5 String Bass Blueprints

[MAJORdorMo]

Is there anywhere I can get blueprints for a 5 string electric bass for free?

[stflbn]

Call Fender, Ernie Ball or Rickenbacher... I'm sure they'll help you out.

[MAJORdorMo]

I tried Fender, Ernie Ball, ESP, and Schecter. None of them were willing to give me the blue prints (though they did all have wiring diagrams.)

Anyone else have any input?

[eleonn]

Originally Posted by stflbn

Call Fender, Ernie Ball or Rickenbacher... I'm sure they'll help you out.

[jordan_frerichs]

"ahhh. can i have all your company secrets? please" lol. what exctly do you mean by blueprints? there is no set plans for 5 strings. make it how you like.

[jsingles]

other than from a luthier who decides to be nice, no there is not.

+1 on just making it however you want, that way its unique to you

[pilotjones]

Are there prints available--for a fee maybe--for the Hill bass built at the MIMF (which was maybe a fiver?)?

[SDB Guitars]

It's not free, but you can get an excellent set of complete plans from the MIMF - http://www.mimf.com - the bass was designed by Bill Moll - http://www.mollinst.com/ - he used to give an online course through the MIMF every year or so, but I think that his business has taken off to the extent that he no longer has the time...

The plans are for, I believe, a bass just like this one:

http://www.luthiersaccessgroup.com/ismoll2.html

[pilotjones]

Yep, that's the one I was thinking of. My mistake substituting the wrong name.

[jordan_frerichs]

Originally Posted by MAJORdorMo

Is there anywhere I can get blueprints for a 5 string electric bass for free?

k, i am guessing you want to know how to make one correctly, and well. i have a few questions

1) will this be your first project
2) is it for you or someone else
3) what is the playing style of the person this instrument is intended for? pick, fingers, slap?
4) the scale?
5)do you want a narrow, wide or somewhere inbetween spacing at the nut and bridge?
6)what sounds do you want/like?
7)will the headstock be angled or not?
8)will you just be making the body and using a factory neck, or will you be -making it all from scratch?
9) what do wawnt for your controls/electronics? basic volume and tone, or a little more complex? active, passive, or both? series, parallel, or both? pre-amp, or not?
10) will the tuning be standard (low-b,e,a,d,g) or other?
11) fretted or fretless? how many frets?
12) woods?

if yo are just worried about getting a good low b, then if you
have a solid build on the neck and headstock, and good tuners then imo the only main thing to worry about is the bridge. i would get one from an ibanez on ebay. i have never found an ibanez 5er with a low b that sounded bad/too low. try for an acu-cast b-25. high mass=good. plus they would probably run pretty cheap. you do not need to increase the scale length unless you like it longer. you even go a little lower than a 34" if you wanted to.
if this is your first build i would recomend going to warmoth for most of you questions on the woods to use. if you can deal with a fretless then do that, unless you want it fretted and have to tools. the fb does not have to be radioused. fb radious is more of a comfort thing. alought of people like them flat. a good guide book would be "build your own electric guitar" by melvin hiscock. the most important thing to do is to post pics of the progress on tb though. good luck

[SDB Guitars]

Originally Posted by jordan_frerichs

k, i am guessing you want to know how to make one correctly, and well. i have a few questions

1) will this be your first project
2) is it for you or someone else
3) what is the playing style of the person this instrument is intended for? pick, fingers, slap?
4) the scale?
5)do you want a narrow, wide or somewhere inbetween spacing at the nut and bridge?
6)what sounds do you want/like?
7)will the headstock be angled or not?
8)will you just be making the body and using a factory neck, or will you be -making it all from scratch?
9) what do wawnt for your controls/electronics? basic volume and tone, or a little more complex? active, passive, or both? series, parallel, or both? pre-amp, or not?
10) will the tuning be standard (low-b,e,a,d,g) or other?
11) fretted or fretless? how many frets?
12) woods?

if yo are just worried about getting a good low b, then if you
have a solid build on the neck and headstock, and good tuners then imo the only main thing to worry about is the bridge. i would get one from an ibanez on ebay. i have never found an ibanez 5er with a low b that sounded bad/too low. try for an acu-cast b-25. high mass=good. plus they would probably run pretty cheap. you do not need to increase the scale length unless you like it longer. you even go a little lower than a 34" if you wanted to.
if this is your first build i would recomend going to warmoth for most of you questions on the woods to use. if you can deal with a fretless then do that, unless you want it fretted and have to tools. the fb does not have to be radioused. fb radious is more of a comfort thing. alought of people like them flat. a good guide book would be "build your own electric guitar" by melvin hiscock. the most important thing to do is to post pics of the progress on tb though. good luck

LOL... Jordan, those are good questions, but there's no reason to overly complicate things.

Find a bass you like, and take a couple of measurements.

Have the bridge before you start, so you'll know the string height and spacing you need to build around.

Don't over-do things on your first instrument. Don't shell out hundreds of dollars on fancy woods when you aren't sure of yourself. Remember, poplar and maple can be purchased at Home Depot for next to nothing, and make a fine instrument.

[jordan_frerichs]

yea. sory if i made it sound harder than it is. it is really pretty easy for the most part. go to guitar center find a five you want and take afew measurements. i would start with the ibanez and music man basses. they are usually of great build. l

[Jarno]

I think the best you can do is learn about all the things needed to make a guitar, a plan (drawing) is not enough. If you do know the essentials to make a guitar, then you can also design your own.
If you are set on basing it on a commercially available model, I know that you can download PDF's on the fender site. These PDF's are a vector based format, convert them into DXF with Adobe Illustrator (or similar) and make your templates from these. They might not be completely to scale, but you can check this when you do your own drawings (and correct if necessary).

And I'm not sure how old you are, but blueprints are not used anymore, not in mechanical engineering anyway. Are they being used in civil engineering or somewhere else, anyone?

Best regards,

Jarno.

[SDB Guitars]

Originally Posted by Jarno

And I'm not sure how old you are, but blueprints are not used anymore, not in mechanical engineering anyway. Are they being used in civil engineering or somewhere else, anyone?

Blueprints are still used for building construction (or at least they were 18 months ago when I helped a friend build a house). However, I think that by "blueprints" he meant "plans". Common substitution of terminology.

It's perfectly fine to build an instrument from plans. Many people built their first instruments from a set of plans they picked up on the internet. The MIMF, for example, sells plans for many instruments.

[BassieMike]

My take is draw your own plans. Make them FULL SIZE. You can reverse engineer from most any bass you like.

Get big paper, draw a top view and a side view. Lay out the fingerboard first, then the bridge position. Place the upper strap pin in the general area of the 12-13th fret (balance), and fill in everything else.

By drawing full size in 2 views you will work out 90% of your design issues.

Good Luck!!!!
-mike

[edpal]

Originally Posted by Jarno

... I'm not sure how old you are, but blueprints are not used anymore, not in mechanical engineering anyway. Are they being used in civil engineering or somewhere else, anyone? Best regards,
Jarno.

Toolmakers/machinists use them almost exculsively. Obviously not for CAD/CAM(computer aided stuff), but for the kind of stuff that is a short run of parts or high prescicion. Ditto on the building construction, furniture making, welding & fabricating.

Making your own ax is rewarding, but don't expect it to be a money saver....plus, the resale really sucks. I've made two, one from parts(fretted), one from scratch(fretless). Life is too short for me to do that again.LOL

[Jarno]

I do not think a stack of blueprints/ plans/ drawings is enough to build a guitar. Where do you start? In which order do you need to work the material etc. etc. these are not things a (technical) drawing will teach you. Reading of books/ internetsites and excellent fora like this one, is.

Regards,

Jarno.

[pilotjones]

Toolmakers, machinists, etc. use drawings. Blueprints are those drawings you see in old Bugs Bunny cartoons, where the background is blue and the lines are white. They are the result of an old method of starting with a drawing, done in ink on vellum, and producing from it a blueprint, which could be done using sunlight, on a job site. (Also made by at least one other obsolete process.)

[MAJORdorMo]

The main reason I wanted blueprints/plans was so I could find out how wide the neck was supposed to be on a 5 string 35 inch scale.

I'll take the advice of going to Guitar Center with a tape measure =D

Thanks!

[Jarno]

Ah, well then you could download one of the 5 string PDF's on the fender site and convert that to DXF. Those are 34" though, not sure how much the width will change going from 34 to 35, but you could calculate this.
If you are interested to know which width of wood you need to make a neck, I don't think the difference between 34 and 35 influences it, mainly the size of the headstock. Especially if you don't mind paying a couple of dollars extra to buy wood wide enough to accomodate the full headstock, and skip the glueing on of wings to make the headstock.

Regards,

Jarno.