zeegeit

Hi guys, I'm thinking about building a fretless bass, right now i'm in the designing phase. A long time back, I saw loosetoe's singlecut 5- and 6-string fretless basses. I really liked the single cut design, so I made a little design like it. What do you guys think of it? I'd really like to hear your feedback It's going to be a 4-string fretless bass, 34 " scale length . I made the neck a bit to jazz-bass standards(as that is what I'm playing now, and I like it ) Here's the image : http://home.wanadoo.nl/paul.lameijer/jaap/.../bassdesign.jpg

Hi guys! Been quite a while since I've been here, but my hands are itching to build something. I'm thinking about a fretless 4 string bass guitar.. to have something I can actually play (which, unfortunately, I cannot say of my lapsteel guitar) I still have a piece of meranti left, about a meter long, 4 cm thick and 14 cm wide (used the other half to build a lap steel guitar). I found the stuff a little hard to work with, splinters like hell. But then again, I'm used to nice soft woods like spruce. Anyway, to get to the point, I was searching our garage for some tools I'd lost, and I found a few pieces of Bankirai wood, some leftovers from some garden project my father built. I searched the internet for some info, and found out that it's botanical name is Shorea Atrivernosa (or at least, it's a Shorea) . I also found out that Meranti is a Shorea as well... but that's besides the point. Now I know for a fact that Bankirai is used in a lot of garden furniture etc. It's durable stuff, and the pieces I found were quite heavy (Though www.af.nl , a dutch wood dealer, says that its weight can vary between 700 kg - 1150 kg per cubic meter, so between the weight of ash and ebony). My question, therefore, is: Has any of you guys heard of the wood, or used it (or any of its close relatives) in a guitar before/ does any of you think I can actually use this wood? I'm thinking about using it for a neck (possibly neck-through even). I know most of you will tell me to go out and buy myself a piece of alder or basswood. The only problem is that I'm a poor student and I'm just too inconfident about my woodworking capabilities to go out and mess up a nice piece of wood. I have this stuff lying around in my garage, collecting dust (and spiders)..so do you think I could use it? Thanks! - EDIT - Well, came out of bed this morning and decided to actually check the wood out I took a small scrap of it, and submitted it to some torture tests. Tapping the wood with my knuckles produces an almost marimba-like sound. The wood is indeed a bit on the heavy side, but not backbreaking IMO . But, the best thing about the stuff is: it's actually quite easy to saw, even with a worn out rusty hand saw. I could actually carve some wood off with a stanley knife. In that aspect it's way better than the meranti I used for my lapsteel, which was -IMO- a b*tch to work with . The stuff is also quite rigid in that I wasn't able to bend or break pieces of it.. not even when standing on them anyway, I'm seriously considering this wood for my fretless project..as a neck wood. maybe even in the body.. I'll keep you guys updated. In the meanwhile, does any of you have any experience with using this wood for guitars?

Hahaha I recognise the feeling . One of the reasons I'm building this bass now is because I actually have the money to do it now . Anyways, I have no experience whatsoever with wood prices. If I would want to buy say.. 3 maple boards sized 1" by 3" by 45" and 2 bubinga boards sized 1" by 3" by 45" what would that cost, approximately? Because I think these woods look kind of nice, although I don't know what would happen to tone if you'd put them together..

Ok Phil, so you say I'd best find something like maple or mahogany to form the base of the neck? And perhaps use the meranti for body wings/decorative laminate within the neck? (not entirely sure if that's what you meant?)

Hm..ok well, whether it's meranti or not (although the pictures I saw of jatoba make sense as well, plus the fact that the piece of wood IS indeed "quite" heavy , so who knows), I'll probably try to use it in my neck anyway. I'm thinking about making a laminate neck, would that make any difference? By laminating it, I hope to reinforce it some more, and also make it look prettier. I've noticed that sawing the wood doesn't cause it to splinter at all, and neither does routing it. It does , however, start to complain (by splintering) if you drill at strange angles (don't ask ) but other than that, I haven't had a lot of problems with it so far. I guess I'll just go ahead with it, and see where my luck ends. If the sawing and routing works out like it did on my lap steel, I guess my luck will last jaap

ok, well the only reason I thought it might be mahogany, was that I thought the picture I'd found of it kinda looked like the piece of wood I bought. I guess it's meranti then. About the mystery wood..do you have any idea what it could be? I saw a nice piece of it, but I don't know what kind of wood it is either. Anyway, is it possible to use these woods for a bass, or would you really recommend I get some other wood? The piece of wood is quite heavy and hard (it's just a tad lighter than my jazz bass)

Hey guys! At the moment, I'm seriously thinking about trying my hand at building a fretless bass guitar. I'm still in the process of planning everything and sorting out what parts I need, and at the moment I'm thinking of what wood to use. Quite some months ago, I bought a piece of wood at our local Gamma (the Dutch version of Home Depot, I guess), from the hardwood rack. It's a nice piece of wood, I already built a lapsteel guitar out of it. Anyway, I was left with about 1.15 meters of hardwood. Something had to be done with it. The only "problem" I have right now, is that I'm not sure what kind of wood this is. Many people say Gamma hardwood is all meranti, but yesterday I went to the Gamma, and I saw all kinds of hardwoods (ranging from something that looked a lot like alder to something that allmost looked as dark as wenge, with very weird grains). I remember that when I bought "my" piece of hardwood, there were a lot of different boards as well. I found various pictures of hardwoods, including meranti and mahogany. I think the board looks a bit like meranti (Meranti from AF) but it looks a lot like this mahogany(Sipo mahogany from AF) as well ...so I'm not completely sure what it is anymore. I'm not a wood expert, but I know some people around here know a lot about wood, so my question to them is: Have you got any idea what kind of wood this is? thanks! Jaap

Hey guys, nothing has happened so far, but I just wanted to reply to some of your questions. Mike: As far as I know, the pickup doesn't have any shielding..it just has a red(hot) and a black(ground) wire coming from it.. Greg: I've tried grounding the bridge already...well ..err actually I connected a wire from the bridge to the back of my pot(which could be bad practice, but anyways) and it didn't help..the hum remained. I haven't tried shielding it though..maybe that would improve it. However, I've tried playing it at various locations, including in front of my CRT monitor; the hum remained the same(at least from my point of errr.. hearing ) so I'm not sure yet whether shielding would remove the hum. I will try shielding it when I have the time, however. Mick: I'm just using the guitar without any effects..just guitar--->amp (simple small practice amp..I've tried hooking it up to my brother's halfstack, but the screeching and humming was just unbearable ). I did ground the jack.. connected a wire from the back of the pot (where the pickup and pot itself are grounded) to the output jack ground. - EDIT - allright..it's a really good thing that I've still got a nice 3 foot board left to hit my own head with...I just took it apart again..and noticed something. One of the little copper strands of my pickups ground wire was touching the output jack...that's what was causing the hum..I took it off, resoldered it and tried grounding the bridge again; the hum decreased significantly, and now when I touch the strings, there's no noise at all(before, I could ground the bridge and touch the strings and nothing would happen)... so I think I've found the culprit...sorry for only noticing this now..would have saved you guys some hassle

hey guys! thanks for the replies. Greg: I did read something on ground loops..I'll try rewiring the guitar so that the parts are grounded to a washer(or a screw ).Let's hope it works Guitarfrenzy and Lovekraft: I did read about shielding as well, and have considered this..it looks like the www.guitarnuts.com site has quite a nice tutorial, will look into that. But..still there's one thing nagging me. I have a squier jazz bass as well, and it shows the symptoms of a badly grounded bridge (i.e. when I touch the strings there's no hum), but the strange thing with the lap steel is, that the hum disappears when I touch the output jack or the pot..what does this mean?

Hey guys! Well, I've finally finished my lap steel guitar (will post some pics later), the only thing is, i've got a weird issue with my pickup. I put a standard single coil pickup (no brand) in it, hooked it up with a volume pot, and an output jack (as that's the only thing I needed). Now I know that singlecoils aren't exactly noiseless, but I didn't think it would be this bad. I can hear the guitar through the amplifier, but the humming and buzzing is sometimes even louder. And that's where the fun starts.... I've tried grounding the bridge(I'm using a LP jr. bridge on this one) by connecting a wire from my grounding point(back of volume pot, is this good?) to my bridge, but to no avail. The weird thing is, when I touch the connector of my jack cable(it's a metal connector) while it's plugged into the guitar, the noise just disappears(when my father does the same thing, the noise only diminishes...am I a better conductor? ). Does any of you have an idea what this could be? Thanks! Jaap

hey greg! funny, I'm also building a lap steel. I bought some parts at Stewmac's, but I bought the pickups and tuners 2nd hand. As for the pickups, are you sure a strat singlecoil won't do the trick? that's what I use for my guitar..and first "sound"-testing was quite good actually jaap

allright! I just googled for the bakelite bars and found some interesting things But dammit! musician's friend won't ship what I want to the Netherlands but I've found the bars at music123.com ..little more expensive but then again I don't really care

hey! that looks interesting if I order one there now maybe I won't even have to pay customs! great idea! i'm checking out this one: Dunlop steel bar ..I think i'm gonna order this one(or is a round one not as good for a starter than one of those ergonomically designed ones?) But..what size do you recommend? my hands aren't that small and...what kind of picks should I use? I heard a lot about fingerpicks and such..are they better for lapsteel than normal picks? tnx! - edit : forgot something -

hmm..I see the problem with the roundwound strings..but I was intending to put on some flatwounds (when I'm finished that is ) just to check out the sound...if I'm correct they wouldn't wear the plastic down that much..wouldn't they? anyway..latex molds sound plausible aswell..would I need a mold release agent (scary word..sounds like a matrix thing ) for that? (Another silly idea: bathtub sealer ? they call it silicone kit over here...it's rubber like..would that work? )

ok! that's what I was looking for , thanks err..can you cast acrylic? I don't really know where to find it in the neighbourhood..but I'll look around. Carving one out of a scrap could be a solution too..but the reason I wanted to use polyester is that I've got some lying around here...ofcourse instead of going with all the fuss of making a mould, I suppose I could also just fill a plastic box with it, and wait for that to harden, and carve one out of that ...anyway do you think polyester will be durable enough (if the mixture is correct)? also..what kind of tone would it produce? has anyone got an idea?

Hey everybody! Since I'm going to build a lap steel guitar..i'm obviously going to need a tonebar. I posted an idea on this in my other thread (Lap steel guitar but I've kind of thought it out now. I want to make a mould out of clay or something like that, then take polyester resin and mix it with hardener , and just pour it in to the mould *maybe with some pieces of metal to add weight* . What do you think of this idea? There are 2 flaws I can see with this : 1: The polyester will stay in the clay, and i'm not going to be able to get it out without destroying my mould (don't feel like that) . I'd have to use some kind of stuff that can coat the clay so the polyester won't stick to it. What stuff would I need? WD-40? 2: I don't know whether plastic tonebars will sound good, but then again, I don't really know what steel bars sound like either and it's basically a first attempt. Well..those are my questions a: Is it a good idea to try and cast my own tonebar out of polyester this way, and b: What kind of stuff would I need to coat the clay?

Hmm.. I see.. the glass-filled-with-lead idea sounds okay..lead isn't that hard to come across I think (and it melts / bends quite easily). I read an article about casting polyester a little while ago. Would that work..if you'd like make some kind of mould , and then cast polyester resin into it..occasionally some pieces of metal (coins anyone? ) thrown into it. The pieces of metal would be to add some weight to it(I can imagine that polyester itself isn't heavy/dense enough). Then it might be possible to cast your own steel , right?

allright! here's an update! I just bought myself a piece of wood..this is a part of it: It's a piece of Meranti hardwood(i think) and it's sized 82.68 inches length, about 6 inch wide and 1.5 inch thick. I bought it for 31 euro in a diy-shop. I'm still planning to make the design I posted earlier..but right now I have to wait for the parts I ordered from Stewmac. I already have a single coil pickup ready, 6 tuners (and a truckload of screws ) I'm just wondering..for playing the steel guitar itself..has anyone attempted to create the "tone bar" by themselves? I can't actually find these in the Netherlands for a *reasonable* price(they're all like 40-50 euros) so errr... I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for diy-ing the bar ? Thanks for all your ideas! I'll keep you updated!

@unclej: allright..so 28 mm would be allright..well I'll check it out tomorrow..then I'm going to buy myself some wood . Anyway... I ordered a 25" scale dobro fingerboard .. I figured it would work too..just a little more distance between different notes as to what you mentioned about the bridge; my first intentions were to do something with a string through body type of thing and a very simple bridge.. but then I found the site I mentioned earlier, and thought "what the hell, might as well use a LP jr bridge" + the fact I was already ordering some parts from Stewmac..and the LP jr bridges aren't that expensive . Allright..thanks for the input everybody..tomorrow I'm going out to get myself some wood. *If I were to buy a piece of wood 15 cm wide(about 7") i thought up a design a bit like this* It's kinda inspired by a Rickenbacker lapsteel I saw on the internet somewhere

hmm..so the closer to 2 inches, the better..ok. I can get 2 inch thick..the only problem was an aesthethic one; it'd basically be a board with some strings, I wanted to make somekind of shape with it..but i guess that'll be possible with 6-7 inch wide wood as well..i guess 1.1 inch thick wood just won't cut it...correct? As for the radius problems; i'm aware of them..i've ordered one of those unradiused fretboards you mentioned from stewmac a few days ago. I also know about the preradiused bridge, however i'm using this page as a guideline; he uses the LP jr bridge too, and gives the same tips for "removing" the radius.

hmmm i'm sorry this is the third time I post in this topic..but I really need to know will a piece of hardwood that's 28 mm thick be sufficient to withstand the string tension of a lap steel guitar with a les paul junior style bridge? I already read that 1 3/4 inch or 1 1/2 inch is standard..but I can't get that thickness with a good (e.g. 20 cm or so) width..so I was wondering if 28 mm (1.102 inch) would be sufficient... any reply would be appreciated very much

oh yeah, just one thought...since i'm not installing a tremolo or anything (i'm using a LP jr. style bridge/tailpiece) i figured...this means I won't have to cut away a lot of wood...so i could use a thinner piece of wood, right?

allright, i've finally found some hardwood nearby but now i've got this problem: They've got it in two sizes: 15 cm wide, and 40 mm thick, or 20 cm wide and 28 mm thick. I don't feel like glueing ,but i still want it to actually look a little like a guitar instead so I was wondering: would a piece of hardwood(i think it's meranti or something ) of 28 mm thick stay straight with all the string force etc. on it? I read the thickness of an SG body is about 38 mm or something, but then I saw these guitars blackmachine..they're 28 mm thick, so I thought, would that be possible with a lapsteel as well? I hope someone can answer this(with a yes, if possible )

Well, I've made some progress ; the first coat of blue is now on; here are some pictures(the color isn't the same on the pictures, but in reality they are..had something to do with the lighting in the garage) Today I will do another coat of blue I'll keep you posted!

OK, thanks for the advice I'll stay away from the pine Phil, I saw the Ferm router for 30 euro at Kijkshop, I guess it's the same thing, maybe I'll buy it later I've bought my paint today; it's a kind of blue (Fresh blue ) and it's supposed to be able to give you a brilliant shine (after a few coats and sanding ) so I'll start on that tomorrow.