Brooks Nachtkrapp - Night Raven

[Basvarken]

A new bass was born today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
The Brooks Nachtkrapp Airborne (Chris Laut Signature)

Chris Laut is the lead singer/ bass player in German rockband Ohrenfeindt. Chris commissioned me to build this hybrid of a Non Reverse and a Reverse Thunderbird. With a personal touch to accentuate his former career as an airborne commando for the German forces. The burgundy colour symbolises the baret and the gold plated badge is the emblem you get if you have done more than 50 parachute jumps.
The camo pickguard symbolises the uniform of course.

Specifications:
- Neck through with mahogany body wings
- Nine ply mahogany/walnut neck
- Ebony faceplate on headstock
- Burgundy finish
- Rosewood fretboard
- Jumbo frets
- 34" scale
- Handcut bone nut
- Three ply white-black-white pickguard With Camo print
- Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop
- Spokewheel trussrod
- Gibson reissue Thunderbird pickup.
- Hipshot Ultralite tuners
- CTS pots
- Sprague capacitor
- Rotosound RB 50 strings
- German Paratrooper badge on upper horn
- Weight 3.8 kg

I'll post extra information plus pics of the build process in the reactions below.

 

[Basvarken]

A few months ago I made a sketch of an idea I had for a new bass build. A hybrid of a Non Reverse Thunderbird and a Reverse Thunderbird. The shape of the Non Reverse and the nine-ply neck-through plus raised faceplate of the Reverse.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Since I'm from Europe, I was looking for a European counterpart of the American Thunderbird, for the name.
I came up with Nachtkrapp, which translates as Night Raven.
This mythological creature lives in the night and steals little children for their beds. It carries them in his bone chest to its lair where the children are devoured...

Chris Laut saw my sketch and contacted me with the idea to build this bass for him, with a more personal twist.
We shared some ideas. Initially Chris wanted me to finish the bass in camo-print. But I suggested to make the pickguard in camo-print and have the bass finished in the more classy looking burgundy.
Chris asked me to replace the Brooks flame emblem on the upper horn with the gold plated Airborne badge which by coincidence had roughly the same outline and the Thunderbird logo (and the Brooks flame embem).

Chris always wields a Thunderbird on stage (named Bride or Babe).
He is also an airborne paratrooper for the German army.

 

[Basvarken]

After we agreed upon the final design I started the build

First I had my wood supplier make me a nice neckblank from mahogany and walnut.

I routed the trussrod slot. And chiseled the part for the spoke wheel

Sawed the headstock angle and planed it nice and smooth

Planed the part of the centerpiece where the body will be under an angle to make sure the bridge height and action would be correct

Bought a nice piece of Rosewood for the fretboard

And made the position markers

 

[Lo-E]

That’s a great adaptation of the two designs!

 

[Basvarken]

Then prepared the fretboard for the fretting

Hammered the frets in

Then realised I had made one position dot too many. But I got away with it since that part had to be cut out for the trussrod acces anyway ;-)

 

[Basvarken]

When the fretboard was all fretted I could do the final check for the neck/body angle

The roughly cut out the neck and shaped a headstock paddle with the beginnings of a volute

Then taped off the fretboard (to protect it from wood glue spilling on the rosewood) and glued it onto the neck. I always use inner bicycle tubes for clamping. It gives a perfectly even pressure, no chanche of deforming.

Prepared a nice piece of ebony for the headstock plate

Glued it to the headstock

And shaped the headstock

Drilled the tuner holes

 

[Basvarken]

Made the side position markers

Worked on the neck profile

Drilled the holes for the bridge studs

Prepared to slabs of mahogany for the body wings

And glued them to the centerpiece

Cut out the rough shape, prior to routing along the template

The routed along the mdf template that I made

 

[Basvarken]

Routed the pickup cavity

It was already starting to look like a bass then ;-)

Routed the controls cavity

And the profile for the cover

Decided to route an extra slot for the wiring (just like Gibson did too on the Thunderbirds) because drilling a straight wire channel directly to the controls cavity was too tricky.

 

[bholder]

Gorgeous!

 

[Basvarken]

Test fitted the pickup...

...and all the other hardware too

The stained it in the burgundy colour and sprayed the first layer of clear

And after a second coat of clear

After lots of layers and lots of sanding in between the finish was smooth enough to apply the decals

And then after some more layers of clear coat it was ready to polish and mount all the hardware

 

[Flamingo21]

I wouldn't have thought blending the two Thunderbird designs could yield anything worth looking at, but you made it happen. Well done!

Please take another look at posts 1, 7, and 10. Some of the photos do not load.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

A new bass was born today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
The Brooks Nachtkrapp Airborne (Chris Laut Signature)

Chris Laut is the lead singer/ bass player in German rockband Ohrenfeindt. Chris commissioned me to build this hybrid of a Non Reverse and a Reverse Thunderbird. With a personal touch to accentuate his former career as an airborne commando for the German forces. The burgundy colour symbolises the baret and the gold plated badge is the emblem you get if you have done more than 50 parachute jumps.
The camo pickguard symbolises the uniform of course.

Specifications:
- Neck through with mahogany body wings
- Nine ply mahogany/walnut neck
- Ebony faceplate on headstock
- Burgundy finish
- Rosewood fretboard
- Jumbo frets
- 34" scale
- Handcut bone nut
- Three ply white-black-white pickguard With Camo print
- Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop
- Spokewheel trussrod
- Gibson reissue Thunderbird pickup.
- Hipshot Ultralite tuners
- CTS pots
- Sprague capacitor
- Rotosound RB 50 strings
- German Paratrooper badge on upper horn
- Weight 3.8 kg

I'll post extra information plus pics of the build process in the reactions below.

Awesome work. Beautiful! Congrats.

 

[Killing Floor]

Your builds never disappoint. Love it.

 

[Thegreatzambini]

A new bass was born today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
The Brooks Nachtkrapp Airborne (Chris Laut Signature)

Chris Laut is the lead singer/ bass player in German rockband Ohrenfeindt. Chris commissioned me to build this hybrid of a Non Reverse and a Reverse Thunderbird. With a personal touch to accentuate his former career as an airborne commando for the German forces. The burgundy colour symbolises the baret and the gold plated badge is the emblem you get if you have done more than 50 parachute jumps.
The camo pickguard symbolises the uniform of course.

Specifications:
- Neck through with mahogany body wings
- Nine ply mahogany/walnut neck
- Ebony faceplate on headstock
- Burgundy finish
- Rosewood fretboard
- Jumbo frets
- 34" scale
- Handcut bone nut
- Three ply white-black-white pickguard With Camo print
- Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop
- Spokewheel trussrod
- Gibson reissue Thunderbird pickup.
- Hipshot Ultralite tuners
- CTS pots
- Sprague capacitor
- Rotosound RB 50 strings
- German Paratrooper badge on upper horn
- Weight 3.8 kg

I'll post extra information plus pics of the build process in the reactions below.

I love the dark red color and the hardware looks really classy…. but in my opinion, it kind of gets wasted with the tacky camo.

 

[Basvarken]

I love the dark red color and the hardware looks really classy…. but in my opinion, it kind of gets wasted with the tacky camo.

I see what you mean. But Customer is King ;-)

 

[DeepHz]

Amateur Luthier? Not Bloody Likely! Nice design and great pics!!

 

[Bassic_desires]

Wow, wow, wow! A beautiful bass.

 

[Basvarken]

Amateur Luthier? Not Bloody Likely!

Haha yeah, well, it's not my day job ;-)