First Commissioned Build: Lefty 4-string fretted for Woodie

[HaMMerHeD]

Greetings LC.

So about a week ago, I finalized the sale and received the down payment for my first commissioned build. Yep, my n00bness actually has a paying customer. A local funk and jazz bassist named Woodie came over and played the bass and the guitar that I have already made, told me roughly what he was looking for, and left me a down payment check.

Basically, he wants an Alembic without the Alembic price tag. At that first meeting, we talked about what was realistic to construct within his price range and made some basic choices about body shape, pickups, electronics, and hardware.

Over the last week, we have further discussed his wants and needs, and refined the design.

In the end, I based it off of my disciple guitar design. Here's the original disciple body:



And here is where we ended up for his bass:



He is a lefty, and he has no left-handed bass. His current most comfortable bass to play is his Gibson Ripper. So he wanted something symmetrical, and like an Alembic. He also really loves the neck on his Ibanez SR-505M. So he wants a symmetrical wide-body bass, he likes heavy bodies, and slim necks.

Wood-wise, we stayed pretty conservative.

The body...




...is 9 pieces. There's a 5-piece core sandwich of hard maple and purpleheart. Each body wing is eastern soft maple with a walnut top.

The neck...



...is 7 pieces, including the headplate and fingerboard. The neck beam itself is a 5-piece lamination of mahogany and maple with a walnut core runner. The headplate is a piece of the body's walnut top, and the fingerboard is a really nice piece of cocobolo I scored from MusicLogic.

The pickups will be a matched Bartonlini M34C-B/T set, and the pre-amp will be a Bartolini NTMB-5.2 A/P 3-band EQ with mid-freq ppp and active/passive bypass ppp. The electronics will run on 18v. There's also a series/parallel toggle switch for each pickup.

He originally wanted gold hardware, but I talked him out of it because of A) the extra cost, and B) the fact that the gold will most likely wear off and look crap. So he opted for chrome instead. Tuners will Gotoh GB7, and the bridge will be a Gotoh 201. Knobs will be chrome dome knobs from Carvin. The neck will have a single dual-action truss rod with no carbon fiber re-inforcements, and the nut is Graphtech Tusq XL.

[HaMMerHeD]

So far, the only work I have been able to do has been to glue the body core laminate together.



That's a 1/2" maple strip in the middle, flanked by a pair of 1/4" thick purpleheart pieces. And to the purpleheart are glued 2 more maple strips, each 1" thick.



Glued and curing. I cut the strips 2" tall, so that I could plane them down to thickness later, making everything nice and even.

I'm still waiting on the rest of the wood to arrive.

[Musiclogic]

Looks like it will be a very cool bass Mark, glad to hear you are on your way. Outstanding!

[HaMMerHeD]

Thanks JC.

BTW, this is the neck stock for this bass:



I made the pair of neck blanks a while ago for a different build (which is on hold waiting for tools, which I will be able to acquire after this build is done), and Woodie liked it, so we're using it.

[Praxist]

That's going to be pretty! I understand the beaty and craftsmanship taht goes into alembics and their history which makes them valuable and sound pretty nice. I've only played one of them in my brief history and it looked a lot like the shape you have up there. When i played it , i was struck immediately by a few things.

One, it weighed a ton, I don't know how much but probably north of 12 lbs. Second, it had neck dive like mother and dings on the headstock to prove it. And the last thing was the layout was such taht when on a strap, the headstock felt almost out of reach. I know I'm at least 5 inches shorter than stanley clarke and his hands can probably wrap aroudn a basketball, but i can't imagine playing something like that for an entire gig. But they sure are purdy!

[HaMMerHeD]

Well, Woodie is a big fella, and he wants a big bass. I talked to him about weight and neck dive and strap balance, so he is aware of the potential issues. He's been playing a Gibson Ripper so I suppose he's probably used to neck dive.

[HaMMerHeD]

The walnut top wood for the body arrived today:

[pilotjones]

Wow, nice top. How does it look with the pieces reversed, so the current outside edges become the center?

[HaMMerHeD]

Good question PJ. In fact, it will be reversed on the bass.

Like so:

[HaMMerHeD]

I got the maple slab in. Then I ripped it in half and surfaced it down to 1.5".



I also had the core laminate jointed on all sides. It came out pretty curly, so I think it'll look cool in the final glue-up. I'm thinking about gluing some 1/8" purpleheart runners between the core and wing pieces, but only to the thickness of the wings. That way, you'd see 2 purpleheart strips from the front, and 4 on the back. Thusly:



I also convinced him to go with a purpleheart headstock, which I am going to dress up with some veneers and such.

[Arnie]

Originally Posted by HaMMerHeD

Greetings LC.

He originally wanted gold hardware, but I talked him out of it because of A) the extra cost, and B) the fact that the gold will most likely wear off and look crap. So he opted for chrome instead. Tuners will Gotoh GB7, and the bridge will be a Gotoh 201. Knobs will be chrome dome knobs from Carvin. The neck will have a single dual-action truss rod with no carbon fiber re-inforcements, and the nut is Graphtech Tusq XL.

Yeah almost all of the Alembics use Brass hardware (hard to find that stuff unless it is custom made, that would look great.

This is the exact reason I started my first (current) bass build is to replace an Alembic I had years ago. I am looking forward to seeing it through out the process.

[HaMMerHeD]

I cut and glued the scarf joint:



Between the neck and headstock, I have glued a 3-piece laminate of maple and walnut, as a sort of transition between the 5-piece neck and 1 piece purpleheart headstock. It looks a little goofy right now, but when it's all cut out and profiled, I think it'll look pretty sweet.

I glued the maple/walnut sandwich and purpleheart headstock piece slightly proud of the top of the neck, and it will all get planed down to the right height later.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to route the truss rod slot, then rough-cut it out.

[miziomix]

Cool build! Subbed

[dremy2006]

Nice job

[HaMMerHeD]

NWD

[HaMMerHeD]

So here's what the padauk became:



I split it into several 1/8" thick sheets. It is going between the maple back and the new maple top. So it'll end up being a cool little orange stripe around the perimeter of the wings.

Also, the walnut top that I had earlier suffered a terrible fate. During surfacing, I apparently did something wrong, because it splintered and split and became unusable. I was angry.

So I told Woodie, and we went online and chose a new top. He picked this lightly spalted curly maple piece:



It's long enough that I cut a few inches off the top to make a matching bookmatched headplate.

[HaMMerHeD]

I got the body all glued together:



4 pieces of purpleheart, 2 pieces of padauk, and 7 pieces of maple. Two of the PH pieces are only visible from the back, and the padauk is there as a color accent on the side profile, under the maple top pieces.

[HaMMerHeD]

The body glued overnight, and yesterday afternoon I had it surfaced with a drum sander.



The joints between the center block and the wings is very tight.



I am waiting on the customer to choose his headstock piece:



The first neck twisted as soon as I cut it out of the blank, so I made a new one of maple and purpleheart.

[Definitely]

Looking good! If you don't mind me asking, how much are you getting for this? Just to know what a first build should be priced at ballpark (I'm looking into getting into building for myself and eventually others) PM if you'd like or if you'd rather not it's fine.

[HaMMerHeD]

I'd rather not go into that, but thanks for your interest and the compliment.

I rough-cut the body:

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