1st build: fretless 4 string

[epsmith]

Greetings!

I attempted my 1st bass build a while back, and seeing as I've been lurking around here so much lately (gotta say that some of the ideas, designs and builds going on here are really top class!!) I thought I may as well put up some pictures of my own. Sorry about the poor quality, mostly taken with my phone...

Specs:

Fretless 4 string, passive, 34'' scale
Body: mahogany
Body top: ziricote
3 piece neck: maple, wenge, maple
Fingerboard: ebony, 16'' radius
Hipshot hardware, bartolini jazz pickups

Cutting out the body shape

After a little sanding and smoothing

Glueing up the top; made from 3 pieces of ziricote

Onto the neck...

(chickened out of doing a scarf joint, next time!)

Next, added some wings on for the headstock

Then glued the ziricote top to the body. Clamp city!!

More pics to come (I'll figure out how to make them a little bigger, what size is best for this forum?).... Thanks for looking.

 

[epsmith]

More pics...

Here's the body with the top glued in place.

Some more sanding and shaping..

Onto the neck: trussrod, shaping and fingerboard.

Dont know if it was the ebony or poor quality sandpaper, but the radiusing took forever, probably the hardest part of the build for me. I made a number of mistakes during this attempt at building, probably one of them was radiusing the fingerboard before gluing it to the neck. More mistakes to come!

A little on the chunky side, but was worried to go any thinner with the neck as the trussrod I used was quiet deep. Pretty happy to of made it to this stage

 

[domjohnson]

Looking good mate!
Only, I don't get what you mean by wings on the headstock? I can't see a joint...

Cheers,
Dom.

 

[epsmith]

Thanks!

Sorry, my pictures are probably a bit too small... I needed to add a bit of width to the top of the neck in order to have a headstock that would accommodate the tuners, so I glued 2 pieces of maple on each side. Easier to see now?..

 

[scojack]

Looking fantastic..youve done this before

 

[epsmith]

Thanks, checked out your threads, those EUBs are really cool, especially liked the blondie! Did you ever finish that gorgeous looking elm bass?

 

[epsmith]

Made up a ziricote laminate for the front of the headstock and glued it up

Cut out the neck pocket too. Used a plunge router 1st then finished it with a chisel. Did a small roundover on the edges of the bass too. Would of preferred to go bigger but it was the only size bit I had at the time

Attached the neck to see how it looks all fitted together..

I should point out that I am in someone else's workshop for most of this, I don't just happen to have all these tools and stuff just hanging around in my shed!


Onto the control cavity and the pick-up routes. I made up a router template for the pick-ups 1st then tidied up with a chisel. Should of made a template for the control cavity but I just did it free hand, was hard to control the router and ended up a little messy. Lesson learned!

Drilled the headstock for the tuners and added side markers to the neck too. Realised I should of waited until I actually had the tuners delivered to me before I had shaped the headstock, because I found myself extremely tight for space now, they turned out to be much bigger than I imagined..

Also broke a screw taking the neck back off (used crappy screws and didn't use a wide enough bit when I pre-drilled the neck), which turned out to be a complete nightmare for me. It snapped just at the point where it entered the neck, so I ended up having to drill it out (you can kinda see the big hole in the pic above at the back of the neck between the 21st and 24th markers!) and then drill a couple of more holes in the neck plate and body so I could still have a fairly secure neck joint.
Anyhow, getting there now...

 

[epsmith]

Decided to go with an oil finish on this. Made up a cover from ziricote for the control cavity and then put the bass together and sanded it down.

Couldn't resist laying out the hardware of course!

Did about 4 coats of boiled linseed oil, pretty slow process, took about a week and a half overall.

Onto the electronics (vtvt), hardware and slotting and shaping the nut..

A couple of applications of Howard's feed'n'wax and we're good to go. Apologies again for the poor quality of the snaps, found the colour of the bass pretty hard to capture properly. Don't think I'll be getting hired as a photographer anytime soon! Anyhow..

Voilà!

 

[scojack]

That looks fantastic, love the body shape , i think it would look even nicer with a bigger roundover imho

Oh yes, i got that elm bass finished cheers (lovely stuff!).
IanM

 

[domjohnson]

Oh no, I prefer it with a small roundover as in the picture! Looks lush!

 

[mc_muench]

I'd rock that fretless no doubt. Almost has a more conservative Carl Thompson look to it.

 

[kikstand454]

That's a great job!

Alright....you have us...........so how's it sound/play ?

 

[epsmith]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

It sounds good to my ears, much deeper and darker tone than my friend's fretless jazz, which is the only fretless I can compare it to, as I have never played another. Takes a bit of getting used to, not having frets or even fretlines, just the neck markers, especially as you get further up the fingerboard, but I'll get there eventually. Not overjoyed with my choice of controls, the volume tone volume tone works ok, but doesn't work as well as I imagined, so I will probably change that out at some stage, was thinking maybe a vvt and a series/parallel switch. I welcome any other suggestions that anyone else might have or could recommend.