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Dear lord, what have I done?

S

Sardine

Feb 2, 2009
114
1
Maine
#1
Being new here, I'll start by introducing myself. I'm Rob, and I have been a woodworking adict for a while, mostly carving and woodturning. I have always been envious of instument makers and recently decided to make myself a bass. I don't know why. I don't even play bass! (Although I hope to learn, obviously.) Talk about jumping in over your head! It sort fo started with a frind of mine (bassist) saying, when I expressed my wishes to make a guitar, "Make a bass dude, I'll play it and tell you what you need to do different." So I went ahead and started making one. Against all of my expectations, it is actually turning out pretty well. Here is a list of the woods/hardware used.

4 string headless fretless, a la Kramer Duke.

Bridge: Gotoh fender style
Tuners: Gotoh guitar tuners, again a la the Duke
Pickup: EMG Select bass humbucker (what can I say, I'm on a budget.)
Controls: 1 volume, 1 tone

Woods

The entire back and neck is made of a single board of teak which is bone dry, rock hard, and as stable as the aformentioned rock.

The top and neck laminates are bubinga, the top piece having some nice figure.

The fingerboard is purpleheart, which I found to be very splitery (ouch...), but it sands very smooth (mirror shine at 600 grit:hyper:)

I'll post some pics when I find the charger for my camera;)

Thanks all for looking!

Rob
 
#5
Thanks for your replies all, here are some pics. Front and back photos and one that shows off the figure in the top a bit. I plan to add a removable leg rest of some sort to make it possible to play without a strap.

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The control cavities are a bit rough. Since I don't have a router, I drilled out the waste and removed the peaks with a chisel. A little shaky, but not too bad.
 
#12
Sardine said:
Thanks for your replies all, here are some pics. Front and back photos and one that shows off the figure in the top a bit. I plan to add a removable leg rest of some sort to make it possible to play without a strap.

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The control cavities are a bit rough. Since I don't have a router, I drilled out the waste and removed the peaks with a chisel. A little shaky, but not too bad.
Click to expand...

Nice job. The shape reminds me of a rifle. Are you planning to carve and finish the body to evoke a gun stock?
 
#13
You know, Leo Fender was not a guitarist and he made guitars that are still played close to 60 years later.

So who knows?

Obviously a few things may be improved, but your friend will tell you. What pickup are you going to use in there?

The neck looks a bit wide, it looks like you could fit 5 strings.

Could be a nice little traveling bass, as someone says.
 
#14
Quick update. Did more sanding today, tomorrow I wil be cuting the pocket for the tuners. I am thinking of maybe just using one volume control instead of a volume and a tone. One less piece of hardware to clutter up the top.

NickInMesa, you are absolutely right, the neck is a bit wide. But the bass is close enough to completion that I can't stand to get into more shaping of the neck, and since this one doesn't have a truss rod, a wider neck is probably not a bad thing. It also appears stubby because the scale is short, only 30", to make it easier for my guitar fingers to adapt.
 
#15
Sardine, I understand for the neck and the no truss idea, but playability is also an important factor when designing a musical instrument.

The spacing between the string has to be relatively "standard" (no such standard exists but you know what I mean) and the finger should not have to go too far to reach them over the side of the fret board.

But then again, we'll see when it's all done.

Truss rods are important, because wooden necks warp or bow according to the weather, the season, etc...
 
#19
Making the pocket for the tuners turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. It's still a little rough but I'll try to get some pics up soon.

Interestingly, I assume because of the headless design, the balance point is around the end of the fingerboard, and I assume it will move more toward the bridge with the addition of hardware. This is purely a happy accident.
 
#20
Took a few pics, not good quality, but good enough to display my sloppy chisel work. The top needs more chiseling and sanding, the back pocket just needs more sanding.

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These next two pics beatifully higlight the lopsided tuner hole. The only bit I had large enough was a twist bit, and even with pilot holes one still wandered a bit.

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