Jove, A 34" Bass For My Daughter

[Bizzar_Guitars]

Here’s a bass I built for my daughter:

It is called Jove (Roman God - Lord of the Skies, Gods and Thunder)

It is a 34" laminated neck-through 4 string bass.

Here’s the original plan:

Specs:

11 piece neck-through (maple, walnut, maple, walnut, maple, mahogany, maple, walnut, maple, walnut, maple)

34" scale length

Mahogany back and Maple front

24 medium jumbo frets (well, actually 25, if you count the ‘zero fret’)

Single action truss rod (adjustable at head stock)

Tigerwood (Goncalo alves) fretboard

Maple compound radius fret board (12" at the nut, ~18" at the 24th fret)

Clear acrylic inlays in a steel rings

Bi-coloured LEDs under inlay

Fibre Optic side markers in aluminum rings

Wenge stringers

10 degree head stock angle

Gotoh Compact Bass Tuners

1 degree body angle

Black Corian nut

2 over-wound Bizzar Humbuckers with tops and mounting rings that match the neck laminates

2 Dual coil split switches (North/Both/South)

1 Phase switch

2 500K concentric Volume/Tone pots

Three-way Treble/Rhythm switch

Stereo 1/4" output jack (activates LEDs when mono jack inserted)

Leo Quan Badass bridge

Hand rubbed Oil finish

The centre laminate with truss rod channel cut:

A test clamping of the neck laminates:

Neck laminates glued with truss rod fillet:

The wings, rough shaped and clamped:

The wings, before final shaping:

The wings shaped:

[Bizzar_Guitars]

To prevent the wings from slipping during glueing, staples are inserted:

The head of the staples are cut off:

After cutting the tops of the staples off leaves two little nibs:

The wings are aligned and dry clamped to the neck blank. During dry clamping, these nibs, leave impressions in the neck blank, making register marks to align and keep the wings from slipping during glue up. The same process was used to glue the top and bottom of the wings, the pencil marks indicate where the staples are:

Clamps are removed:

Bobbin test assembly:

Bobbin top shaped:

What was on the bench in progress:

Fretboard binding:

[Bizzar_Guitars]

Cavity cover:

Body back:

Body front with LEDs in ‘green’ mode:

LEDs in ‘red’ mode:

LEDs in ‘orange’ mode:

[plinky]

Wow!

[jeremyp]

Awesome bass. I was thinking of doing something similar for the truss rod route. How thick is that fretboard? do you get decent string height with that setup?

[IPA or death]

Wicked awesome project man. Do you mind if I ask your method for the LED markers?

[RestorationAD]

Interesting pickup design. What is the pole orientation? Are you doing S up or are you running N > S ?

Also is that just steel tubing? Nice idea for hollow slugs... are they brighter than a solid slug?

[Bizzar_Guitars]

Plinky - Thanks.

jeremyp - Thanks, doing the truss rod channel like this eliminates the need for a curved routing jig, and the cut off piece becomes the fillet to cover the truss rod. The fretboard started as a piece of hard wood flooring. it is about 6 mm thick give or take a few mm. These pictures were taken before it was setup. The action is a little lower now. I've had a few friends who play bass check it out, and they seem to like it.

IPA or death -Thanks.

First the holes for the LEDs are drilled and then a channel is made down the centre.

The LEDs are placed in the holes.

The LED 'legs' are bent at a 90 degree angle.

The ground wire is connected to all of the LEDs first by peeling away some of the insulation and soldering.

A resistor is soldered to each of the positive connections and the wire is soldered.

Here's a pic of the process on the first LED fretboard (minus the shrink tubing).

Once the resistors are attached, a piece of shrink tubing goes over them to prevent the possibility of shorting out. This process is continued to the end.

The inlay dots are pieces of steel tubing with thin slices of acrylic rod inside.

[Bizzar_Guitars]

RestorationAD - Thanks, the pole pieces are made from automotive brakeline:

They are basic humbuckers, using an alnico V magnet.

Here's some pick of another set I made, using the same concept. The four coils (from right to left) freshly wound, wrapped in teflon tape, wound in copper tape and grounded, wrapped in black pickup tape. Wrapping the coils in copper tape and grounding them acts as a Faraday cage, eliminating RF interference.

The assembled pickup:

I got the idea of using hollow slugs from Glenn McDougall,

I haven't had a chance to compare them to other pickups, but here are some sound samples of my daughter playing a school lesson, recorded by plugging the bass straight into my computer.

Here's both humbuckers in humbucking mode:

http://www.freefilehosting.net/jove-bothboth

Here's the bridge pickup north coil only:

http://www.freefilehosting.net/jove-bridgenorth

Here's the neck pick up north coil only:

http://www.freefilehosting.net/jove-necknorth

Here's the neck north coil and the bridge south coil out of phase:

http://www.freefilehosting.net/jove-...outhoutofphase

(Anyone have any suggestions on a better file hosting site?

I think they sound pretty good.

Ciao,

Garth