Built a new bass

[Thetim]

Hi all,
I sort-of built a bass. That is to say, I bought an Ibanez SR305EB donor for neck, strings, bridge etc and used a slab of yew wood to make a new body.

I learned some stuff along the way:
- Warman sell a really nice humbucker for about £25 at the time of writing. There are a lot of threads on various platforms that go "they seem really cheap, are they any good?" and yes, yes they are. I'm not sure what I'd want out of a more expensive pickup to justify paying more.
- I'm not going to start a tonewood fight with my first post, but I will say that yew wood is really heavy and sustains for weeks.

Overall, very happy with how it came out, given that I'm a wannabe bassist rather than a luthier.

 

[Aric Bjorn]

That's Yewnique indeed. Very cool!

 

[crazycloud]

Overall, very happy with how it came out

That's awesome looking. Great work.

 

[ctmullins]

Who would do a thing like that???

(wait for it)

Yew Wood!!!

 

[toastw]

That. Looks. AWESOME!

 

[andruca]

It's gorgeous I'm a Stingray5 repeat owner and lover, it's my #1 tool, so I like that thing even more (and an SR neck will be real close to the Ray5's, even thinner front to back, lighter too). Also, as a 50% (punk'ish) pick player I totally appreciate your knobs positioned out of the way, perfect

 

[ghostdog93]

That's a beautiful piece of wood.

What's the weight?

 

[andruca]

Also, more pics, I'd love to see more revealing shots of the "topography" on that body.

 

[BassicJazzy]

Pretty cool, and unique!

 

[Isaac_James]

That looks really nice! Lots of character in that wood. Yew should be proud!

 

[Thetim]

That's a beautiful piece of wood.

What's the weight?

Quite a lot! It doesn't feel heavy to play but when I compared it to my other bass, the difference is noticeable.

 

[Sharko]

Who would do a thing like that???

(wait for it)

Yew Wood!!!

I lol'd

 

[CryingBass]

Do you play upright? ( fingerboard tell )

Gorgeous build!

 

[TeaTime]

*sigh* all the good puns have already been taken.

That's fairly epic, and certainly one of a kind. Thats going to get some notice for sure. I like the apparent chaos of the colors and shapes. Feels both old and yewthful at the same time. *whew*

Note - beautiful. Not sure if it bothers you, but a small pickup surround ring is simple to make. Maybe a blond wood to tie back to the lighter bits there, or a black just to vanish?

 

[ac100X]

You better add a thumb rest because after a few years you could wear a groove into the guitar.

PS: That is a nice looking bass!

 

[Iridescentone]

Hi all,
I sort-of built a bass. That is to say, I bought an Ibanez SR305EB donor for neck, strings, bridge etc and used a slab of yew wood to make a new body.View attachment 7435439

I learned some stuff along the way:
- Warman sell a really nice humbucker for about £25 at the time of writing. There are a lot of threads on various platforms that go "they seem really cheap, are they any good?" and yes, yes they are. I'm not sure what I'd want out of a more expensive pickup to justify paying more.
- I'm not going to start a tonewood fight with my first post, but I will say that yew wood is really heavy and sustains for weeks.

Overall, very happy with how it came out, given that I'm a wannabe bassist rather than a luthier.

Very creative! What tool(s) did you use to smooth over the scalloped areas?

 

[Ricky Rioli]

*sigh* all the good puns have already been taken .... yewthful

Nice u-turn

 

[Aric Bjorn]

Nice u-turn

Yew turn?

 

[Thetim]

Thankyou for the warm welcome and sorry for the slow response!

I play bass moderately badly and drums very badly. Never tried upright bass!

A pickup surround ring in contrasting wood is a great shout. I routed the body to be big enough to take the pickup and immediately regretted not routing it much closer to the pickup size. I'll try some cardboard templates to get a feel for the aesthetics.

I'm an engineer more than a luthier, so the process of making was all about setting up the tools to make the job foolproof. Building a wooden frame around the slab of yew so I could flatten it with a router. Drawing a template and cutting it from plywood so I could get it right before again using the router to transfer the shape into the wood. I used a belt sander to smooth out the routing marks and various files and sanders to clean everything up. The area around the control knobs is the most complex as I wanted a lot of support for the jack in particular. There's an aluminium plate sitting in the control cavity, sandwiched between the visible front face of the guitar and a sort of wooden backing behind it.

Some more pictures of it from different directions to try to show the contours of the wood:

 

[TeaTime]

Thankyou for the warm welcome
I'm an engineer more than a luthier, so the process of making was all about setting up the tools to make the job foolproof.

I'm nearly finished with my first full build (stuck waiting on the temperature and humidity to improve a bit) and the biggest thing I learned is that I need to think more like an engineer. I've struggled with things I shouldn't have, because I didn't do proper prototyping with cardboard or thin plywood, and didn't always make templates. I went into this thinking slotting the fingerboard would be the only real stress point...and yeah, very wrong. Why? Because I built a jig for the slotting, but other things I did freehand when I should have not.

It's playable, but after the hands-on experience and a LOT more browsing of the luthier forums here the second one will be much better.