Hi all, new to this forum, been a member over at Sevenstring.org for a few years though, I've done a few guitar builds here and there, but this is my first from-scratch bass build. It started as a fretted build as evident in some of the pics but I already have a couple fretted basses and decided to change it up and pulled the frets.
5 strings, 35" scale
set neck construction
walnut body, 2 piece
wenge neck and headstock, 3 piece
EIR fingerboard with wenge lines
carbon rods and 2 way truss rod
will have Gotoh tuners
Hipshot A style bridge
Seymour Duncan SMB-5A pup
will try to use tape wound strings
preping the walnut slabs for joining
routed and shaved to a good thickness
hand shaped a few bevels
neck pocket
with all that gluing surface area, this neck wont be going anywhere...
couple carbon rods, love it.
I skipped a few shots of the neck assembly, but here is how it came out
so in this pic I actually scavenged some small rod shaped sections of plastic from my old Legos to make the blue side dots in the neck. These Legos were some of my originals from when I was a kid, I still have them tucked away in a box deep down in the bottom of a dungeon somewhere lol. I thought it'd be a good way to make use of some of my favorite old toys, so I was very careful to shave off the rods and spare the flat tile sections so they can still be used as build-able Legos.
neck glued in place, this was when it still had frets
pulled the frets, CA glued in wenge lines
I sculpted the back of the heel over several sessions and a couple days. My first time sculpting a heel like this, it's definitely a difficult shape to master. I have a new found respect for those whale nose single cut basses.
... so, that's where it's at. This project is actually a few months old already, I have done a wee bit more fine shaping to it since the last pic, the shape is about 95% done (not including electronics cavity and pup cavity). I actually just ordered the pickup yesterday so additional progress might be a little slow, hoping to finish this one up in the next month or two.
5 strings, 35" scale
set neck construction
walnut body, 2 piece
wenge neck and headstock, 3 piece
EIR fingerboard with wenge lines
carbon rods and 2 way truss rod
will have Gotoh tuners
Hipshot A style bridge
Seymour Duncan SMB-5A pup
will try to use tape wound strings
preping the walnut slabs for joining
routed and shaved to a good thickness
hand shaped a few bevels
neck pocket
with all that gluing surface area, this neck wont be going anywhere...
couple carbon rods, love it.
I skipped a few shots of the neck assembly, but here is how it came out
so in this pic I actually scavenged some small rod shaped sections of plastic from my old Legos to make the blue side dots in the neck. These Legos were some of my originals from when I was a kid, I still have them tucked away in a box deep down in the bottom of a dungeon somewhere lol. I thought it'd be a good way to make use of some of my favorite old toys, so I was very careful to shave off the rods and spare the flat tile sections so they can still be used as build-able Legos.
neck glued in place, this was when it still had frets
pulled the frets, CA glued in wenge lines
I sculpted the back of the heel over several sessions and a couple days. My first time sculpting a heel like this, it's definitely a difficult shape to master. I have a new found respect for those whale nose single cut basses.
... so, that's where it's at. This project is actually a few months old already, I have done a wee bit more fine shaping to it since the last pic, the shape is about 95% done (not including electronics cavity and pup cavity). I actually just ordered the pickup yesterday so additional progress might be a little slow, hoping to finish this one up in the next month or two.
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Creative build.
