Building A Short Scale P Bass

[rudy4444]

As background, in keeping with a fairly minimalist philosophy when it comes to the number of instruments I'm comfortable with owning, I've decided that I'd like a short scale fretted bass to keep as a companion to my fretless bass. I've had a few "store-bought" basses over the years and also played a 34" scale fretted bass I had made for several years, but I've gradually come to prefer short scale basses. I had built my 30" fretless a few years ago and used it as an only bass but happened to notice an almost new Ibanez Mikro 28-1/2" scale bass on Craigslist for $50. A couple of hours later it was mine.

The Mikro is a very nice little bass, but there were a couple of small problems. (1) I didn't build it. I get the most satisfaction from playing instruments I've personally built, so that was a slight problem for me. (2) The 28-1/2" scale length is a TINY bit too short for my liking, and I think the 30" scale of my fretless with LaBella black tapes with a .115" 4th string is pretty much the limit for getting a 4th string with good definition.

I thought it would be of interest to those who are fairly new as builders or those who are considering getting into instrument construction as a possible new endeavor to do an overview of this, as it covers the full spectrum of what it takes to start with an idea and follow it through to a completed instrument. I won't cover ALL the boring details, but I'll post photos and a bit of explanation, especially where it differs from my last complete building topic where I detailed the construction of my 30" fretless semi-acoustic bass, which folks seemed to enjoy. I try to detail some of my outside-of-the-box "frugal" methods of work to provide a bit of inspiration for those folks who might not wish to invest in some of the more specialized tools that many builders use. Many of my methods of work are touched on here, several are different than what was detailed in the previous build topic for the short scale semi-acoustic fretless bass build due to the different overall design of that instrument.

That previous in depth build topic is located HERE:

30” Scale Compact Semi-acoustic Fretless Bass Build

With all that in mind I started the process by listing the specifications of the bass I was considering as a new main squeeze. Although I'm labeling it as a "short scale P Bass" the design has a mix of not only P and J bass characteristics, but some other deviations thrown in based on my current preferences.

Preliminary design points:

38" overall length to fit in a Telecaster bag.
Walnut body done with two book matched and sandwiched layers for a total thickness of 1-5/8"
Body counter-bored with internally matching 1" bored holes for weight reduction
Rear waist bevel and front arm bevel
Dunlop recessed Straplok strap holders
30" scale 22 fret neck
Bone nut
Bolt on neck using 4 embedded 1/4 by 20 tee nuts and 1/4" by 20 "antique brass finish" furniture bolts
Neck joins body at 15th fret
1-9/16" nut width
Two way LMI 21" overall length truss rod accessible and removable at heel end of neck
Hipshot Ultralite 1/2" string post tuners
Ebony headstock overlay with inlaid mother of pearl logo
Shop made raw brass bridge with twin angled heavy brass saddles for setting intonation as per classic "51 P Bass"
Single Original Design Fender P bass split pickup set in body routes
Top mounted volume, tone, and 1/4" output jack, simple turned wood control knobs (no pick guard...)
Medium EVO fret wire
LaBella 760NS short scale black tape strings
Small 1/16" side dots ( same dot material added to control knobs)
3/16" round abalone position markers in 12" radius Pau Ferro fretboad
Body, neck, and fingerboard finished with 2 coats of Osmo Poly-X wipe-on hard oil finish

I start any new and previously untested instrument by first creating a CAD drawing of the potential new design. This permits me to make sure it's visually appealing and also greatly minimizes any "surprises" that may potentially come up before any of the actual work is started. In this case I grabbed several photos of basses that were closest to what I was looking for and imported them into my CAD workspace. When I settled on the closest to ideal shape I then modified it to my liking and tweaked it as necessary. Small details such as adjusting the upper horn length to match a certain fret position or modifying the body size and shape are quick and easy to do in CAD.

This is what I came up with as a starting point for the envisioned short scale minimalist P bass.

Certainly not a “P” bass, as I took a ton of liberties with the design. It does feature a P bass pickup, though!

 

[rudy4444]

The basic concept drawing verified the mechanical proportions and assured me the design was visually pleasing. I then completed a detailed working drawing to serve as my reference for building the instrument.

Below is the full size drawing as a pdf for those of you who might like to play along at home. PDFs are nice because they can be zoomed without loss of detail and can be printed to accurate size by a competent print shop. When I used to market musical instrument construction information I supplied the local blueprint shop with a pdf and they ran me off a hundred copies at a time of several different instrument designs I had developed in CAD. The hard part of having full size plans printed is finding a copy shop where the staff actually knows how to use their software and equipment. I had very limited success at the local "shipping / copy shop" which was often staffed with folks who didn't know how to use the software for their large format printers, plus it was too expensive. I ended up developing a good relationship with an actual blueprint shop who knew what they were doing who provided me with accurately sized copies at very economical cost.

 

[rudy4444]

Part of what is nice about working with a CAD plan is that I can easily print off sections of the plan as specifically sized "tiles" and print them out on a standard printer to make full sized partial sections of the full size plan. The body portion of the plan is supplied here in four quadrants that can be cut out and taped together to serve as a full size template to assist with layout.

The other pdfs are individual full size pdfs of other sections of the plan. All of them have the dimensions of the outline border in a corner of the pdf, and can be printed actual size. This sometimes requires a bit of work to make sure your print dialog box is configured to print to the pdf stated size. Verify the size of the printed border to make sure it has printed accurately. My Brother laser printer has to be fudged to print "105%" for my CAD pdfs to size correctly, as an example.

Below are the individual PDFs that can be printed out full size. The four pdfs that compose the main body are "tiled" so they can be cut out and assembled to form the entire full size body. (It's best to download the pdfs and work with them on your computer.)

Links to individual PDFs:

Top Left:


Top Right:


Bottom Left:


Bottom Right:


Headstock:


Raw Brass Bridge:


Fret Layout Guide:


String Spacing Guide:

 

[Frank Vozak]

Thank you for sharing your build plans. I am not at all handy or mechanically inclined but I really can appreciate the craftsmanship and design by someone who knows what they are doing. Just as a quirk, we have a local architects, artists and draftsman shop in my neighborhood and they offer copying blueprint and plans with some amazingly large copying machines. My model railroad club has a 3/4 HO model of the Chicago Grand Central Station. It was my idea to build this station and I persuaded a member of the club to build the station but I had to build the mockup for him to use to make the design. I was very fortunate to have this professional architect's shop available as I slowly scaled up the station drawing that I had found in multiple railroad magazines from the 60's until I had an HO scale model made of plans and drawing glued to foam core board and then assembled. If I had to use the local copy store I could never have completed the project.

 

[rudy4444]

Thank you for sharing your build plans. I am not at all handy or mechanically inclined but I really can appreciate the craftsmanship and design by someone who knows what they are doing. Just as a quirk, we have a local architects, artists and draftsman shop in my neighborhood and they offer copying blueprint and plans with some amazingly large copying machines. My model railroad club has a 3/4 HO model of the Chicago Grand Central Station. It was my idea to build this station and I persuaded a member of the club to build the station but I had to build the mockup for him to use to make the design. I was very fortunate to have this professional architect's shop available as I slowly scaled up the station drawing that I had found in multiple railroad magazines from the 60's until I had an HO scale model made of plans and drawing glued to foam core board and then assembled. If I had to use the local copy store I could never have completed the project.

Hi Frank,
Thanks for your story, I always find it interesting when folks relate the creative solutions to problems they come up against.

The printing thing is often a sticking point for folks who want to produce full size plans, particularly if they work with any kind of graphics design program on their computer. There are ways around it, but a large format printer and a good operator beats most of the alternatives.

Several years ago I used to market musical instrument construction guides with hundreds of photos, accompanying text, and full plan on a CD so the user could take the file to a local copy shop and have it printed. I fielded so many questions from users who had extreme difficulty getting the file printed that I eventually solved the problem by supplying the package with the full size printed plan included. Our local blueprint shop has several large format printers, some of them print on 60" wide rolls of high quality paper, so once I saw what they were capable of producing I knew that was my solution to the problem.

For anyone interested in that process, the driver program for a particular printer is often available from the printer manufacturer. You install the print driver on your computer and then, using your graphics program print command dialog, you select that machine and "print" the file so it can be directly used by the printing company where you are having your work done. This works well, but each time I needed to run a batch of prints I often had to go through the entire process of getting the latest version of the print driver and installing it due to the frequent "upgrades" the manufacturers sent to the users of their printers.

In the end I found sending them a simple pdf and telling them to adjust their print settings so the final print was the same size as what was listed on the drawing's specified dimensions was a much better solution. A good operator knows how to run their printer and finished drawings eliminate all the difficulties that someone half-way around the world might experience with getting a file printed.

All the stuff here is printable on 8-1/2" by 11" standard printer paper and it's easy to zoom in on the full size plan to see details if needed.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Looks like a very interesting build. I've watched the post, looking forward to seeing how it progresses!

 

[rudy4444]

My tendency towards "frugality" and love of unpretentious materials often dictates selecting wood from whatever I have available, so this walnut serves as a starting point. It is 2" by 10" by 96" with a couple of knots to work around.

Several years back my wife and I drove over to the next small town for lunch and stopped at a yard sale that had "wood" listed on the sign. The driveway had piles of walnut, cherry, mahogany, and maple and the person running the sale said it was from someone who was retiring from doing woodworking. I picked up a trailer load for $150 and have been using wood for various projects for several years. Unfortunately the lady said someone had just bought a large pile of ebony before I got there. Keeping an eye out for prospective materials is a good idea, as you never know where you might find it.

As a side note, I HIGHLY recommend a good work bench! If anyone needs to build this one I've posted the Youtube video below, as well as vise solutions for this and most workbenches.

Armed with a good construction drawing I cut my walnut board into rough dimension pieces to more easily handle them.

My 12" Delta band saw is fitted with a 1/2" 3 TPI skip tooth blade that is used for ALL of my work. Changing blades isn't in my playbook.

 

[Blackjac97]

Thanks for sharing, this seems like it will be a beautiful bass and I like seeing your process.

 

[rudy4444]

The walnut board was a bit over 2" thick so I re-sawed the pieces to book match the halves. I split two lengths so the body could be made in two layers to enable removing a substantial amount of excess wood by "bookmatching" 1" counterbores drilled with a Forstner bit. More on that later.

I'm re-sawing using a 12" Delta band saw with a 1/2" 3 tpi skip tooth blade. I added a 3" riser to my saw (shown in the photo) so I could fit 8" material for re-sawing. I use a guide finger (also shown in the photo) and have no trouble re-sawing with a sharp blade. I'd want a bigger saw if I did this all the time, but for the occasional need I have to re-saw it works well for me. I much prefer tools that I can easily move around the shop, with most of them mounted on rolling bases. Most of my larger tools I've eventually pared down to smaller and easier to move versions.

Here the bookmatched pieces are flipped and rotated end for end a few times to orient them for best looking grain match.

 

[rudy4444]

The rough lumber is planed to prepare it for edge joining and to better view any surface irregularities that might need to be avoided by orienting the wood so any problem areas will be outside of the actual cut out body shape.

Forum discussions sometimes ask about methods that are used for planing rough cut lumber and I'll relate up front that I've been using a Wagner Safe-T-Planer for the last 30 years to do ALL of my planing operations for musical instruments as well as all of my general woodworking projects. Over the years I've heard all of the standard objections to the STP. I'm probably the biggest champion of the STP and have answered the objections many times in the past, but I digress.

Our home is filled with furniture that the Wagner was used for. It gets used for everything from final dimensioning of rough milled "from the tree" lumber to thinning headstock veneers, and everything in between. I do chuckle a bit when I read comments about how limited this tool is. It demonstrates that "beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder". With proper jigs and setup the Safe-T-Planer is a versatile workhorse capable of doing a wide variety of operations. It needs a good drill press for it to really shine, and It's not going to be at its best paired with a $50 Harbor Freight drill press, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

 

[rudy4444]

The bookmatched halves are clamped in a pair of outrigger boards and have the edges planed lightly to form the mating edges of the glue joint.

After the bookmatched boards are glued together they are lightly surfaced to create the flat plates that will be glued together to form the completed body. The Wagner STP is capable of producing a nearly invisible glue joint, as is "not visible" in the photo below. I often have to look closely at the end grain to tell where the joint is located and then mark it in pencil for later layout work.

The 4 PDF sheets that comprise the body outline are printed, the borders trimmed to size, and assembled. The actual body pattern is then cut from the assembled sheets.

 

[rudy4444]

The flipped plan will produce top and bottom halves that mate perfectly so you have the maximum amount of surface area that will be in contact for gluing. A light coating of Original Titebond is all you need. You don't want to apply so much glue that a lot of it runs into the mating counterbores.

The location of the bookmatched 1" counterbored recesses are transferred to both inside surfaces and the 1" counterbored holes are drilled. The locations for the bottom bored holes are marked by placing the pattern upside down on the bottom section and marking the locations with a center punch or other sharp pointed tool. The counterbores are initially done with a standard Forstner bit and then completed with a older Forstner bit that has the centering spur ground off so the counterbore can be drilled to leave 3/16" material thickness with no centering point divot.

The photo also shows the volume, tone, and output jack locations drilled with a 1-3/8" Forstner bit. The recesses for the top half are through drilled 3/8" for the control and jack mounting shafts. The rear recesses are counterbored so the centering point just pierces the back surface. This area will be opened up later to form the control cavity access.

 

[rudy4444]

I did not use all of my C clamps, but you can see how handy it is to have plenty available! I think there were still a half dozen 8" clamps left on the rack.

I also drilled the top to accommodate 3 extra drywall screws at areas where the pickups and neck would be later routed out to assist with "clamping" the body together while gluing. Make sure you locate them correctly; no need for extra holes in the finished bass!

Cutting out, radiusing edges, and shaping of arm bevel and waist relief are not shown. Much of that process is detailed in the earlier referenced build topic.

 

[rudy4444]

The neck dimensions were transferred to the neck blank. Here the fret positions (assembled from the printed PDF fret position guide) are transferred to the Pau Ferro fretboard blank.

The fret slots are cut on my purpose-built fret slot cutting saw made from a $100 Lowe's store brand sliding arm miter saw. (Details in the previously posted build topic...)

I taper each side of the fretboard blank with the Safe-T-Planer to save myself extra effort when block sanding the board to the 12" radius I'm using.

Here the board is sanded using 150 grit paper and a 12" radius hardwood sanding block. The surface is marked with penciled "squiggles" to watch the sanding progress and to insure a nice uniformly profiled fretboard. The initial sanding is followed with 220 grit for the final passes.

 

[Frank Vozak]

since you are building a dream bass, why pau fero over ebony, maple or rosewood fingerboard

 

[T_Bone_TL]

Why not Pau Ferro? It's lovely. And not like nearly every other bass on the planet...

 

[Frank Vozak]

Why not Pau Ferro? It's lovely. And not like nearly every other bass on the planet...

Valid point, though I dream of a maple fretboard. Maybe a Squier Bronco in my future

 

[rudy4444]

since you are building a dream bass, why pau fero over ebony, maple or rosewood fingerboard

Hi Frank,
As T Bone says, it's a lovely wood.

A couple other reasons; I had Pau Ferro boards in bass size in my stash (my ebony stock is slightly smaller) and I'm going for an overall look that blends together for the most part, other than the head stock overlay. Since I'm using a mother of pearl logo on the head stock I prefer the contrast with a ebony overlay there.

I've personally never been drawn to maple boards due to what they end up looking like after the surface finish wears through. My two Teles were maple, but that's what they came with so I lived with it.

Thanks for the question! There seems to be little to no interest in this entire topic, so I'm appreciative that anyone has any thoughts on it.

 

[rudy4444]

Abalone 3/16" dots are installed by adding them to drilled recesses and using a drop of water-weight CA to permanently glue them in place.

The ebony headstock overlay is positioned on a board with double faced carpet tape to hold it rigidly while it is planed to 3/64" thickness. The ebony is planed thinner than what I usually use because I'm adding a 3/64" maple veneer layer under it. The fretboard has been cut and sanded to its final shape and is ready to glue in position, but there's some preliminary work to the neck blank that needs to be done before it can be glued in place. Mother Of Pearl logo is visible on the top of the maple veneer layer. I transferred the rough outline of the headstock to the ebony overlay and placed the pearl on top of it to verify I'd like the finished look of the logo on the headstock.

The top surface of the neck blank is next cut and planed where the headstock overlay will be positioned. The planed surface intersects with the line that indicates the rear face of the nut. (Are you getting the idea that I might use my Safe-T-Planer a bunch?)

 

[T_Bone_TL]

There seems to be little to no interest in this entire topic

There's interest! But there's perhaps less banter than sometimes just because you have it all sorted out and are cranking through it, which does not lead to the sort of ongoing discussions of how to tackle things that some other threads get as folks attempt things for the first time, look for advice on how to do things, figure out how to fix screw-ups, and all that.