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Build thread: walnut, maple, buckeye burl, pickups, bridge

#101
Thanks @dwizum, I assumed the answer was gonna be somewhere along that line. I've pondered over the same thing for my build as well and it's not indifferent. I wanted a Dingwall, but there's no way I can afford that price tag. But, I can cobble together something similar over a couple years buying wood/parts/hardware here and there as I go. I figure I'm probably into my build somewhere in the $700 range so far (not counting tools or time) just in wood and parts. There's probably no way I'd be able to sell it for what I've got in it, but I have zero plans to ever sell it anyways so that works out. I'm in awe of your wood choices and haven't been able to do anything with wood that amazing. So far I've stuck to the more normal stuff. But some day I want to play with an amazing burl like that....some day.

For now, I just bought a full sheet of plywood for a project, so I'm broke until next payday. I wanted to drive around with it hanging out of the bed of my truck for a while to flaunt my excessive wealth, but I was afraid someone would steal it so I rushed home and hid it inside the garage before anyone noticed I had it. :roflmao:
 
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#103
I went down to the shop at lunch time and put the truss rod cover on. I had just intended to go down there and stare at the bass, but I realized I hadn't put the cover on yet so I did that.

I use magnets for my covers. To get the positioning correct, I put tape on the face of the headstock, trace the outline of the cover onto the tape, then drill a shallow hole that's about 1mm bigger than the magnets in diameter, right through the tape.

IMG_20210825_154614.jpg


Then I tape the cover onto the tape, and peel the cover and the tape off together. Then I can turn the cover over and use the freshly cut hole in the tape to mark the magnet position on the bottom of the cover.

IMG_20210825_154642.jpg


Then I can glue the magnet right on that spot on the cover, and I know everything will line up perfectly.

IMG_20210825_155951.jpg



This cover is a thin piece of the body burl on a thin piece of cross grain walnut. I made it from the same blank as the knobs were cut from, which was a thin piece of burl on a thick piece of walnut. I ran a scrap cutoff from the knobs through the bandsaw to slice off the burl and leave only a super thin sliver of walnut to help reinforce it, then I ran it through the drum sander (always slightly hilarious pushing such a small piece of wood through a drum sander) and I soaked it in thin CA to stiffen it up. I did the knobs in thin CA too. It's such an awesome "finish" for wood parts that are small and may get a lot of handling. It's suuuuuuuper durable and it can be buffed to any sheen, and it takes wax well. I would finish entire basses in thin CA if it wasn't so impractical.

Once the strings get here I can do a legitimate set up and finish the rough cut nut. Then... gasp! it'll be all done!
 
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#105
dwizum said:
Wood knobs maybe a couple ounces saved. Tuners a couple ounces. The neck is fairly slim and maple is less dense than a lot of other neck woods (much less than ovangkol, at least). The walnut body is not chambered (other than the huge control cavity) but it's pretty light, and this is a pretty compact body shape - probably smaller in real life than it looks in photos. Plus it's only 1 3/8" thick in the body. With my other bass, I really think it's mostly the bubinga and ovangkol, plus it has one of those old school multi piece warwick bridges in solid brass, so it's a very heavy bridge.

The burl itself was probably extremely light, but it's soaked in epoxy so it's definitely not light any more!



If I knew the exact answers to those questions I would definitely share them. I don't though and it might be hard to guess, especially for something like this where it's a smidge of this piece of wood and a bit of that piece of brass and the neck blank is basically glued up leftover strips from a guitar I built last year, and so on. And an hour or so a couple times a week in the early morning, plus an occasional few hours on a weekend, stretched over two months. Going from raw wood (versus prepared Luthier Wood) and making my own hardware and electronics definitely reduces materials cost - this is probably about the cheapest way to build a bass like this. But there's a huge trade off in time.

I would think of it this way. It takes 5 minutes to order a $200 set of Bartolinis or Delanos or whatever. Job done. You have pickups to put in your bass. You know they're going to sound great, and people will recognize the brand name. No drama. It helps to know what sound you're after but it's pretty hard to go way off the rails doing this.

Or you can learn to make guitar pickups, build a couple iterations of a pickup winder, decide you also want to make bass pickups, then unlearn half the things you thought you knew from making guitar pickups since it turns out it's crap and people building bass pickups are more focused on the truth than tradition. Now, spend all your free time casually browsing the internet trying to find suppliers selling things appropriate for making bass pickups (hint: there aren't many out there, 99% of pickup making is aimed at copying famous designs). Then, re-learn CAD after not touching it for 20 years so you can send your designs off to get laser cut flatwork since you're interested in building something besides another P or J pickup. Next, build enough different bass pickup designs that you get a rudimentary understanding of how tone actually works in a bass. Finally, narrow in on a specific design that you like the best for this particular bass, and build at least half a dozen iterations of it so you can fine tune things. I do sell a few pickups here and there, and use them in my own instruments, but the bulk of the time I spend winding coils and assembling pickups is spent developing, not making a complete product. I would bet hard money that at least 3/4ths of the coils I've wound have ended up in the trash, in the name of constant improvement.

Phew. Catch your breath.

All that, to get to the point where instead of spending 5 minutes ordering a $200 set of pickups, you can spend two or three hours turning $15 of materials into your own pickups! There is no way in heck that makes even any sort of remote sense from a financial standpoint. The good news (for me at least) is that it's way more fun!
Click to expand...


Since you could go to Guitar Center and frequently get a Squier for less then the cost of materials none of this really “makes sense.” I’ve just assumed we all love it so… :D
 
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#106
dwizum said:
..and I soaked it in thin CA to stiffen it up. I did the knobs in thin CA too. It's such an awesome "finish" for wood parts that are small and may get a lot of handling. It's suuuuuuuper durable and it can be buffed to any sheen, and it takes wax well. I would finish entire basses in thin CA if it wasn't so impractical....
Click to expand...
I finished a pen that I turned in CA, it's pretty common in the pen turning world. Also, Geoff from Fanblade Instruments has done entire basses/guitars in thin CA, it's his preferred finish.
 
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#108
dwizum said:
I went down to the shop at lunch time and put the truss rod cover on. I had just intended to go down there and stare at the bass, but I realized I hadn't put the cover on yet so I did that.

I use magnets for my covers. To get the positioning correct, I put tape on the face of the headstock, trace the outline of the cover onto the tape, then drill a shallow hole that's about 1mm bigger than the magnets in diameter, right through the tape.

View attachment 4383102

Then I tape the cover onto the tape, and peel the cover and the tape off together. Then I can turn the cover over and use the freshly cut hole in the tape to mark the magnet position on the bottom of the cover.

View attachment 4383103

Then I can glue the magnet right on that spot on the cover, and I know everything will line up perfectly.

View attachment 4383106


This cover is a thin piece of the body burl on a thin piece of cross grain walnut. I made it from the same blank as the knobs were cut from, which was a thin piece of burl on a thick piece of walnut. I ran a scrap cutoff from the knobs through the bandsaw to slice off the burl and leave only a super thin sliver of walnut to help reinforce it, then I ran it through the drum sander (always slightly hilarious pushing such a small piece of wood through a drum sander) and I soaked it in thin CA to stiffen it up. I did the knobs in thin CA too. It's such an awesome "finish" for wood parts that are small and may get a lot of handling. It's suuuuuuuper durable and it can be buffed to any sheen, and it takes wax well. I would finish entire basses in thin CA if it wasn't so impractical.

Once the strings get here I can do a legitimate set up and finish the rough cut nut. Then... gasp! it'll be all done!
Click to expand...


I’ve used CA as a finish on knobs and fretless boards. I remember seeing a “This Old House” where someone used the original foamy Gorilla glue as a finish on a smallish mango wood box. Seemed like an involved process but it came out nice. Edit: I watched the video again. Not as involved as I remember but I’ll probably still stick with Varathane and Createx.

 
#111
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It sounds great, feels great, looks great. Really happy with how it turned out.

These pickups with this preamp are a good contrast to the steel blade piclups and bartolini-based DIY preamp I have in my own bass, which is what I was hoping for. The setup in mine is more "woody" and neutral sounding. These are slightly more powerful in the low end, more modern sounding, and darker. They could pass as active EMGs if you weren't really paying attention.

Anyways, I'm really happy and I think I'm going to just bask in the glow of a build I'm very satisfied with for a few days before pushing into my next one (which as mentioned in the workbench thread, will be a guitar).
 
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#114
dwizum said:
View attachment 4386174

View attachment 4386175

View attachment 4386177 View attachment 4386178 View attachment 4386179

It sounds great, feels great, looks great. Really happy with how it turned out.

These pickups with this preamp are a good contrast to the steel blade piclups and bartolini-based DIY preamp I have in my own bass, which is what I was hoping for. The setup in mine is more "woody" and neutral sounding. These are slightly more powerful in the low end, more modern sounding, and darker. They could pass as active EMGs if you weren't really paying attention.

Anyways, I'm really happy and I think I'm going to just bask in the glow of a build I'm very satisfied with for a few days before pushing into my next one (which as mentioned in the workbench thread, will be a guitar).
Click to expand...

Beautifully done. Just incredible.
 
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#118
dwizum said:
View attachment 4386174

View attachment 4386175

View attachment 4386177 View attachment 4386178 View attachment 4386179

It sounds great, feels great, looks great. Really happy with how it turned out.

These pickups with this preamp are a good contrast to the steel blade piclups and bartolini-based DIY preamp I have in my own bass, which is what I was hoping for. The setup in mine is more "woody" and neutral sounding. These are slightly more powerful in the low end, more modern sounding, and darker. They could pass as active EMGs if you weren't really paying attention.

Anyways, I'm really happy and I think I'm going to just bask in the glow of a build I'm very satisfied with for a few days before pushing into my next one (which as mentioned in the workbench thread, will be a guitar).
Click to expand...
Classy, through and through :thumbsup: I like how the hardware blends in. The dark fretboard and the tasteful inlays stand out, in a good way. Natural but distinctive shapes throughout.
 
Last edited:
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#120
dwizum said:
View attachment 4386174

View attachment 4386175

View attachment 4386177 View attachment 4386178 View attachment 4386179

It sounds great, feels great, looks great. Really happy with how it turned out.

These pickups with this preamp are a good contrast to the steel blade piclups and bartolini-based DIY preamp I have in my own bass, which is what I was hoping for. The setup in mine is more "woody" and neutral sounding. These are slightly more powerful in the low end, more modern sounding, and darker. They could pass as active EMGs if you weren't really paying attention.

Anyways, I'm really happy and I think I'm going to just bask in the glow of a build I'm very satisfied with for a few days before pushing into my next one (which as mentioned in the workbench thread, will be a guitar).
Click to expand...

That's a beauty! I'm left handed too but didn't have access to a left handed bass when growing up so just learned to play right. So yeah, if you are looking for someone to give it to I'll send my address.
 
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