If you want to emulate the playing techniques of an upright bass, you and your tape measure need to spend some time with one, measuring lengths & angles.
A key issue I played with was the angle the neck joins the body (unless they're the same piece of wood), and this comes down to the bridge you use - if you plan to use a traditional bridge, you need a significant break angle to get the height. If you go with a flatter angle, you use a lower bridge and you can anchor the strings direct to the body rather than using a tailpiece (see
www.fittell.id.au/eub ).
For a truss rod, I bought a couple of carbon fibre rods, 12mm x 3mm, and set them on edge in saw cuts under the fingerboard. However in retrospect, I think they were totally redundant as the neck is a big solid lump of hardwood that's not likely to move, and the fingerboard also has substantial stability.
Bob Gollihur's site has a comprehensive listing of EUB makers and basses.