There's another storm brewing!

[pilotjones]

Storm King #2! Here we go!

Specs to follow -- CAD render to follow -- description et cetera to follow -- but in the tradition of showing the details that are not often shown, here are the paper templates for doing wood selection. These will be sent to the wood vendor for selection purposes.

This sending out templates is a new thing for me. Should be interesting.

[ctmullins]

[Smilodon]

Oh, I will be watching this.

[roberthabraken]

Cool! I'm in

[Splods]

Oh god, This might ruin me, seeing another one of your awesome basses take shape.

Sub'd

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Sweet! This might motivate me to get my fanned 6 moving, though with three archtops and a bass on the go right now I may still have to wait. Can't wait to see progress and anything you may do differently on this build.

[Andyman001]

After the 1st one, definitely subscribed!!!!!!!!!

[HaMMerHeD]

Well, I was wondering how I would fill the void your 1st build had filled for the past couple of years.

[pilotjones]

Thanks, all.

This one is taking shape a little differently, in that since I'm taking a different route in getting the wood, I am doing more planning in advance. The layers and the construction technique have to be strategized, right on up through the headstock. This is actually good, it should make it move along more quickly. It's probably more in line with how most of you guys go about things.

As timeline goes, my hope this time is to be able to halve the construction time to one year. So, by the end of 2013. The only problem with that may be in doing finishing during the cold weather. We'll see.


So, onward.


General ideas and specs

• Slightly altered Storm King shape
• Same general idea of horizontal, symmetrical neck laminations
• Fanned fret 5er. Will either keep the same 33.5-36" scale, or alter it slightly.
• Fingerboard through body, with sculptural aspect
• Another new bridge design
• Will have to figure out an accompanying new design for string anchorage
• Not sure about doing another double-dovetail cavity cover. That was a pain. Maybe Pedulla style this time. Almost certainly with magnets, and grain-matched.
• Will be chambered if the wood weight warrants it
• If it works out, another new method of doing fret position markers
• An interesting pickup configuration
• Some ambitious pickup covers
• Pickups custom by Kent Armsrong
• ? preamp. Will likely add a passive treble rolloff
• Will stick with the Gotoh 350 ultralite tuners

I'm sure there will still be room for some improvisation along the way. I think the most rewarding parts of the last build were running into a problem or design challenge, and finding something cool to solve it and make it better than it would have been had the issue not popped up.




Here's a general rendering. Note that
- the fingerboard sculpting is only roughly approximated. And the tail end will not be abrupt like that.
- the heel will look nothing like that. It would take me longer to model it in CAD than to carve it.
- this shows the wood scheme, but not the actual woods - the colors are vague references only
- yes, it will have a headstock



Here are the layers, broken up.

[Musiclogic]

Will be expecting a very cool result. Have fun with it PJ.

[iamlowsound]

Ooooooh! I am excited for this! You last build thread was the best build thread ever, not to put any pressure on you for this or anything

lowsound

[HaMMerHeD]

Is that...granite?

[pilotjones]

Originally Posted by HaMMerHeD

Is that...granite?

Yes, indeed, the CAD material is granite. I don't have any contrasty-stripey woods, so I put that at a couple of degrees angle so that it stretched across the surface. But, no actual granite in the bass.

(Although I've considered it. It's with all the woods in my material properties spreadsheet.)

[HaMMerHeD]

I think it'd be interesting to work with a granite fingerboard.

[Smilodon]

Originally Posted by HaMMerHeD

I think it'd be interesting to work with a granite fingerboard.

Think about the end result, though. It would probably be awesome on a fretless.

May be a bit on the weighty side, though.

[miziomix]

I vote for granite all the way and await WIP pictures with a beer mug in my hand

[loopee]

WOW

[pilotjones]

Www.nexus-guitars.comNexus makes instruments with granite fingerboards. It's a cool idea, but I'd rather not get into gluing frets at this point. (And sourcing or manufacturing glueable fretwire.)

Also I like having symmetry in the neck for stability reasons, and I wouldn't want a granite back of the neck.

[Musiclogic]

I wonder if PJ hums "Stormy Weather" when he starts builds....LOL. with a micro brew of course.

[mikebpeters]

very exciting - if this build is only half as good as the last one it will still be the second best build thread here