Prostheta

The bass isn't actually finished Xanthus - I wasn't 100% happy with the angle of the neck and the fretboard binding so i've decided to put a different board on it and bind in maple instead. The playability won't be affected as the slot is between frets; 24th fret which also means it's a fair decent fret marker!

The amp is a 5150, sure! Awesome head once you carry out a bias modification on it.

You can actually have the spoke wheel under the fretboard if you want (or have to deal with) and large fretboard:

http://www.prostheta.com/guitars/vampyre5_32.jpg

Was that a solid colour you used? It looks a bit too rough for my liking! Tinted clearcoats tend to look better for rattlecan sunbursts. In the UK we have a Foliatec spray which is normally used to tint car rear lights which works very nicely for sunbursts.

BTW - you need to resize your image to less than 640 x 480 as it's too large! :-D

Reading through the thread, I was going to suggest the same thing Setch. Mainly because that's where I got the idea from in the first place.

Anyway. +1

I agree with dampening strings beyond the bridge and before the nut. A bit of masking tape makes a difference if you're recording and this isn't a standard dampening part of the instrument.

Cue flames, *dons asbestos underwear* etc.

Stretch is good, additional unwanted potentially non-harmonic related poop is not!

Ummm. Subject material apart, it looks like the front end of an SG and the back end of a Dimebolt.

Cue endless debate about non-guitar stuff.

<edit: oh hell, i get told this all the time about me not actually answering questions....ummm "no"?....try digging around on the Dean site or Googlating the web for "Dean SG bolt" or whatever!>

No stop bar, Daniel. I'm going for the string-through-body thing. I've got an idea which i'm hoping to use for that one too....top secret till I do it (or fail).

Bandsawed the body (nice cauls!), routed pickup holes and shaped to the template before final shaping on the spindle sander. Routed a 45° chamfer, purfling ledge and binding channel. Started purfling and binding! Decided against the flame maple binding as the corners are a PITA to head and bend around. This is mostly because of my patience or lack thereof. The chamfer depth gives me a nice "stop" point where I know not to chisel, sand, gouge, drill, recess or otherwise *go* lest I run out of camphor top and hit mahogany. The carving can wait.

<edit: i know that I accidentally set the depth of the drill press a little too deep when roughing the pickup cavities. trust me, i know!>

I fell in love with the shape when Warwick released the Vampyre bass and actually made one of my own. The shape easily adapts to guitar proportions. I've even considered the possibility of buying a purfling cutter tool to inlay some fine black purfling line around the body but patience has never been a strong point of mine so I can't see that happening :-D I think i'll go down the route of maple binding with a black purfling accent line to seperate the camphor wood and maple.

(incidentally, the neck angle on the bass I made wasn't 100% satisfactory and I wanted to rebind so i've removed the fretboard and put the project on a back burner before I complete it)

I used to own a Vintage bass many years ago, and it wasn't bad *for the price* but the stability and tone were very poop. As you say, and as Ben has proven - you can take the parts are make them into a good instrument.

Props have to go to Doug on this one as he made a Warwick Vampyre styled guitar and did it way better than I can hope for at my stage of experience(LINK). But hey! It's all good.

I got together some spare unallocated mahogany from my stash and laminated a bookmatched camphor burl set on top. I've decided to make the instrument fairly thick to work with the "slow" mahogany sound somewhat. The build type will be set neck, string-through body over a good old TOM bridge. I've not decided on a pickup set as i'll probably road test a few in it to see what works. The neck may be a mahogany/purpleheart Les Paul neck I have already made or I may make another one specifically for this project. I'm not too happy with the headplate on the existing neck as it has a small chipout on a corner.

So anyway. I'm going to shape and carve the body first before cracking on with the neck. The top will have a slight radius carve with relief in the recesses but will finish up at the bottom of the laminate. I am going to bind the body with flame maple have have a red purfling strip between the camphor burl and maple. Niiiiice.

Body blank clamped up. I thicknessed and planed each half of mahogany and camphor burl before glueing up into two body blank halves, and replaned the joint by hand. I then glued each mahogany/camphor half and sash cramped 'em up today.

<edit> Oh yes - I may use the scrap from either side of the body blanks, rejoint them and glue them up to use as a scarfed headstock on some "normal" mahogany and wenge I have laying around.

I tell you what Ben - I have a huge problem with those Vintage guitars as they're really bottom end of the market crap yet despite me misgivings against them you've managed to pick one up and salvage it into more than just a passable instrument - you've made it eye-catching and worth more than the sum of it's parts.

You still doing your work in that 4ft x 4ft space? :-D

That's a lot of good work per square yard matey!

Hi Rich - as opposed to opening a can of wood selection worms, I was more illustrating the fundamental differences between having and not-having a scarf joint. The lines are not meant to illustrate grain, just the "direction" of the wood as Desopolis said. Simple choice of build decision, or at least how I would make one anyway. Straightish to no headstock angle a la Fender, no scarf. Any reasonable angle - scarf and volute.

Plan it out on paper. Bear in mind your tuner post sizes, nut height, headstock width etc. to determine your *minimum* width without using string trees a la Fender. Beyond that angle you can use what you want within the limits of join strength bearing in mind the larger the angle, the more pressure is applied to the string fulcrum points! As long as the angle is large enough so the strings sit happily over the nut and onto the tuners then cool. More pressure (greater angle) apparently adds to the coupling and tone.

Are we allowed to make fair use of the fair use laws also? I want to see these damn PDFs!!!

If you're making an angled neck from the same piece of wood as the neck without a scarf joint, then you run the risk of the headstock being weakened as the grain will run out at the same angle. Apologies for the crappy diagams, but these illustrate the stability issues:

As you can see, the one-piece neck will have issues with the headstock grain running front to back causing potential for weakness. In practicality, if you're using slight angles (not huge Gibson ones, like 17°!) then you won't have problems.

Neither way is "better" really! My favourite guitar is a laminated neck with a piece of maple for the headstock scarf, and the only difference between that and my other guitars is cosmetic.

In my opinion, the only difference is the cosmetic one!

Fair comment Southpa - if you have a little time, it might be worthwhile seeing if the publishing companies haven't deleted the books.

Wouldn't this make the information public domain, and if not - what would?

Either. Same wood means it matches. Different wood means slightly less work aligning the cuts and possibly less wastage.

Why do you ask?

Only so we can be more specific with responses as to why-so and why-not!

I cheated by tapping in a couple of tacks into the area which would be routed out for the truss rod channel :-D Centres it nicely!

He was talking to someone else, that posted about it but edited his post after the fact.

Thanks PMarlin. Yeah, PTU7s was offering to send an illegal electronic copy of the book and edited his original post to cover the fact up when it was pointed out how stupid this was.

Melvyn's book is - and has been for many years - a huge commitment financially. It has helped many builders learn their skills for what - £13 or so? The book has proved it's worth many more times to me than the original investment of £13. It's a small price to pay, and the honest decision. If you can't afford £13, you can't afford to build guitars. If you CAN afford £13, buy the book and give Melvyn's due credit for what is really a great guide to starting building instruments.

Sorry to be a nag - this just inflames me hugely you know? It's not like it's £289 worth of Microsoft product which is essentially a DVD and a posh case. It's a worthwhile investment for all builders.

Looking good! Can't wait to see how the carving turns out - it's pretty much essential for this body shape else it can look a bit "heavy in the horns" and bulky. The carves give it a different feel for sure!

If you're talking about sending a e-copy of Melvyn Hiscock's book, then you're an idiot man. Melvyn deserves a little more credit than ripping off several years of his work you know?

I'm tempted to enter it Jester, but I wouldn't dream of doing so without adding control knobs and the cavity cover. I have to wait until next week for my father to bring me the 3mm black Perspex i'm using for that job....

Great work man. I've just completed my Thunderbird and i'm considering a Firebird build myself. I'll be going down the same route of using a good ol' 2x4 neck tenon of course. Really fun! I didn't realise that Warmoth would do a figured laminate for the raised section. That's pretty cool and worked out very nicely. Good call.

UPDATE: The 'Bird is complete apart from a control cavity cover, bit of fret dressing and a new nut (temporary Corian nut in place). I finished the body with Tru-oil and beeswax over Briwax Jacobean Oak applied using sandpaper to "clog" the pores. A real caveman grainfilling tactic! The pickups are wired as two straight volumes like a Jazz Bass but with no tone pot. The jack is a locking Neutrik jack (thanks Setch!) which I may still recess slightly. The heel position didn't get moved back any more as it's comfortable enough for me to work in the upper registers and this sorted the balance out nicely. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't use speed style knobs, but I think I can probably work around this....my last addition will probably be a green LED to show that the instrument is "active" when plugged in. Man oh man, do those EMG 35DCs sound unbelievable or what....?!

Right. I'm going to build another one but this time the originally stated black and green 'Bird to match our current band black/green theme! Additionally, does anybody know if the Firebird body is dimensionally the same as the Thunderbird? I love Maryhillrat's Firebird and might be tempted to make some headway into that territory as well and seeing as I have a template....

Headstock (yes, I know the nut is temporary....)

Inlaying and fretboard stepping

The beauty shot - a la Jester ;-)

Heel area

Beauty shot, first inversion!