8 String Bass In Progress

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Well, this will be my third instrument. It'll be a neckthru 8 string. Specs are:

-8 String Fretted (F# B E A D G C F)
-7 piece Maple/Wenge neck
-Curly Bubinga top and back on a White Limba core with Wenge accent laminates
-Curly Bubinga fretboard with Paua dots
-3" thick chambered body
-Nordstrand fat stack pickups in matching wood shells
-Indi bridge
-Sperzel tuners
-twin truss rods and 3 graphite reinforcement rods
-35" scale, 24 banjo-sized frets

I think that's it... hardware is satin chrome. The preamp is going to be a custom built job... me and two other guys in my lab have enough working knowledge to throw one together... right now I'm thinking 4-band semiparametric but we'll see on that.

Thanks to Larry Davis at Galllery Hardwoods. Great guy to deal with and the wood is amazing.

Here are a couple of early shots. So far the fretboard is sized and slotted, the body is nearly completely chambered and that's about all. Next up is attaching the headstock laminates and the laminates on the back of the neck on the body side. Then the wings will be glued up and then glued on to the neck....

More to come....

 

[jbabs688]

looks good... how thick is your bass body??

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

looks good... how thick is your bass body??

3 inches.

 

[j-raj]

looking forward to it...

 

[Frank Martin]

That's gonna be one thick body!

Good luck with it!

Maybe even make a weblog of it - I'll be making one of mine, as well - a least when i can finally get the things together

 

[teacherguy]

Do you have any pics of the body design?
Is it gonna be a double or single cut?

Keep those progress shots comming!!

Jon

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Do you have any pics of the body design?
Is it gonna be a double or single cut?

Keep those progress shots comming!!

Jon

It's a double cut and here's the body design.

 

[Cerb]

Nice design! The only thing I don't really enjoy about it is the lower horn. It's somewhat bland.

 

[teacherguy]

NICE!!!
Simple and very classy!
What kind of round-over bit will you use? Are you going for sharp sides like a 1/4" bit or for a more rounded look?

Jon

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

I'm probably going to go for a fairly sharp look... something around 1/4" for the roundover with a bit more contouring around the arm and body contours. I think that will work best for such a thick body.

 

[bassteban]

Looks very 'F-Bass' to me, though(not to say I'm doing anything better, that's just my first impression.
What's your string spacing going to be?

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Looks very 'F-Bass' to me, though(not to say I'm doing anything better, that's just my first impression.
What's your string spacing going to be?

That was actually my impression after I finished drawing it. It actually was designed as a hybrid of my old design, with pointier horns, put offset like a Jazz bass and then I took the lower horn styling from [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] Conklin 9 String. Then I got the lines matched up exactly how I liked them and then I though that it looked like an F bass, without the hip on the lower bass side of the body.

The string spacing is 17mm.

 

[Joris]

Looks promising!

Got a question, if you don't mind. What's your impression of the Indi bridges? I'm looking for a replacement of my (cheap-ass) 6 string bridge, and those Indis look like quite a steal, compared to for instance hipshot's monorails.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Looks promising!

Got a question, if you don't mind. What's your impression of the Indi bridges? I'm looking for a replacement of my (cheap-ass) 6 string bridge, and those Indis look like quite a steal, compared to for instance hipshot's monorails.

They seem to be identical to the ABM bridges, so to me they are quite the steal. They are solid and well finished so honestly I think they are an amazing bargain.

 

[wilser]

Yes! the design is very pretty, although I have to comment on my concerns based on experience in ergonomics of the lower horn. It has been my experience that 'pointy' lower horns that go down (south) are very uncomfortable in the sitting position. They pinch your leg and are very awkward to put in other sitting positions. My first bass was built with this design and it's very uncomfortable as described. Also I can't stand F basses because of the same. Other people seem to think so too, since the latest issue of bass player magazine also complains about that on an F Bass review.

 

[bassteban]

That was actually my impression after I finished drawing it. It actually was designed as a hybrid of my old design, with pointier horns, put offset like a Jazz bass and then I took the lower horn styling from [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] Conklin 9 String. Then I got the lines matched up exactly how I liked them and then I though that it looked like an F bass, without the hip on the lower bass side of the body.

Perhaps George F. was thinking the same thing!

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Yes! the design is very pretty, although I have to comment on my concerns based on experience in ergonomics of the lower horn. It has been my experience that 'pointy' lower horns that go down (south) are very uncomfortable in the sitting position. They pinch your leg and are very awkward to put in other sitting positions. My first bass was built with this design and it's very uncomfortable as described. Also I can't stand F basses because of the same. Other people seem to think so too, since the latest issue of bass player magazine also complains about that on an F Bass review.

I've owned Elricks and F Basses and I've never had any problems so it is not worrying me. My JP had a similar shape to this lower horn, though not quite as long.

YMMV I guess.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Well, here are the most recent pics. It's starting to look like a bass.

I need to inlay the graphite bars next. I'm not too happy with the ones I've got since they are not nearly uniform in height... which makes inlaying them a problem since they stick up higher in some places and the channel is already at the maximum depth of the router bit. I need to figure a way to shave the graphite down a little bit.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

And a couple more...

 

[j-raj]

Coming along very nicely, Geoff!

What degree back pitch are you going to do to the neck?