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Double Bass Build your own upright bass feasibility?

#82
I've been to 'violins.ca' and looked at the plans/books. I totally agree that the first try is not going to be the greatest, at least that's my experience. I heard of making a solid top from spruce planks glued with hide glue. It was said that it had better sound than plywood. Anyway I can get (have) some cherry/walnut and I wouldn't be spending a lot on the wood. After that I could spend the bucks for a Sitka 2 piece top.

My experience has been playing upright bas through high school and college. I had a German plywood bass and gave it up after playing an old carved flat back the college had. After college I gave up the bass because I couldn't afford anything but plywood.

My skills are in making classical guitars.
 
#84
Hi nicfargo.
I am also interested in building my own up right bass but couldnt find any drawings on a up right bass.If you have any drawings or building guide on up right bass then please respond to me because i ran into a dark alley on searching for how to build my own up right bass.
cheers mate from jan siedentopp.
[email protected]
 
#86
I read you statement asking if someone has made a bass. Actually, it is not as hard as you might think once you know how. An electric is easier than an non-electric. I made a bass that has good sound quality. I bought the finger board because it is rounded. The fingerboard, net, bridge, and strings are what produces the sound. If you use electric pickups it is easy. If you make the full body, it gets much harder. My bass was made from various scraps, so I call it a Scrap-ivarius of course.
 
#88
There was a German cabinetmaker once who wanted to build a guitar, but the violin makers' guild wouldn't let him. So he flipped them the bird, moved to the States, and did what he wanted to do.

Of course he was a cabinetmaker, so how good could his guitar-building pipe dream turn out? That stupid, stupid Christian Frederick Martin.

The Nazareth PA born-n-bred,
JAM
 
#90
Jeff Michael said:
There was a German cabinetmaker once who wanted to build a guitar, but the violin makers' guild wouldn't let him. So he flipped them the bird, moved to the States, and did what he wanted to do.

Of course he was a cabinetmaker, so how good could his guitar-building pipe dream turn out? That stupid, stupid Christian Frederick Martin.

The Nazareth PA born-n-bred,
JAM
Click to expand...

Hang on a sec JAMMER! Martin was born Jan.31, 1796 in Mark Neukirchen in Saxony, to a cabinetmaker father who was a guitar maker. At 15 he went to Vienna to work for Stauffer, one of the biggest and best guitar makers of the era.

He rose to the position of foreman and fourteen (14) years later left Stauffer to go and work for a harp maker.

So he spent 14 years learning the trade and the business from the best before working elsewhere another 8 years before emigrating to the US at the age of 37.

Pretty solid training, I'd say! :)
 
#92
Marcus Johnson said:
Nic, you might want to check into the Musical Instrument Makers Forum (mimf.com).... after a free registration, you'll meet a whole bunch of people who've built a wide variety of stringed instruments of every type imaginable. They are very supportive and generous with their knowledge. They range from seasoned professional luthiers to newbies, but they all have one thing in common; they all have had to tackle that first instrument at some point.

No doubt they've had people telling them that they couldn't do it. I had the same thing happen when I was starting out as a pro bassist in my teens. Well, I'm still doing it almost four decades later. No reason that building a bass can't be the same thing for you. You've already proved that in your other endeavors.
Click to expand...

+1, Nic, perhaps if you have zero experience with acoustical instruments, you may want to try a "Kit" instrument first, it'll give you a way better idea what you'll be in for later. Also you don't want to forget about the dough you'll need to put out for tools either..
 
#93
I have no carpentry skills other than what I learned making this instrument. I'm a practical man with a modest selection of woodworking tools and no power tools at all (apart from a detail sander).

My design plan was entirely arbitary but the overriding principle was that it should be as cheap as poss to build, yet good enough to gig with.

All the parts - bridge, tailpiece, 34" fingerboard - were hand carved from solid Oak (cos I could obtain a small supply at no cost). I simply used dimensions as best I could that fitted a 3/4 upright. The body back and front are 4mm birch faced plywood that used to be a packing case! :eek: The body's internal structures were built according to what seemed right at the time, but are all made from the cheapest softwood.

The neck is also made from the cheapest softwood I could find (CSL from B&Q at about £3 for you British guys): it's actually a sandwich of softwood outers with Wenge veneer in the centre. The pegbox was carved from a large block of glued together softwood pieces. The scrolls just mimic the real thing by being 2-a-side softwood ovals stuck to the pegbox.

The sides are made from a beny MDF product. And the depth of the body is 70mm because that was the size of the MDF I picked up.

That's it I guess! Oh, except to say that it's really an electric instrument with some acoustic traits. I designed a piezo cable pickup + buffer (I'm a retired electronics man) that's employed inside the bridge. There's a mag PuP, too, that came off one of my 6 string BGs.

She's strung with Olympic steel strings which hold tune. It's a 41 1/2" nut-to-bridge length.

It plays really well with (about) an 8mm string height at the fingerboard end.

It ain't never gonna rival even the crappiest upright for sound, I'm sure, but there's massive amounts of satisfaction for me in, first, the construction and, second, playing it on gigs. :cool: :D

John
 

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#97
The fingerboard would have been radiused except that I miscalculated the thickness of the timber needed.

I designed and built a machine that uses a Dremel to cut inside radii and have a 6" rad block ready to use but, as I say, the timber was too thin.

Yeah, was a great project. Have started MK III!

:cool:
 
#98
I'll have to admit that I'm a little too lazy to go back and read every post on this subject, but did anyone mention Peter Chandler's book and plans??
I have the book, and it's a wealth of down to earth advice and resources. He started building basses after retiring from another profession, and now his instruments are highly sought after. Go for it!
 
#99
I'll have to admit that I'm a little too lazy to go back and read every post on this subject, but did anyone mention Peter Chandler's book and plans??
I have the book, and it's a wealth of down to earth advice and resources. He started building basses after retiring from another profession, and now his instruments are highly sought after. Go for it!
 
#100
Every single great builder that we all look up to and read about in books, magazines, and here on the web had to take the big leap and build their first instrument at one point in their life. Some of those first instruments were nice, but I've also seen a lot of them that looked and sounded like a poor school project. Yet, with patience and perseverence, they were able to refine their skills into greatness.

If I told you that you'd likely spend 600 hours building your first bass ( or more) and spend a grand or two when it is all said and done, a lot of folks would back down, even though at the end of a year or so, you'd have an instrument to be proud of and you'd have learned an amazing amount. Why is it that those same people who backed away from it will, in the same year, have no problem spending five times that amount on fast food and will waste double that amount of time on the web and wind up with nothing to show from it?????

If you feel like building an instrument is something you'd like to give a try, DO IT!!!! I've heard about every negative response you can think of over the course of my life from people who were always telling me that I can't do it. Luckily, even at a young age, I didn't listen to any of those people. I cannot think of any other way that I'd like to spend the limited time that I have here. If you want to build a double bass, then build a double bass. Don't build a uke or a hurdy gurdy or a dulcimer or anything else that some folks will tell you will be easier. You'll wind up with a funny instrument that you don't know how to play and you won't be any closer to building your bass. I can tell you from experience: building 400+ sets of mandolin ribs will make you very good at building mandolin ribs, but then when you finally try to bend a set of bass ribs, you'll be back at the first day of school....

Have you read this thread?

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=547486&highlight=james+build

I built almost that entire instrument using just a few hand tools that would fit in a child's shoebox, and called on a few favors to cover the rest when needed.

Go for it, give it a try, don't be afraid, and get started now- not next week or next month or next year or some undefined day in the future. If you've only got $30, then start with a small blank of ebony- or 1/3 of that on a nice block of hard maple- and build your tailpiece and put it on your existing bass. Then when you get a few bucks more, move on to the next step....maybee get a nice board of maple for the ribs...and start working on your bass. Right now you are stranded on a desert island. That sailboat isn't just going to happen because you think about it a lot, and the whole process can be a bit overwhelming. Start with a tangible aspect and get the momentum rolling; great things happen this way.

Start right now by turning your computer off! If you sold your computer and cancelled your web service, you'd have enough change to buy almost all of the materials- nice materials, not bottom feeder stuff- and a few tools that you'll need to start building your bass...;)

j.
 

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