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Hickory as a tone wood - why not?

#41
Hickory scmickory. Why has no one made a bass from persimmon?

Oh wait...someone has.

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#49
I've been wanting to do something with hickory for a long time, but haven't found a nice clear piece with consistent color.

As for persimmon, it's ebony. So it's quite heavy, tough on tools, and tough to work. And tough to find in big, clear pieces. And the color is typically not that pretty. That Drake body is quite a specimen.
 
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#52
Paragon3 said:
The headstock will be a single piece of maple the body is a mixture of epoxy soaked MDF and a hickory/maple alternated laminate I sourced from my work..
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Epoxy soaked MDF sounds, to me, like it'd be a very dense material. My other comment is you have so many experiments going on in your construction that, whether it succeeds or fails, you'll have no idea what to credit the results to. Let's hope it is a success nonetheless.
 
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#58
micguy said:
Epoxy soaked MDF sounds, to me, like it'd be a very dense material. My other comment is you have so many experiments going on in your construction that, whether it succeeds or fails, you'll have no idea what to credit the results to. Let's hope it is a success nonetheless.
Click to expand...


The epoxy soaked mdf ring has enough weight to it that any possibility for neck dive is out. But it's also stupid rigid so my tap tone has sustain like crazy. I'm not really going for any scientific method. However the laminate front I am using is also hickory and maple and it seems to be completely usable. Kind of taking on a bunch here so who knows. Likely have to use a larger radius than many would want but it's essentially going to be an archtop style design. Just making a neck and mounting it right is the main thing.
 
#59
So I've been doing other projects between stages however today I've done some straight cuts to the neck laminates I'll be using for the neck.

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I'm using portions of hickory and maple offcuts for the internal braces as well.

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The laminated "drum head" is a sheet of hickory over maple over spruce. So the inside surface is a pretty spruce piece.. I'll be using minwax wood stabilizer for the rest of the finish work and burnishing the stuff as much as I can in between the strengthening applications and the finishing applications. So far it's been Krazy Glue and Super glue of all types. I'm not 100% on my exact plan as I need to build a neck block and joint and the headstock as well as decide on the setup and radius. Time will tell.
The Yamaha in the picture is for scale but also I just put a 3 element piezo in it and temporarily have the humbucker and mic pickup removed.
 
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