Bobe's 9 String Fretless

[Phil Mailloux]

This bass is for TB member Bobe. I'm finally far enough to be able to show something on this build.

Specs on this are:

Hipshot ultralite tuners,
individual bridges,
Bartolini 3-band preamp,
2 humbucking pickups (mine),
Macassar Ebony fingerboard,
Swamp Ash body,
Myrtle burl top and headstock plate
Maple and Wenge neck,
string spacing at the bridge is 18mm,
all hardware will be black.

Ash, Myrtle and Ebony comes from Larry.



The Mac Ebony piece is next to a Cocobolo 5 string fb to show the difference in size
The pic of the Myrtle top really doesn't make justice to the piece. This top as tons of intricate little figures all over that you can't see on the pic.

[Phil Mailloux]

The ash piece being routed with the help of the template.



The 9 string neck next to a 5 string neck



Control cavity cut-out, top is glued on the body





The accent line is 2mm thick of Wenge. I sliced it myself. Finding veneer thats any thickness other than 0.6mm is damn near impossible.

[JAUQO III-X]

Hey Phil looking fine so far,hurry up with more pics

[T2W]

How the hell did you slice that yourself? Thats good! Really nice work so far Phil !

[Phil Mailloux]

With a rip saw. Same way I cut my tops from blocks. The saw cuts up to 4" high, so I turn the block on the other side after the first cut and that gives me 8" wide sheets. I bookmatch them for the full 13" width of the body.

The saw has a 2mm kerf and I pass the sheets through a drum sander after that. So I lose about 2.5 to 3mm of the block for each sheet. Its still pretty expensive in the end since you make a lot of waste.

[T2W]

Oh alright, I do it the same way, but I can only get 6 1/2'', I use a drum sander as well. It would make things so much easier with a Planer though. I saw a small portable DeWalt 13'' for 600$, I feel like gettin it.

[JAUQO III-X]

Phil when do you think you'll be finished with this one ?

[Phil Mailloux]

What sucks about the planer is you get ten times more waste than the sander though.

[Phil Mailloux]

Originally Posted by JAUQO III-X

Phil when do you think you'll be finished with this one ?

I'd say about two months. The woodworking should be less. I'm expecting to spend quite a bit of time tweaking the pickups while the nitro dries.

[JAUQO III-X]

Thanks Phil.

[FretFree]

Beautiful!

Can't wait to see more progress pics on this!

[JeffTheBig]

Originally Posted by FretFree

Beautiful!

Can't wait to see more progress pics on this!

agreed.........i looks really nice

[pilotjones]

Very nice. (subscribed)

[THIRSTYGUMS]

lovely

[Thonk]

Total goliath i cant wait to see more progress on this one

[Phil Mailloux]

Thanks for the nice words guys

[g00eY]

word. i dig.

[Phil Mailloux]

Since we were talking about the wenge accent line earlier I figured I'd post this pic of it.

I love that pic for some reason It's a photo of the bookmatched accent line glued on the body before the top was glued on top of it. As you can see the controls cavity is already cut.

[ehque]

Originally Posted by Phil Mailloux

Since we were talking about the wenge accent line earlier I figured I'd post this pic of it.

I love that pic for some reason It's a photo of the bookmatched accent line glued on the body before the top was glued on top of it. As you can see the controls cavity is already cut.

BOOKMATCHED ACCENT LINE?! that's some nice looking wenge. what a waste

and really, i thought a lot more people would build control cavities like you do. apparently not, tho.

[Phil Mailloux]

Well, it's bookmatched because it was sliced from the same 25" X 7" X 1" block. It wasn't intentionally bookmatched. I'm not THAT anal.