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BassVI with fanned frets - build thread

Jisch

Jisch

Jun 1, 2005
5,933
13,206
Connecticut (Northeast USA)
#1
That last one is just about done, so time to start the next one, yes this is an illness and I probably won't get started on this for another month or so.

I'm just getting ideas together, so I'll put them here as it evolves.

Basics:
- Bolt on neck
- straight fret at the 7th
- 24 frets (?)
- 30-32" scale
- Richlite fretboard with hidden tangs (friend with CNC offered to cut the slots for me)
- Flat fingerboard - works great on the bass, why not try it here
- Body wood ???
- Neck wood ???
- String spacing ??
- Pickups - a bit perplexed here, I've been buying up used pickups and electronics when I see something good and cheap, I can't remember what I have. I'll have to look and compare it to the as yet undetermined string spacing to figure it out. I would assume I'd need a five string pickup once it's installed at an angle.

A friend was saying he made his bass VI with string spacing that was closer to bass spacing, I think I want this one to have guitar spacing plus a little, but I don't know what that means exactly yet. I'll likely be playing it with a pick rather than fingers, or at least that's my idea right now.

Of course any ideas or critiques are welcomed.
 
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#4
Ok, I'm starting to work through a few design ideas here and came up with a few questions:

- is 2" difference between string scale length too much? I see Kiesel does 1" on their fanned guitars.
- I am going to make this with a neck that's just a bit wider than a standard guitar - any comments? I'm using individual string saddles, so I can make it whatever I want. I want to be able to do chords on this as well as individual bass lines.
- It looks like Kiesel does the 7th fret as the parallel fret - is that a good idea?
- I have bass pickups "in stock" but most Bass VI have guitar pickups - any thoughts?

Like a lot of my builds I have never seen a fanned fret instrument in person, never mind played one.

Thanks for any feedback.
 
#6
So it's been done :-D. That's a stunning bass, I hope mine comes out half as good, thanks for posting. There are some good ideas in that build that I will borrow for sure.

It turns out Ibanez makes a VI with EMG bass pickups, I may go the same route. I'm going to lay everything out and see what it looks like.

Bending looks like it should be fun.
 
#7
Here's the basic idea for the shape. It will have a headstock (not headless).
20180727_082702.jpg

I don't remember buying these, but I have a pair of EMGs that will work perfectly
 
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#10
another thing you might want to consider...

whether you want to put on guitar tuning machines like most VI instruments out there or bass tuning machines just like what Ibanez did on their SRC6, which might ease you in case you want to use bass string(s) for the low string(s).



But bass tuning machine means heavier and may require larger headstock design. Although Ibanez did manage to cramp 7 bass tuning machines on their limited edition 7 strings bass VI-ish instrument (called SR7VIISC) available almost 10 years ago:
SR7VIISC.gif
 
#12
I reworked the design, the body was too small overall and realistically the laminated edges need to be 1/2" wide or so to be viable (I think). Once you make those wider the body started to look really out of proportion.

I want to maximize the negative space, getting the intersection between the inner body and the laminated edges so I can limit the size of the body has proven to be difficult. To me both the designs I'm looking at have awkward parts in that body shape and I can see why after drawing this out. I tried to put a little interest into that body shape down on the bottom. Anything else I drew looked out of place.

On the neck I'm going to go with 32/30.5 scales with a parallel fret at the 8th position (or around there). The 32/30 spread just looked like too much, I know .5" isn't much, but in comparing the two printouts, it seems better.

I am not 100% there yet, but I think this is a good evolution of the earlier design. I'll stare at this today and do one more edit if I feel like I need it. I should start cutting this weekend. Again this will have a headstock, I just haven't done anything up there yet.
20180731_083132.jpg
 
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#15
regarding the degree of the fanning... are you sure you want to make the degree of the fanning more on the higher frets?

On the drawing, seems that you put the parallel fret on the 5th fret so the frets afterwards become more and more fanned. With a Bass VI instrument, you definitely want to do guitar like chords, which most likely you would do them on the higher frets (5th and above) since playing on lower frets sounds to muddy.

My personal experience with the only fanned fret bass that I have (Ibanez SRFF806), forming chord patterns on frets with more degree of fanning are harder compared to on frets which are closer to the parallel fret (the 10th fret in case of the SRFF). So, it's best to make the higher frets not fanned too much.
 
#16
Aidil said:
regarding the degree of the fanning... are you sure you want to make the degree of the fanning more on the higher frets?

On the drawing, seems that you put the parallel fret on the 5th fret so the frets afterwards become more and more fanned. With a Bass VI instrument, you definitely want to do guitar like chords, which most likely you would do them on the higher frets (5th and above) since playing on lower frets sounds to muddy.

My personal experience with the only fanned fret bass that I have (Ibanez SRFF806), forming chord patterns on frets with more degree of fanning are harder compared to on frets which are closer to the parallel fret (the 10th fret in case of the SRFF). So, it's best to make the higher frets not fanned too much.
Click to expand...
That makes a lot of sense. I'll move the parallel fret up. I was considering ease of fretting chords in the first position, I didn't think of the fact that I'd probably be doing chords further up the neck on this instrument compared to a guitar. Thanks for the input.
 
#17
I extended the bass side bout a bit, no pics, I want this to look a bit like a guitar, so I'm not going too far there. I think it looks pretty good, medium booty.

I did a quick search of what wood I have in stock and I found a nice piece of mahogany I got in the cut off pile at the local mill. It was an awkward sized piece (but long), after squaring it up a bit I got a piece that's a good dimension for the neck, it has very straight grain and no knots. I think I will slice this in half, put a piece of black laminate in the middle then put two pieces of maple on the outside, that's the current thinking at this point. I'll finalize when I get the maple. I had considered putting in a walnut stripe, but I don't have a long enough piece with straight enough grain. I may end up down at the mill for more walnut, I want to coordinate wood in the body, neck and laminates, so I'll have to consider this more as I go.
20180801_082101.jpg

I gathered what I have for the laminate, wildly varying widths and thicknesses. I think the laminate will end up being about 1/2" thick and 1 1/2" wide (narrowing on the upper bout). I'll look through what I have and run them through the sanding planer once I've figured out a strategy for the laminates. I haven't ever done something like this before, but it seems like anything thicker than the thinnest piece here will require soaking in water at a minimum. I bought polyurethane glue to use on that part of this project as it absorbs water and uses it to bond to the wood. I hate wasting wood, so I hope I don't end up breaking too much stuff here while trying to bend it. I've got maple, mahogany and walnut, I also have some thin black laminate stuff.
20180801_082107.jpg
 
#19
Ok, now I feel like this is an actual build and not just a plan. Glue hit wood this morning, neck blank glued up:
maple/mahogany/black/walnut/black/mahogany/maple.
20180802_083351.jpg


Next I'll build the clamping cauls for the bended wood. My idea is to cut some plywood into the shape for the top and bottom bout, then route that into a 2x6. I'll go down as far as I can, then cut it with the bandsaw, then I'll go back and clean up the rest with the router.

I think I will have to soften the wood before bending, especially that thicker piece of walnut, I don't think I need to go to steam though. My plan that I made at 3:30AM when I couldn't sleep is to spray it down with water, wrap it in a damp towel, then put it in my car for an hour or two in the sun. I think that will get enough moisture in the wood and heat it up enough to make it pliable. I'm using polyurethane glue for this step, I don't understand the science at all, but I've read that it uses water to harden, so it draws the moisture out of the wood, unlike regular wood glue which would get diluted by the water in the wood. If your wood is dry they suggest spritzing it with water before glue up.

If anyone has thoughts on any of that, I'd love to hear them. I've watched a lot of videos and as usual it's hard to pick the one that matches this scenario exactly, there's a great one of a guy bending 1" kiln dried ash using a motorized bender, kind of blows your mind watching him bend that, of course he's using steam. I also saw a guy bending thinner laminated strips with no steam or water, although his strips were a consistent thickness, all thin enough to bend, even in that video I would have bet the strips would have broken.
 
#20
I have done a tiny bit of bending wood (Mostly non-bass related). From my limited experience I would say that you definitively need to steam the wood before bending. Partly to soften it, and partly to help it retain the correct shape after shaping.

Making a steam chamber isn't too difficult. Just make a long wooden box from cheap wood (Put together with screws, not glue! ;) ) just large enough to hold your pieces. Put steam in at one end, and partly block the other end. Make a "rack" by drilling some holes straight through the box and put some skewers through the holes to help the steam flow evenly around the wood.

I would also pre-bend the pieces first, and let them dry before gluing. This will help prevent problems with wood wanting to spring back to it's original shape.

When gluing you could make a clamping jig to press the pieces to the correct shape as the glue sets. Without this you will need a lot of clamps.
 

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