Acoustic bass questions

[martinedwards]

Greetings purveyors of all knowledge.....

I have some walnut, a dread mould and no acoustic bass in the family........

Anyone built one and have a pic of the bracing?

the total tension will be less than a six so the bracing can be as light, right?

I'll prolly make her a bit deeper than a dread, but I'm fully aware that an acoustic bass is pretty much useless unless amplified, so I'll be putting in a piezo under the saddle.

I pretty much never play completely unplugged anyway, maybe just at the odd house group meeting which is just me and an acoustic guitar anyway.

scale length will be the full Fender slotted F/B from Stewmac and I'm sort of thinking that that'll put the neck/body join up around 16 or 18th fret anyway so I wasn't planning a cutaway.

as to the bridge, I've never seen bass bridge pins for sale. I hate the idea of a Lowden style pinless bridge so that leaves through the bridge holes wide enough for the strings but not the ball end.

There's less chance of breaking bass strings (though I have done it on my electric bass!!) so it'll be an "all off" string change situation anyway.... Hmmmmm worth considering as (here I go, thinking out loud again) the more mass on the bridge, the LESS bass response right? thats what happened on my Jumbo which I fitted with Brass pins to calm the bottom end down......

Any wisdom, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks!!

[martinedwards]

OK, update.

I'm using the mould that I used to make a doubleneck acoustic a few months ago so it's slightly bigger than a dread.

A pal from the OLF sent me a set of FOC ebony pins so that's sorted. The neck will be a bolt on and I 'll prolly shorten the scale by one fret to reduce the tension on the top a whisker.