lower horn on the bass seems like it could obstruct the upper fret access a little bit, and that the string pull on the headstocks could be a little bit straighter without ruining them aesthetically.

What you did with the grain direction in the V-style one looks cool.

Nice inlay on the bass too. What did you use for the wings?

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Those are cool, in a very in-your-face pointy way :D.

My only criticisms would be that the lower horn on the bass seems like it could obstruct the upper fret access a little bit, and that the string pull on the headstocks could be a little bit straighter without ruining them aesthetically.

What you did with the grain direction in the V-style one looks cool.

Nice inlay on the bass too. What did you use for the wings?

Thanks Ben.

Yeah, the horn just brushes the back of my hand when I go up high, but I really liked that curve, so I opted for a slight impedence.

Are you talking about the string angle from the tuner to the nut? With the Beast headstock, as wide as it is, I really couldn't get the tuners any closer to the center. And the tuners for the 2 inside strings on the bass, well, that's just where they go!

The bird wings are the same wood as the top of the bass (sycamore) with the same dye. However, they show up a little brighter since they don't have the polyurethane over them.

Funny thing about the grain direction. The guitar was originally going to be painted black, so I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to the grain direction when I cut it out. But when we saw how cool it looked, we decided to keep the natural wood (which would be my choice anyway).

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Are you talking about the string angle from the tuner to the nut? With the Beast headstock, as wide as it is, I really couldn't get the tuners any closer to the center.

Yeah, I would have redesigned the headstock slightly and slimmed it just a little (mostly so towards the end of it), so that it was almost the same, but just a little thinner, allowing you to get a slightly straighter string pull... but if what you have workss fine then its no big deal.

The bird wings are the same wood as the top of the bass (sycamore) with the same dye. However, they show up a little brighter since they don't have the polyurethane over them.

Sycamore eh? I would have guessed from the photos that they were made of some exceptionally nicely figured mahogany.

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