Build #5: La Pistolera - A Triple Pickup Threat

Since I'll be wrapping up my current build soon, I figured I'd get a jump on the next build coming up. I've actually begun the early parts of the process and seeing how I have a lot of extra time on my hands these days, I might as well go all in and get started.

Here's the drawing:



It's a 3 pickup bass with mini-humbuckers. The body will probably be a solid body instead of the semi-hollow bodies I usually do. I'm not sure of the material, but it's going to be a painted front and clear back. If I can find a nice, clear piece of poplar I'll go that route. I've been wanting to build a walnut neck, but I haven't had much luck finding a straight-grained piece with no knots. Instead, I may use this piece of maple I've had laying around and laminate a couple of walnut strips. As a general rule, I always try to use USA-sourced woods as much as I can, but I usually break when it comes to the fretboard. We'll see what happens when I come back from Mayan Hardwoods next week.

One puzzle I need to work out: I want the top with a roundover, then a stripe going through the entire body kinda like binding. That means I'll probably laminate an extra layer of wood making a sort of "hippie sandwich". I wanted the color of padauk, but that blows a hole in my no exotic woods rule. Maybe I could cut a channel and put some red ABS binding - or maybe even break my no exotic woods rule and add padauk binding,

I designed and made a few prototypes of the mini-humbuckers back in March-April. I'm waiting for a few parts from the fabricator and they should come in the mail this weekend. The pickups sounds similar to a Jazz pickup, although their not quite as glassy on top and have a little more bump in the low mids. I have a nice Warmoth Jazz with Fralin pickups, and I've always felt it needed a little more going on downstairs to help get booties on the dance floor. I always end up using a preamp with it, otherwise I always feel myself plucking a lot harder to get the punch I like to get out of the bass. I don't know if these passive electronics will solve that, but they might help a little.

There will be some switching between those 6 coils going on.

Incidentally, I do refer to the li'l Lady as "Pistolera" occasionally - usually in the phrase, "why don't you put that gun away, Pistolera," or "cool your jets, space-girl." That kind of thing.

I'll post the pickup stuff when it comes this weekend and have some wood photos early next week.

 

I use Adobe Illustrator. It works to quickly create accurate drawings, and I've been using it on the job for 20 years. However, what it doesn't seem to do is create clean files that I can export and send to the fabricator.

I've downloaded apps like Draftsight and LibreCAD because they're direction I should be heading on the road of designing guitars and guitar parts. It's been a real struggle and I'm not used to struggling with software. Unlike Adobe Illustrator, CAD software doesn't seem to work around creating and manipulating shapes so much as generating coordinates. I haven't yet found straightforward ways in CAD programs to do simple things like, round corners of a square with .0625" radius, or combine an ellipse with a square to make a shape that's curved on one side. And if there's a bezier tool in these programs, I haven't been able to find one. So, struggle through it I must.

 

My package came in today. The faceplates for my pickups came in from the laser cutter.



The top right is for my bass blade P90 pickup (I call it the JuiceBar), next is a Ceramic 8-powered humbucker (T-1000 Super Duper Ferrite), and 3 of my mini bass humbuckers (no name for these yet). They're laser cut from aluminum. This is officially an experiment; supposedly an aluminum shield will cut some of the highs, but theoretically the shapes of these pickups will help to mitigate the eddy currents attributed to loss of brightness. Will see. If this fails, no biggie - these laser cut aluminum pieces were relatively inexpensive. I can get the same pieces cut out of nickel-silver with a waterjet, but they'll cost roughly twice as much.

For this bass build, I'll be using the 3 mini-humbuckers. I tested a two-pickup configuration with both pickups in the Jazz position(s). Because my test pickups were housed in Stingray covers, there wasn't really a way to get all three pickups in the test bass. They sounded good and I'm sure they'll be fine with one more pickup. Overall, it sounded similar to a Jazz, but with a little more mids and less glassy highs.

Bruce machined this aluminum block for me to use as a master.



Also, I had some body templates cut. It was one of those things if I spent another $20, I'd get $40 off. I figured I really didn't want to match up those pickup routes on the pickguard and body, so what the heck.



Monday or Tuesday, I'll be off to the wood store.

 

That’s good advice. I’m not super worried about it - if there is any change, I don’t think it’ll be too drastic. If anything, to me changing the shape is a way to create a nice design element. I love the way single coil shield looks!

Either way, I figure it probably won't bug me, but if it does it’ll be easy to fix.

 

You know, I'm not sure yet. Strat switches are definitely one of the options I'm considering. I need 6 positions minimum, and they make a 6 position Strat switch. I'm also considering 3 rocker switches or 3 pushbutton switches. I'm hoping t figure out a way to add a "series" mode.

Here's what I'm thinking:

1: Bridge
2: Bridge + Middle Parallel
3: Middle
4: Middle + Neck Parallel
5: Neck
6: Bridge + Neck Parallel

Then series mode:
1: North Coil Bridge + South Coil Middle Series
2: South Coil Middle + North Coil Bridge Series

Something like that. At the end of the day, I just need to figure out the easiest and most logical way to make that work.

 

Yeah, I've looked at those, too - they're really cool!

I really gotta sit down and draw up a circuit and figure out how it'll be wired. I think that will help determine what switch I'll be using - or vice versa.

 

Yeah, that would work. I’d have to figure out the series mode.

I was looking at these “super” Strat switches, too.

Megaswitch | stewmac.com

and those Greyhill rotary switches are cool, too. Haha maybe I’ll build a Tonestyler, too!

 

As promised, here’s my wood shot, albeit a couple days late:



From L-R:

5/4 Alder - I’ll be using that for the back of the instrument. I know this is going against the grain (pun intended), but I actually like the nice, plain look of red alder. I’ll finish the back in clear. I only needed 4’, but for some reason, I ended up buying 8’. There’s a couple knots I have to work around, but I’m pretty sure I can get two bodies out of it.

5/4 Walnut - For the neck. It will be a 3-piece laminate.

I had to pick through the whole pile of lumber to find a nice, straight-grained piece. There were some that had some big blonde areas - which I actually like - but they had a lot of knots. This piece is nice and clean. The guy was nice enough to just give me 4’ from a 7’ board. It’s a little wide, but I’ll use the leftovers for something.

2/4 Poplar - This is for the top, which will be painted a solid color. I had this left over from another build.

and to the far right is piece of maple I’ve had laying around. I’m not sure what to do with it. Originally, it was intended for a flat-sawn neck but I realized that the depth stop on my router was useless and it planed the surface unevenly. I’ve since bought a new router, and I re-planed it the other day. However the plank is only .70” thick - nearly 1/16” too thin. I think what I’ll do is glue a 1/4” piece of maple down by the heel area and make a neck blank out of it. I have a 6-string design I’ve been wanting to revisit, so maybe I’ll use it for that.

Next stop, template cutting!

 

I’ll probably take you up on that - although trade would be more than adequate. I’m trying to get rid of my small pieces of wood.

That thought occurred to me as well. I think I was hit by instinctive laziness when I suggested adding a plate to the heel!