Hackett Customs

Since I do not yet have another build ready to share (too backed up on repairs lately) I would like to resubmit my previous build for the contest this month.  With any luck the weather here will warm up enough this month to spray lacquer so I can finish up a couple other builds I have going on once I have some downtime from repairs.  So once again I present the Rapscallion 5-string.

Specs and hardware:

  5 string

  34 inch scale

  24 stainless steel jescar frets

  Dual-action truss rod

  Carbon fiber reinforced neck

  Sperzel locking tuners

  Kahler fixed bridge

  Magnetically fastened control cavity and truss rod covers

  Neutrik locking output jack

  Both pups are hand wound Hackett pickups:
    Bridge pup is a single coil jazz bass style
    Neck pup is a single coil rail with two alnico-5's

  Bartolini bass preamp

  Copper shielded cavities

Materials:

  Neck- 5 piece laminate (black walnut, mahogany, maple)

  Body- Mahogany and crotch-grain black walnut top on a white oak back with black walnut and mahogany laminates

  Curly ipe fingerboard

  Curly ipe and white oak pickup covers

  White oak and mahogany knobs

  Paua Abalone head stock inlay and position markers

Tru-oil hand polished gloss finish

Custom made flight case made by Bestincase Road Cases

I apologize for the poor quality of some of the photos...

Greetings!  This will be my first submission to the GotM contest, so I hope I am following protocol here.  Woodworking is somewhat of a Hackett family tradition, and I've been making dust since I was very young.  That being said, I am still fairly new to the luthier trade, so my skills and designs are constantly evolving and improving.  With any luck, perhaps I can match up with some of the fantastic work I've been seeing on the forums here!  This is only my 5th completed build, but it is the first completed as an official Hackett Custom,  I design and build everything myself and all carving and inlay work is done by hand (no CNC work what-so-ever).

For your approval, I present to you... Rapscallion.

Specs and hardware:

  5 string

  34 inch scale

  24 stainless steel frets

  Dual-action truss rod

  Carbon fiber reinforced neck

  Sperzel locking tuners

  Kahler fixed bridge

  Magnetically fastened control cavity and truss rod covers

  Neutrik locking output jack

  Both pups are hand wound Hackett pickups:
    Bridge pup is a single coil jazz bass style
    Neck pup is a single coil rail with two alnico-5's

  Bartolini bass preamp

  Copper shielded cavities

Materials:

  Neck- 5 piece laminate (black walnut, mahogany, maple)

  Body- Mahogany and crotch-grain black walnut top on a white oak back with black walnut and mahogany laminates

  Curly ipe fingerboard

  Curly ipe and white oak pickup covers

  White oak and mahogany knobs

  Paua Abalone head stock inlay and position markers

Tru-oil hand polished gloss finish

Custom made flight case made by Bestincase Road Cases

I apologize for the poor quality of some of the photos...

original post below:

wow the colors in that wood.  great looking build!

Very nice work.  I am loving the wood choices for the neck laminates.  Can't wait to see the finished products!

I agree, oak is very much underused in instrument building.  I'd love to see that bass you mentioned.

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

I love it. The first thing (other than the obvious one) that jumped out is that you're not scared to show that the wood was once a tree. I like that. Too many guitars/basses are built like the wood is some sort of homogeneous plastic rather than an organic living thing. Nice curves and lines to it, which work. Very much like radical work by Jens Ritter; the only concern when things get really out there is the prevalence of short grain in areas like the top horn. Was this reinforced or laminated to reduce short grain weaknesses?

The laminating of the top and back added a great amount of strength to the areas you are referring to.  The lower horn was reinforced with carbon fiber prior to gluing on the top since it was actually my biggest concern while designing this bass.  Both horns are very strong and would need to take quite a hit to break (which hopefully will never happen!)

For reference, I just weighed a mim jazz bass (4 string) and came out with about 8lbs.  Rapscallion is about 1/2 lb lighter than that as a 5 string

I just got a rough weight on the bathroom scale.  Looking at about 8.5 lbs

Hmm.  I haven't weighed it yet, but I do know that it weighs a fair amount less than a jazz bass and the solid mahogany 5 string I have.  Surprisingly, everyone that has picked this bass up and played it has commented on how light it is.  I also paid a good amount of attention to the balance of the instrument during the carving process (no diving headstocks on this baby!).  I'll have to get an exact weight very soon.  The horns are actually deceptively strong, but I still would much extra care to avoid it taking any hits.

Thanks so much for the review Scott!  The finish took a huge amount of time effort since it was hand rubbed and polished, so it makes me so very happy to see someone acknowledge it 

loving these!

Greetings!  I am a new member here so I thought I would share my most recently completed build.  This also happens to be the first official build under the "Hackett Custom Guitars" name.

I have named this one Rapscallion.

5 string

34 inch scale

24 stainless steel frets

Dual-action truss rod

Carbon fiber reinforced neck

Sperzel locking tuners

Kahler bridge

Magnetically fastened covers for control cavity and truss rod

Both pups are Hackett Custom pickups.   Bridge pup is single coil jazz style.  Neck pup is single coil rail with 2 alnico-5 magnets.

Bartolini bass preamp

Neutrik locking output jack

Paua Blue Abalone inlay and position markers

5 piece laminate neck (black walnut, mahogany, maple)

Figured ipe fingerboard

Hand carved body (Crotch grain black walnut and mahogany top.  White oak back with black walnut and mahogany laminates)

Figured ipe and white oak pickup covers

Handmade knobs (white oak, mahogany)

Gloss tru-oil finish

Custom made flight case made by Bestincase Road Cases

Please let me know what you think!