My first-ever build thread.

[William Shafer]

Hello Luthier's Corner,

I'm finishing my first Bass right now. I'll be starting Bass number two in a month or so. I've made many instrument over the last five years, but never really documented any of them. I've seen some great build logs here and on other sites and have learned a lot from them.

Before I start this thread off I would appreciate the more seasoned posters advice. Maybe a top ten or the likes of what you'd like to see. What pictures should I take? How much detail should I include about my design, thought process, etc.? I'd like to think that I'm doing this to help the new people or inspire the seasoned experts. I want to share my build with people who might actually care, not the people in my life who couldn't care less.

Any and all constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'd love this to be a semi-social interactive experience.

Thanks,
Will

p.s. I'll dig up my plans for Bass #2 and take pictures of the wood I have very soon.

 

[charlie monroe]

We love pics. You can't post too many.

As for depth in detail, as much as you feel comfortable documenting.

I think you'll find that many of the members here that don't build will also check your posts out.

Welcome to TalkBass!

 

[Will_White]

+1 to what Charlie said
As for specific pictures I'd say the minimum you would need:
- The pile of wood
- Body design
- Clamp pictures of any glue up
- Rough cut body
- Contoured body
- Rough cut neck and headstock
- Carved neck and headstock
- Mid-finishing
- Fully assembled glamour shots
But feel free to take more, take less, show us a pile of wood in one post and a fully assembled and finished bass in the next we're not picky.

And for level of detail just share as much as you feel like. What your inspiration for the build is, what your design process is like, why you do things a certain way, things like that.

 

[Scoops]

Hello Luthier's Corner,
Before I start this thread off I would appreciate the more seasoned posters advice. Maybe a top ten or the likes of what you'd like to see. What pictures should I take? How much detail should I include about my design, thought process, etc.? I'd like to think that I'm doing this to help the new people or inspire the seasoned experts. I want to share my build with people who might actually care, not the people in my life who couldn't care less.
Any and all constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'd love this to be a semi-social interactive experience.

First off, Welcome to the LC

Secondly, the best bit of advice I can give you is be yourself.

Every contributor here has a little something different to offer, and they do it in their own way. Some people have a single thread(blog), others split each individual build, some do both. Some people post alot of text. Some people post alot of pics. It's your choice.

Cheers

 

[William Shafer]

Thanks!

Okay I'll start with inspiration... I regularly browse Google and Pinterest when I'm bored for unique looking bass's. I've seen this body a bunch of times:

And this Bass sparked an Idea:

I decided I wanted to do the whole body multi-laminate style. I also was looking around at Steinberger headless bass's. So on a whim I bought a Chinese knock off bridge and head-piece set.

I then usually do a lot of thought experiments and inventory of the available wood I have and would want to use. Right now I decided on layers of 1" padauk alternating with 1/2" sapele. I will be doing it neck-through and decided that I would use some strangely figured Brazilian tigerwood I have as a drop top. The fret board I bought a little while ago is ziricote and I'll be using stainless-steel fret.

More to come tonight I hope.

 

[William Shafer]

Just a quick update... I've been able to work on this bass in the past few days. I've cut the strips of wood and am now gluing them together. I still need a jointer, but once that is taken care it should move along much faster. I'll do my best to snap some photo's in the next few days.

Still decided to do it as a headless with a multi-laminate body. Changed it up a bit, center stripe is sapele then two strips of paduak, then sapele to start the wings followed by paduak then leopard wood more paduak and leopard wood.

 

[William Shafer]

Busy, busy, busy. Just got a small joiner (4 1/8", just big enough for what I do), and I might get to use it this weekend. *crosses fingers*. If I actually get time to do this I just might take some pictures too.

 

[William Shafer]

This is my full scale paper mock up. Looking at a 35" scale length. Played with body width and am now comfortable with it being 6" at the narrowest part. I'm going to do dual Musicman style pickups, one about 3/4" to 1" from the bridge and the other just below the truss rod access. I'm open to opinions though never worked with dual setup before. Also, I'm thinking I want two push/pull pots, one for each pickup volume/tone and a 3-way switch (neck, both, bridge) Is that a good combo and how would I go about wiring that?

 

[William Shafer]

I've glued up the core and now I'm working on gluing up the wings.

 

[William Shafer]

 

[William Shafer]

Okay. Like I do, I changed my mind on what the top material will be. I decided that I wanted maple burl for the top and want the stripes to show through on the edge. I chose a piece of Cloud Maple Burl from eBay. What do you think?

 

[GKon]

Sub'd!

 

[William Shafer]

I found the picture I saw the other day. Since I'm doing a single cut style body I'm planning on doing a carve similar to this:

I sooo wish I had more time in the shop. I'm getting exited now.

 

[William Shafer]

So, the top I just bough says it's 0.19" thick. I'm too lazy to do a 1/5 of an inch ledge on the body and also decided I would like a additional accent along the neck. Since the body has some lacewood in it I picked up lacewood veneer from Rockler yesterday... off the laminate neck it will be a sandwich of lacewood veneer and paduak bringing it to approx. the same thickness as the maple burl. No need to inlay, just will laminate the burl to the body and the 1/8 paduak/lacwood sandwich to the neck. Then sand level, and install fretboard.

 

[Frederiek]

More pics & info = more better I love these well-documented building threads as I find them incredibly inspirational. I logged my first build to return the favour on all I've learned from other people generously sharing their information and skills.

 

[William Shafer]

So, I love when a bass gets to this stage, really starts to look like a guitar! I'll have plenty of sanding to to with the drum sander and 1" belt sander on the sides but I'm good with that. The new joiner made getting the top nearly level SO easy, all I'll need to do is use the cabinet scraper on the glue. Can't find my 1" forsner bit to save my life so I'll pick up the 3/4" I've needed and just use it for hogging out the cavities.
I also worked on the paduak and lacewood lamination for the neck, keeping in mind how hard it can be to get even pressure over a large area I might route cavities before I laminate the lace wood to the top. It'll be a while till the burl top shows up. All in all this second builf is going so much faster with power tools!.

 

[William Shafer]

So, quick update. I recently had to move and my tools/parts got separated. The majority of my parts are at my friends garage (where I work) but for the life of me I couldn't find my nice 3/4" or 1 1/4" forsner bits. I went to Harbor Freight and got myself the cheap $10 set, since I'm using it for cavities I'll later route clean I figure even if they only last 1 bass it's not too much to pay. Tracked the maple burl top and it's in the country, it'll be a week or less now! I've been reading about router sleds and think that's the way I'll be going to get it the back taken care of.