Help me spec a Nordstrand!

Sounds great Jeff!!

What about neck wood? A Maple/creamy theme would look cool. I'd go for a splated male or a nice Burl maple top, a maple neck (3 pc) and a bird's eye board.

BTW, Larry from Galleryhardwoods is also able to offer a stabilized spalted maple fingerboard if you want to lean toward Brad's bubaker looks

The OPB3 is a nice preamp if you want mids. I'd go for the E-Pro BTB-01, bets 2 bands preamp IMO.

Peace,
JP

 

All "white" could be kinda cool. You could also ask Carey to introduce some black accent veeners in each glue joint

Go here and you'll find more about stabilized woods! There's even a picture of Brad's spalted maple fretboard.

Stabilized woods is not really the same thing as rockwood or phenowood. This is solid wood, resin impregnated under heat and pressure. Great stuff. Jeff Rader's fingerbaord is stabilized snakewood.

Peace, JP

 

Bitten by the Nordstrand bug I see. Welcome to the club. Sounds like a great idea for a bass to me.

 

Stabilized wood isn't exactly the same as Phenowood, but the idea is the same, and I expect the feel is similar. The idea is to prevent figured woods or woods that tend to respond to humidity changes a lot (like ebony) from moving.

Anyway, the specs you picked out sound great--it reminds me a little bit of a beautiful 10th Anniversary Fodera that was in BP many years ago. I'm not sure I'd go with birdseye pickup covers with all the rest of that light wood, but if the chestnut is one of the pieces with more rust/brown and black streaks to it, that could provide plenty of color.

Congratulations!

Mike

 

Agreed with mike about the pickup covers. Black pickups would do nicely with the black hardware. Not to mention that Carey could have a hard time to mill exposed polepieces pickup covers into bird's eye. Ths figured wood could crack 10 times before he drills the last hole ...Did I hear someone say stabilized bird's eye???

I've build some wooden pickup covers in the past but They sure can look great but I'm not a big fan of them. Strings and fingers have a bad effect on them and they'll proably last less than "plastic" covers. For example, I've seen many old F-Bass with worn off covers. I've now switched to "ebony grain" epoxy casted pickups.

Peace, JP

 

Jeff,

I would definitely use Carey to help you decide. He was extreemly helpful and offered excellent guidance during the build of mine.

Regarding the pickup covers, I really like the ebony covers on my bass, especially with the exposed poles. I think they are only buffed out, certainly not finished with gloss.

JP - would ebony wear less than other wood options? Is it the finish you've seen problems with?

Jeff

 

I'll second that! We all have our ideas, but Carey will end up building the thing, and he has a pretty good idea of what he think will and won't work.

Mike

 

The harder the wood, the longer lasting time.

I think it's more significant with veenered wooden pickup covers ala F Bass. George uses a thin veener, matching the top wood and the basses I saw had that veener worn off leaving dark strikes under the strings.

Carey uses a hard polyurethane finish (right Carey?) and this of course helps to protect the wood in a strong way. However, We don't have enough time experience to tell how the covers will look after 10 or 15 years of use.

Peace, JP

 

word!! Carey is in the fact the best man to talk with if you want to spec a Nordstrand bass

Peace, JP

 

On the pickup covers, I'd guess that they would wear very much the same as fretless board. So, if you think about what woods wear well and look good on fretless boards for the long term, that's probably what would work best on a pickup cover. I don't know if Carey's ever tried stabilized woods for pickup covers, but I suspect they'd work pretty well, too.

Mike

 

Wouldn't have to be white looking at all... there are various shades of Spalted Maple plus Carey could shade the wood with finish. One of my Brubakers is relatively dark, the other fairly light.

Pickup covers is all about personal preference... talk to Carey, go over what "you" like and I'm sure he'll lend his expertise on either how to get there or alternatives. For me black hardware and black pickups pick up the strong black figuring in some spalt very well.

Sounds like a nice bass so far.

 

Both basses look terrific!! Nice score Jeff!

Ari

 

not quite all white, but close:


I'll second JP's E-Pro BTB-01 suggestion.
That thing is a monster!

How's about wooden knobs to go with the p'up covers, etc?

 

Hey Mark, you probably mentioned this somewhere, but who made your bass? It's quite possibly the coolest looking thing I've ever seen.

 

well, that one's not mine; it belongs to a friend in Pensacola. It will be at my Bass Summit next month though. We'll get a good report on it then.

Here's Jon's thread about it:
Marchlewski custom bass thread

 

xush, the Chinese character on your(?) bass means "true", doesn't it? But according to my dictionary, it can also be the sign of a Buddhist sect, so you might have to be careful.