Fretless/Headless/neckthrough 5 string

[RonC72]

I finally finished my last build/ I was lazy so I build a headless/fretless bass!

Last weekend i installed the electronics and put strings on it. Im very satisfied, it plays very nice, and the sound is what I expected.
The neck through construction gives the bass a long sustain and it resonates nicely. The wenge/padouk neck (with reinforced carbon rods) is extremely stable.
The combination of the Lace alumitone bassbar and Darkglass tone capsule sounds good, i like the fact that the tonecapsule has a highmid control instead of high. Its very usefull.

Specs:
34 inch scale.
Swamp ash body with padouk top.
5 piece wenge/padouk neck, ebony fretboard.
ETS hardware.
Luminlay side dots.
Lace alumitone bassbar (stingray position).
Darkglass tone capsule preamp.
Push-Pull volume pot for active/passive
Danish oil finish

 

[RonC72]

i was warned that Wengé would be hard to work with but like always I was stubborn… damn was I wrong… it’s a beautiful wood and I’m happy with the result but I’m not sure if I will ever use it again….(the advantage was that I really leaned to sharpen my plane now!)

 

[RonC72]

and padouk isn’t the easiest wood either…

 

[RonC72]

fretboard/trussrod
I inserted 2 carbon rods for extra strenght, maybe a bit of an overkill with wenge..

 

[RonC72]

Planing swamp ash is a joy after the wenge and padouk!

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

the wengé almost turnes yellow when you work it, give it a week and it turnes dark brown again!

 

[RonC72]

Lovely work, shaping the neck and body!

 

[RonC72]

I had to make quite a special template to route the space for the tailpiece, i want to mount the tailpiece under a corner.

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

 

[RonC72]

While mounting the bridge one of the screws broke... fortunatly i was able to get it out.
Next time i'm gonna predrill the holes a bit larger and use candle wax on the screw when screwing them in...

Before I started to make the body i saw off a slide of about 6mm in lenght.
I used photoshop to find the right piece to match the grain, I made pictures of the cavity and the piece of wood fot the cavity. Then I erased the inner part of the cavity and slide the picture of the wood underneat to find the right spot. Than I searched fot that exact piece of grain on the wood.. It matches quite well!

I calculated the strenght of the magnets and the maximum force I had to push to open the lid.
Now the magnets are strong enough to hold the lid and i can push my thumb to open it.

 

[RonC72]

I made the mistake to use fine steel wool on the body before oiling...
Because of the open grain small parts of steel wool remained in the wood... with a sharp knife i had to scrape it all out by hand (thousands of them) ( i also tried a magnet but it was all stuck in to deep)..
Took me several hours to get it all out, sand it again en then oil it!

 

[RonC72]

The connectors of the tone capsule pots touched the lid so it didn't close well... So i desoldered the connectors and soldered the cable directly in the PCB of the pots.
I also had to mill an extra millimeter deep at the volume pot position, the push/pull switch on it was also just to high to close the lid.. now it closes nicely!

 

[sonojono]

Wow! That looks fun to play!

 

[I-Am-The-Slime]

 

[WaldoNova]

Nothing lazy about building a bass from scratch. That bass is gorgeous.