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Les Paul Bass Build

garmenteros

garmenteros

Bass Enthusiast
Aug 24, 2008
3,007
697
41
Dominican Republic
metalurgia.bandcamp.com
#1
I got GAS again, so I'm going to document the building process of a bass I've had cooking in my brain for a while. A friend of mine is building this for me...
Anyways the specs are going to be as follows...

Body Shape: 5 string single cut Les Paul
Scale Length: 35
Body and Neck Wood: One piece of dominican mahogany for the whole instrument (minus the fretboard), hand carved inspired by seeing some of the ritter basses...
Color: Stained Blue, like a gibson money bass
Fretboard: African Ebony (22 fret)
Nut: Graphtech Black TUSQ nut
Binding: White
Leds: Blue side and freboard dot leds
Pickups: Bartolini Classic Series 5 string mighty mite shape
Electronics: Passive wired two volume two tone courtesy of four alpha 500k pots + two sprague orange 0.47uF caps and a switchcraft jack in a square jack plate
Hardware: All black, hipshot type A 5 string bridge and y lite tuning machines and schaller straplocks and black les paul speed knobs

The electronics and hardware just shipped from basscentral and I already got the wood... The other parts I got online shipped as well... I'll post pics of the bass in progress in the next days/weeks o whenever something gets done...

Anyways here's the big nice piece of mahogany...

IMG00488.jpg

IMG00491.jpg


Can't wait for everything to come in to start the build...
 
#4
Just bought the fretboard, pre slotted 24 frets, african ebony. I wanted dominican ebony but its ilegal to cut down, so it'll be just the body made with local wood...the mahogany... Also bought the electrical components for the pickups... Alpha 500pots and two sprague 0.47uF... switchcraft jack and black square mounting plate for the jack... Shielding paint.... and les paul black knobs

Decided on white binding for the body... need to figure out what logo and inlays for the headstock though and if the headstock is going to be black or stained blue like the rest of the body... i'm more inclined to black but I want to showcase the instrument as a single piece of wood... thinking about doing gibson style triangle inlays with gibson script logo with my last name on it to top it off... Does anyone know where I can get gibson style fonts?

Work on the bass is going to begin next week when the parts come in...

I'll post pictures then...
 
#6
You have a 35" scale length specified, yet your picture shows the bridge in the "guitarish" position, well away from the aft end of the body. As near as I can tell, the body joins the neck at the 20th fret. That's going to result in some serious neck-dive, especially using the Les Paul shape, without a long upper horn.

My advice - Move the bridge back as far as it will go, and move the neck accordingly.
 
#9
garmenteros said:
Will take that into consideration, I did buy the y tuning machines which are very light to avoid neck dive... and the body is going to be quite heavy, so I imagine it'll compensate... but I will try and move the bridge back a bit...
Click to expand...

Another issue worth considering depending on how you wear your bass. In your bass design's present form the neck could extend quite a ways out to your left once hung on a strap. That may not be much of a concern for some people but to me it's a deal breaker and is another reason I've never owned a Thunderbird.
 
#10
Some thoughts on why the Les Paul shape is challenging for a bass build:
1) Neck-dive (as mentioned) - I'd follow ctmullins' advice and shift the system southward as much as possible. Which segues nicely into challenge #2
2) Access to upper frets (if you shift the whole situation as such) will be hampered by the shallow cutaway.

So it seems that you either have to contend with neck dive (no way for me) or limited access to upper frets (not a big deal). While you can still have 24 frets, you'll probably only be able to get a a few beyond 12 easily if you stay 100% true to the Les Paul shape.

I gonna watch this one unfold. I love being wrong! I hope this turns out to be an amazing bass!
 
#11
So after reading a few of the suggestions by my TBers, and taking into consideration my playing style I decided to lose 2 frets and make it a 22 fret bass. I also decided to shift the bridge downward and thus the neck as well to avoid neck dive and keep it to a minimum. I don't mind having limited access to the top frets, I don't use them anyway. I rarely get past the 18th fret... and that's rarely... when I play some chili pepper tunes...

Anyways here's the new outline of the bass...

IMG_1375.jpg

IMG_1374.jpg


Cutting should begin tomorrow or next week at the latest, I'll post pictures by then...

Again thanks for the input...

rgarcia 26:
Dominican mahogany is good, I've used it before... sounds very full and warm... haven't used honduran mahogany, but I imagine it must be very similar to dominican mahogany as weather conditions are similar... I worked in the wood industry a couple of years and had a chance to take some wood anatomy courses... basically all woods that fall into the same species are going to be very similar if they share similar climate and growth conditions. Another factor is if its forest wood or artificially grown wood... The honest thing to do is to state things clear and not over hype them with different names, but people tend to do so...

Examples:
Oak... doesn't sound to appealing... cerejeira (portuguese for oak) sounds sexy... its brazilian oak... roble in spanish
Basswood... meh... jatoba... exotic... same thing...
acacia and koa... same thing...

Guitar companies and all companies for that matter play and hype things up... and generally speaking these woods have minimum irrelevant physical resistance and abrasiveness differences...

There are other occasions when country of origin has a bigger impact on these factors... for example north american pine is far superior and has more resistance than chilean and south american pine... and is preffered over it... a lot of it has to do because of the weather conditions in north america make for better pine... it is more expensive though, at least here...

For the record I got this chunk of mahogany for less than 25$
 
#12
IMO you've made some good alterations. Neck dive is a deal-breaker for me. The extreme upper frets get much less play than do those south of the 15/17 fret mark, so even thought it's not 'perfect', access to the last few upper frets is not critical - if that suits your style, of course.
 
#14
Thanks for your help, that is a really nice piece of Mahogany, I remember buying two pieces (8/4 6"x3' or 4') Honduran Mahogany in Miami like two years ago for $150, on Shell lumber and that was a good deal… Lol
I got a cousing living in Venenzuela and he had builded few guitars/basses and he uses a lot Spanish Cedar.. He called Mahogany on steriods
 
#17
garmenteros said:
Examples:
Oak... doesn't sound to appealing... cerejeira (portuguese for oak) sounds sexy... its brazilian oak... roble in spanish
Basswood... meh... jatoba... exotic... same thing...
acacia and koa... same thing...

Guitar companies and all companies for that matter play and hype things up... and generally speaking these woods have minimum irrelevant physical resistance and abrasiveness differences...


For the record I got this chunk of mahogany for less than 25$
Click to expand...

I'm not really trying to argue with you, but I've got two hunks of Jatoba that look about as close to Basswood as I do.

On a side note, that's the most ridiculous price for such a beautiful hunk of wood I've ever seen. By rights you shouldn't be able to get a nice fretboard for less than twice that.
 
#20
M0ses said:
I'm not really trying to argue with you, but I've got two hunks of Jatoba that look about as close to Basswood as I do.

On a side note, that's the most ridiculous price for such a beautiful hunk of wood I've ever seen. By rights you shouldn't be able to get a nice fretboard for less than twice that.
Click to expand...

Thats what I remember reading (the basswood and jatoba)... I may be wrong... Anyways that is one nice piece of mahogany. I feel I got lucky finding such a huge board. Im going to post pics this weekend as more work has been done and I haven't been able to document it yet...
 

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