Acoustic style bass build.

[Ben Miller]

This is my first post on Talkbass. Hope you like what I'm doing.

Started this build just a couple days ago.
It's not meant to be fancy or shiny and spectacular. The goal is just to make a simple, travel size acoustic bass.

There was no long term planning for this build. Just decided I was going to try it the other day. It is going to be my first try on an acoustic. I've done a couple of solid body basses and they have turned out quite well so I figured I'd give this a shot as a fun experiment.

The Specs for this bass so far are;

Five piece neck. maple with mahogany strips.
Walnut fretboard and binding for the body.
Three string 30 inch scale.
Twenty one frets.
Some sort of self designed headless system.(just for kicks)
I'm using a cheese crate(it's a pine box) that I found the other day for the body.
Possibly a Piezo pickup.

Ideas, thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

 

[Ben Miller]

Here are the sides of the box.

The front and back.

The neck blank I glued up the other day.

30.5 inch scale walnut fretboard. Probably fretless with maple inlays.

 

[Rockingbird]

Please tellme your playing delta blues on this. That would make my day.

 

[Ben Miller]

I will undoubtedly end up using it for some sort of blues.

 

[Rockingbird]

And you've just earned yourself an old timey blues nickname. I hereby dub thee:
"Benny 3-strings"

Has a nice ring to it, dontcha think?

 

[mellowgerman]

Yo quiero. Can't wait to see the finished product!

 

[Ben Miller]

I actually do kinda like that. nice thinkin' Rockingbird.

Thanks Mellowgerman.

more pictures to come soon.

 

[thatbasskid597]

That walnut is gorgeous

 

[DaLoCo]

This is going to be fun....

 

[Ben Miller]

Thanks BassKid. I found two rough chunks of walnut in a scrap bin at a woodshop. Got them all cut down to size and it came out to be ten fretboards worth. It was a very lucky find. =)

I'm quite hopeful for it DaLoCo.

 

[Ben Miller]

I glued the sides of the box last night and started work on the headless system today.
so far my idea for a headless system seems to be working. I'm still putting it all together and figuring it out. there should be pictures of it tomorrow. For now though here are some pictures of the box.

All glued up.

Here's the full logo on the front and left side of the box.

 

[__HM__]

I dunno man, seems kinda cheesy to me.

 

[Armacielli]

I dunno man, seems kinda cheesy to me.

*rim shot*

 

[mikeyswood]

I dunno man, seems kinda cheesy to me.

*rim shot*

That's nacho funniest.

I bet it'll sound pretty Gouda.

 

[abarson]

Instead of "Free Bird", play "Brie Fird"!

 

[ctmullins]

Haven't you guys been paying attention? This build will be primarily for Blues cheese...

 

[Ben Miller]

Blues cheese is quite possible but I figured I'd make it a bit more playable and go for a stringed cheese bass. Which will probably also make it easier to use on the go.

 

[John Ruiz]

You gouda be kidding me. You'll never make any cheddar playing the Bleu's.

These are some cheesy jokes...

If you start a band with this thing, I think Rock Me, Mozzerella would be a brie-lly cool name.

 

[Ben Miller]

I think John wins for most cheese references in one joke.


So I've been working on the headless system since last night. so far it's going pretty well.
Hope these pictures can give a general idea of what I'm doing.

here's what it should look like inside of the box.

The plan is for the strings to go through the body and into the holes in the metal parts and get a knot tied in the back.

 

[vbasscustom]

how will they be tuned?