I recently thought it may be an interesting project to attempt to build a bass. Right now I'm still just planning. I don't want to start building anything until I get myself the Peavey T-40 I'm looking for so I can have an actual bass to compare to (instead of pictures). I've only been planning since yesterday, but I got some ideas down already.
Neck through body with straight headstock
Mahogany neck, black walnut and maple for wings
Single coil pickup (a J?) for the neck, a humbucker for the bridge
I was also thinking of making an aluminum pickguard and using a string through bridge, no fretboard, and a brass nut. I'm not even sure if I will ever do this project, but I like planning stuff anyway. I was wondering, how many knobs would I need for the pickups I was thinking of? I was thinking a tone knob for the humbucker, a volume knob for each, and a 3 way switch. Would a single coil pickup also use a tone control? Also, I was thinking of using two pieces of wood glued on top of each other for the neck (bi-laminate?), and a piece of walnut on the back of the headstock to add strength so it's not just a single layer of wood. Are these ok ideas for starting out? I have some pictures I may be able to scan and upload later. Oh, and another thought I had would be to use a minimal amount of power tools, maybe a band saw, table saw, and a few other ones at most. I have time, so I wouldn't mind using a chisel if need be. Would it be possible to create the spaces for the wiring and the truss rod with just hand tools?

first thing, doing mostly hand stuff is great and very rewarding... technically you can do the truss channel and body cavities with hand tools but youll save alot of time and effort with a router. personally i dont own a jointer or planing machine. so i do all of that stuff by hand. but when it comes to stuff like you mentioned above the amount of time saved is just too high to pass up.

also if your doing a neck through why not just do an angled headstock? neck through is quality and so is alot of the other stuff you mentioned. just seems a bit strange to go with a regular old straight one when you have lots of time and effort spent on other things.

What are the benefits and disadvantages of angled and straight headstocks? The reason I was thinking straight was that I wouldn't have to worry about gluing another piece on. Also, I do like simplicity, though I don't know if much of the rest of my plan is really simple. Would it be possible to make an angled headstock from a single piece of wood without having to glue or would that affect the strength of it? I would use a router, but I don't generally like them. There's always the chance it could cause a big mess and they just bother me for some reason. I probably wouldn't start this project for a while since I'm working on other things now (making beehives currently). What are the general measurements for a 20 fret bass? I wanted to add some scale measurements to some drawings just to get a better idea of what it could look like. I have the general shape down already. Drawing plans is much more fun than lectures and schoolwork.:p

If you have a blank thick enough for neck through, it *might* be thick enough to just cut the angled headstock without gluing a scarf joint, too...