Wademeister

Wasn't terribly happy about making a one piece neck so I decided to rip it and make a three piece. At first I thought it was going to end up too narrow but after checking it out closer I decided it would be ok. I feel good about it now =) Was a little disheartened when I ripped the neck closer to final thickness in preparation of the scarf joint. That saw cut opened up a big void that didn't show on the outside of the board. After a few test cuts I got down to solid wood and didn't get to the point of having to scrap the neck. The blue ink line on the plan shows where the wood is now in relation to the planned outline. About an 1/8 inch to spare. PSHEW!! Nevermind the black stuff all over, that's saw wax and aluminum dust from the metal cutting saw. I like to clamp the headstock and neck pieces together and drill them for locating pins before gluing them up. Here you can see the locating pin holes... ...and the scarf joint is done! I'll pull the pins out when I'm ready to do some more cutting.

So I got the bug to build another bass like the one I did about 5 years ago. This is the design and very basic computer rendering. My redwood isn't this red, nor is it as orange as it looks in the pic from the ebay ad. I looked at this for days on my computer screen and decided that even as nice as that redwood looks, it still has to have the pickguard. The body shape looks wrong if I don't have that pickguard shape in there. Bought this beautiful piece of redwood when I did the first one and the wood has been hanging out it my closet all this time. I picked up a nice piece of cherry for the (through) neck and body, and a pretty but not over-the-top piece of maple for the fretboard. I didn't realize I was playing it so close with the cherry. In this pic you see the entire cherry board cut an rearranged into what will be the bass. Those two little blocks are all of the unused cherry! I have it all laying on top of a full size print of the bass, along with most of the maple board. Here's a shot of the fretboard, the dark spots are shallow burns from the table saw. We use that saw for cutting aluminum plate so it's probably not as sharp as it could be! I'm thinking I may use Arizona desert ironwood for the block inlays since it would be a nice color for this bass and is a native North American wood like the rest of the bass. I have all gold hardware and gold fretwire from LMII which I think will look great but the yellow/gold inlays may be over the top so have to think about that for a while. I'd also like to know what you guys think about making the neck from a single piece of charry just as it is now. I've read that cherry is more stable than maple so it's probably structurally fine as it is and would save me some additional sawing and gluing. I also don't want to get it all stripey looking, but at the same time I feel better about having some contrasting grain to add stability. I'm tempted to put a piece of that maple in the center of the neck... hmmm. Pretty tasty looking edge grain. After I decide whether to put the maple in the neck or not, I can go ahead with the possible neck blank, scarf joint and body wings. Whattaya think, put the maple in the neck? Or some walnut? I have some nice but plain looking walnut I could use... or I could trash the all American idea and use some bloodwood I have hanging around.. If I use the bloodwood I may also go with a very pretty piece of morado for the fretboard. GAH! No! Gonna stick with that maple fretboard for this bass. Maybe bloodwood and morado on the next one...

I like it! Looking very nice

Here's an idea from the aircraft cabinet=making world... You may be able to prefinish the veneer before you apply it to the guitar. Don't completely finish it, but at least get far enough to have the grain sealed against glue seeping through from the back. The guys I work with are doing prefinish for different reasons but it seems like a practical solution in this case.

I really like this neck/body transition. Clean and simple, functional without being clumsy. Nice touch with the headstock contouring too, I like that a lot. Oh, and the inlays... and of course the marbleized finish.. Great job all around!

Ya, waiting for it to season I guess Rounded up the rest of the wood today for the next build!

Getting the itch to build another and that piece of curly redwood is still waiting for me. I think it may be time!

Wow, I can't believe this thread is nearly two years old! Right around Christmas, what, about 6 weeks ago? I got inspired again to work on this one. Bought a Peavey T-40 donor bass for the electronics, touched up my design and dove in. I had a nice big hard maple board hanging around from about two years ago I guess, and I made everything but the (ebony) fingerboard from that. Mostly cut with the CNC router, though all the glue joints were cut on the table saw and hand sanded so my blank was handmade. Uh, all the computer design work and CNC programs were handmade by me as well Well I had bad GAS for a Ric a while back, and then around Christmas I had it again for a white Fender Aerodyne Jazz. I couldn't really afford either of them at the time and I had all this stuff hanging around to build one so I decided to cure my gas by building my own. So far so good, in fact I've been surprised at how well a lot of things have worked out on this project. Right up to the point of putting the strings on for the first time and having very nice action, neck relief and even intonation without making any adjustments. No really, I can hardly believe it myself! I planned carefully but I really never expected everything to come together THAT well. Still has a bit of work to do but it's pretty darn close to done. Pic of my Aluminumglo T-4003 What's the rule now for posting pics, can I post a bunch of thumbnail links for pics or do they need to be text links?

Pretty darn sure that's oak. Looking at the grain at the bottom center of the closeup pic, it's perfect. Try cutting a piece a couple inches long along the grain then put soapy water on one end of the grain and blow on the other end. Anyone know of any wood besides oak that will make bubbles?

Bump for the new sketch! Looks like I need to scale the headstock up just a bit since the tuner holes are so close to the edge. Soon as I have new tuners in hand I can measure them and see exactly where and how much to add. I'll draw the angled frets when I fix the headstock. Anyone have experience with the Grover Titan tuners? They look great from the pics I've seen, but I haven't had a chance to get my hands on any yet. I like that massive post look like the G&L tuners but I could only find the Y-key hipshots with the 3/8" post.

Well it's been about 9 months now, the board seems to be dry and stable, and I'm gettin the itch to build! Going 4 string this time though, with a thin satin finish for a nice natural look. here's the new sketch. Quite a bit different, but the old one semed a little too boxy after coming back for a fresh look at it.

I did mine with a drawknife (similar to spokeshave) and a block plane. Lots of block sanding too. I probably also used a rasp too now that I look at it. I built it a long time ago and I don't remember exactly.

I had put my bass together thinking that the truss rod channel was tight enough only to find later that the rod would rattle if I bumped the back of the neck with my palm. After removing the fingerboard and noticing that the rod wasn't all that straight I put some more bends in only the rotating part. I placed the bends so that the rod can't lay flat no matter which way you turn it (small bends now, I didn't have to hammer it into the slot when I was done). The springing action of the rod being held straight in that slot does a great job of keeping it from rattling with no forign objects of substances inside the neck. This being the only neck I've ever made, I'm no expert and wouldn't consider this to be good advice, but it worked great for me.

I appreciate all the input Drak, and I take no offense. Of course as you can see, I'm doing my homework and seeking advice from experienced people like yourself. Larry mentioned using four stickers and weight to dry this piece, which would seem to address the bowing problem you had experienced. I wouldn't have guessed that a piece of wood could possibly be used within months, but I had read something that amounted to that over on MIMF so thought it may be possible. I have some good input already but I'll continue to read and wait a while before doing anything with this board. Most likely I will resaw it and sticker it with weights as Larry suggested, but I don't think it will hurt anything to wait another week or so. I may bump into or be presented with some interesting facts during that time and I'm not going to rush the project.

Drak- I was planning on using this wood within 2 or 3 months after drying in a box heated by a lightbulb. From what I've read on the MIMF, it seems several makers are using wood within a few weeks from the time the tree is cut. I will check this out thouroghly before I cut this board and if I can't use it for 5 years then so be it. I'll get a piece of curly maple or something if that what I have to do. The finish would polyester as on the bass bass. That stuff is rediculously hard and durable. The main drawback to it is that it is quite thick, about .030". idch- I don't quite understand what you're saying "Well, if you're going to go headless, may I PLEASE request a design that doesn't just rehash every other bass design out there? A headless bass doesn't need the horn for balance, right? You can do something else...come on people!" Not rehashing is exactly where I'm at. True I have essentially copied an existing design, but this one has hardly been hashed at all. The bass in the pic is a Guild Burnside Crossbow. According to the seller, there were only about 35 of them made. Steinberger pretty much proved to me that electric bass bodies are for show anyway, so I feel free to make any shape that pleases my eye. It doesn't look like a Steinberger or a P or J bass, doesn't look like a Toby or Pedulla or really anything I've ever seen before except for that very rare one. The upper horn is certainly where it is for balance purposes and would not be required for a headless design, but what would you do with it? I like the flow of this design with or without the peghead. Not that I'm about to redesign that body, but I'm curious to see what kinds of things you might be thinking. Do you have any sketches?

Yeah, I won that one from renobird. I'll have to dry it out and let it sit a while before I use it, but I think it's at least as nice as shown in the pic. The surface is pretty rough at the moment but I can see the beauty just below the surface. Sorry to hear that yours didn't turn out as well. ebay page You have a point about the inverted bout and headless tuners Skibum, I hadn't thought about that but now that you mention it it seems exactly right. I'll have to think some more about tuner design and string mounting at the head. I haven't looked at a headless bass before with the thought of building one so I have some research to do.

I planned on covering the entire top with the redwood too, it would be a shame to waste any of this piece. Funny you think it should be headless, have you seen the one I borrowed the design from?

So now that the fish is all done I want something with frets. I have the redwood shown, and am considering the design drawn here. I may go headless, but I sort of like the headstock design I came up with here and I may prefer to have standard type tuners. Another 5 string neckthrough bass, this one with frets. I'm thinking of a bound ebony fretboard and maple neck with a pair of 1/4 inch wide wenge stripes. The pickups would be Bartolini, same as my bass bass, but the preamp may be something different.

Setch, you have any tips on binding fingerboards? I need to go back and look at your great LP again, that was extremely well done. I'm thinking of a more traditional shaped fretted bass for the next project, with a flamed redwood top and bound ebony fingerboard. Should look very classy. Here's a link for the redwood I won. I know I'll need to dry it for a while but I'm in no hurry. A beauty! Oh, and another pic or two of the bigmouth.

Thanks for all the positive feedback and fun! I just noticed I don't have many pics up of the completed bass. If you want to see any particular details let me know and I'll post it up. Here are a couple of my favorites. oh, and I uh...seem to have bought more wood off of ebay....

brassy yep yep. The bass bass it is! Now scuse me, I hafta practice my scales...

Finally got a clip! The recording quality isn't that great, but you can hear the mwah, growl and super sustain here! Fishbite That bridge is super simple. I just put 5 threaded inserts into the body and made some screws with slots to work as individual saddles. Advice to anyone building this would be either work in a machine shop where you would be allowed to make your own stuff or just buy a Badass or Schaller bridge. I put a lot of thought into this one and ended up with a few hours into the tailpiece. That would be something over $200 if I were making it for a customer, and I still ended up with something I'm going to replace. The string balls don't settle as far into the tailpiece as I'd like, and I'm going to make a better looking one when I redo it. The saddle/insert setup was pretty simple and I may have only one hour invested into the making of those pieces. Weighs about 9.5 pounds and has a 34" scale. I'll be glad to shoot more pics if there's anything anyone wants to see!

The pickups are Bartolini XXM55C. Turns out the switches I got aren't right for the wiring configuration I had intended so I ended up going an alternate route. Seems the P-HB-Reverse P isn't too bad but I still want to try the Series HB-SC-Parallel HB. I need to order the switches from Mouser Electronics since it seems the DP3T on-on-on swicth shown on the papers that came with my pickups is sort of an oddball switch and Radio Shack doesn't have any such thing.

mmm, one more peek for now. I'll get some more pics up as I get the details wrapped up.

Ok now we're getting close! I still have some details to take care of like making a proper nut, properly mounting the pickups, wiring it up and a few other little things. I'll give it a couple weeks for the finish to cure really good and hard and then disassemble, buff it out and put it all back together for good. So far the results are looking very good! Acoustically I'm getting a very growly mwah, but the Labella tapewounds are brand new and I may need to adjust the action or truss rod a bit yet. The fine tuning will wait until everything has had a chance to settle in for a while. Here's a peek