We packed up and moved from Seattle to the outskirts of Tokyo a year ago for my wife's job (she works for the U.S. government). I only brought my 4 string bass with me. A trip to Tokyo's musical instrument district, Ochanomizu, one afternoon got me thinking about playing a 5 string again. I've got almost free access to an amazing wood shop through my wife's work so here I am at the beginning of the journey to build a bass. The plan is to make a "fairly standard" 34" scale neck-through 5 string inspired heavily by a Japanese maker called STR's LS series. I'm gonna have lots of questions. Figured I'd do my best to document the process here and hopefully get some tips, feedback, and answers along the way. Here's what I've done so far: 1. Bought some wood. This was actually harder than it sounds. I got it in my head that I wanted to buy the wood locally instead of having it shipped. My first stops were to the spots the wood shop recommended: a dizzying hobby/lifestyle shop called "Tokyu Hands" and the local home depot-esque home supply stores, but none of them had good hardwoods big enough to be useful. So my second stop was to get on the train and head into a neighborhood in Tokyo called Shinkiba. Those of you that have spent time in Tokyo know that for some reason all the shops in a certain category tend to cluster together. So Ochanomizu has blocks and blocks of guitar shops stacked 6 stories high, Jimbocho is packed with stores selling skis and snowboards, Akihabara is jammed with electronics stores. So it only makes sense that there'd be a neighborhood full of wood stores. "Shinkiba" translates to literally mean "new wood place" so it seems like a promising spot. Here's what I saw when I got off the train: And then when I got out onto the street, I found this statue: In between the buildings, I found hints of what they contained. This was not a place for retail shoppers though - just blocks and blocks of warehouses. I got up the nerve to just start knocking on doors and walking into talk to people. Keep in mind my Japanese is just below "basic caveman" level. Eventually I cam across a guy who took my upstairs from his normal SPF supply warehouse and showed me this: If you want to build a table, he's got you covered. But prices were as big as the pieces so he didn't have anything for me. He did dig up a beautiful piece of ebony that could be sliced to make 20 or more fingerboards, but it was about $300. Here are some of the table tops: Finally, I came across a small spot run by two older guys. One of them spoke some English and was a bass player! I showed him a drawing of what I needed. He had everything but a good piece of figured maple for the top. He took my email address and told me he'd call some friends and see what he could find. The next day I got an email with some photos of the maple and some options for the rest of the wood. I honestly don't know enough to tell if that piece is fantastic or junk from that photo (any idea?), but I went ahead wired them the $$$ (most transactions in Japan are via cash, so I had to take a stack of cash to the local bank and transfer it into his account). The wood will be delivered by local courier service to me tomorrow. 2. Made a drawing I used one of the tips on the site here to enlarge a photo of the bass I'm using as "inspiration" to actual size. I made a few tweaks to it and then created a full size mock up by printing out a bunch of 8.5x11 sheets and taping them together. Here's the mock-up and a picture of the papers taped together (without the final headstock shape). 3. Ordered a bunch of hardware I went onto Amazon and bought the tuners, bridge, pickups, electronics, nut, strings, strap locks, and fret wire, everything else I thought I'd need. Thanks to the wonders of Amazon Prime and military post, it all arrived to me in Japan in about 10 days with free shipping. I figured having all of the materials will be helpful as I get going. Up next: First, I need to finalize the neck/fingerboard layout on my mock up to make sure the widths are correct for the bridge, nut, and pickups I'm using. Then, I'm thinking that I'll make a 3/4" MDF template from the print out to finalize the shape and make sure everything works out before I start messing with the wood. Any easy way to get the layout from the print-out onto the MDF? In all of the photos I've seen that step doesn't get captured. I was thinking I might just glue the printout to it. After that, I'll start planing and gluing. I can't wait to get started - I still feel a bit like a poser talking about building a bass but not actually doing any of the real work, but I understand that given how little I know, I need to invest some time in planning so I don't screw things up too much. Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I'm going to have lots of questions and appreciate any thoughts, feedback, or tips along the way. Thanks! Aaron