Making a bass from a single piece of wood?

[taviswardlaw]

Okay, what i'm entertaining in my mind is the thought of making a bass out of one piece of wood... A 34" scale with head stock would need to be atleast 40" by say... 14.5" and about 2" thick.
So not many bass quality woods are very available in that kind of size... And none of them would be cheap...
The thing wold be a sustain monster though... maybe excessively... what else could prove a problem?
What else could be a great thing about it?
Where and what kind of wood would be needed?
General thoughts? (even if it's just to tell me i'm crazy)
Thanks T.B. luthiers...

[LajoieT]

It's been done before, might be a dificult search, but it's been discussed here also. General consensus IIRC is it's doable, but VERY wastefull of good wood, and potentially compromised by the need for a VERY wide board that will be prone to warping. One of the main reasons laminated necks are so popular is not becuase you can use smaller pieces of wood, but becuase the laminations help resist warping.

There was a VERY cool looking bass that was made out of a single piece (walnut IIRC, but don't hold me to that) but I believe it was also in the $10K range.

[taviswardlaw]

thanks for that... hadn't even thought of how much of a waste of wood it could be... That's enough to make me abandon that thought. Oh well...

[pilotjones]

Solid Construction