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New guy with some questions for the pros!

S

Splynter

Apr 1, 2011
18
0
#1
Hi there!

New guy here. Love this site! Great stuff!
Just have a few questions from a soon to be builder. I've built before....many, many years ago and ummmm....guitar ( sorry : ) Anyways, I'm a 4 string hacker and my wife also plays ( and she is WAY better than I can ever hope to be ) and what I want to do is build her a new bass for our anniversary. What I am planning is a 5-er, neck thru fretless. I'm familiar with the wood working elements but have a problem with some of the technical. For example....35 inch scale? How exactly would that scale apply to the application of a Badass bridge? My wife plays a vintage BC Rich Eagle with the B. bridge and swears by it. Now my basses ( Washburn ) both measure 35" at the "ball" to the nut. Is that the standard way? Not the saddles? I'm not allowed to touch her bass to measure what I need LOL Heck she is a pro and married or not....a hacker is a hacker. I have quite a few of the materials I need to get the project started but also need suggestions / recommendations on trus rod (s). One or two for a 5-er with a Rich profile? Can someone supply me with the actual dimensions for the 5 string B. bridge? String spacing, total footprint width etc and placement info so I can add it to my design drawings?

Thanks everyone! Once I get rolling on this, I'll start posting. Going to be a completely one off, so it should be a blast. And maybe, just maybe.....she'll stay married to me once it's done LOL

John
 
#2
Somebody? Anybody? I just need the dimensions (string spacing mostly ) for a 5 string Bassass Bridge ( have one on order ), placement in inches from the nut for a 35" scale and the truss rod question.....1 or 2 is best? Parallel if 2 ? Or can / should they be "fanned" a bit to follow neck taper?

Someone help me!!! I need to finish my drawings : )
 
#3
The scale is measured from the nut to the witness point. The witness point is the position on the saddle over which the string sits. Your highest string should be closest to the planned scale length, with the lower strings generall taking a slightly longer scale. So, you can usually safely position the bridge so that the highest string saddle is at 35" in its fully extended position. As for me, I don't really trust my measurements and planning that much, so I am building mine with about 1/8" of adjustment room forward of where I think it should be.

This thing might help: Fret position calculator at Stewart-MacDonald

At the bottom, it tells you how far from the nut to drill mounting holes for the bridge based on whatever scale you use.

Since the BA was designed as a replacement for Fender bridges, I *think* you can use Fender standard bridge measurement (which on a 35" scale is 36.029"). I could be wrong, but I think that is the case.

One truss rod will do for a 5-string, but you may consider installing some carbon fiber rods as well.

The Badass V bridge is 4" wide and 2.75" front-to-back. String spacing is 3" from B to G...

...At least according to this: Bass V Bridge Details

I should also mention that I am completely new to this, to take what I have to say for what it's worth. Everything I know, I have learned from this forum and from trial and error in my own practice experiments.
 
#5
I'm new to all this myself, but +1 to the additions of carbon fiber rods to the neck that HaMMerHed suggested. Frets contribute to keeping a neck straight under string tension, so if there are no frets, having a couple of CF rods will add some needed stiffness. I'm in the midst of a 35" scale 5-string fretless myself, and I put two CF rods in the neck -- one on either side of the truss rod. I went with the Stew Mac stuff -- you can get rods and a special router bit from them. They also have some suggestions about truss/CF rod configuration on their site. Warmoth uses steel rods for their fretless necks, which you can buy from them for cheap, but that obviously adds a lot more weight to the neck than carbon fiber.

One thing to note: as I understand it, regular wood glue will not stick to carbon fiber, so I used epoxy to secure the rods in their slots. But before that, I epoxied a thin strip of wood to the top of each rod. I routed the rod slots so the wood strips sat just barely proud of the neck surface, and then once the rods were epoxied in place, I used a scraper to level everything and open up the pores to glue the fingerboard. An alternative that I might try next time would be to just use epoxy to attach the fingerboard to the neck -- I would have done that but this was the first time I'd used epoxy for anything and I decided to go with more familiar wood glue for the fingerboard/neck join.
 
#7
silentk said:
I'm new to all this myself, but +1 to the additions of carbon fiber rods to the neck that HaMMerHed suggested. Frets contribute to keeping a neck straight under string tension, so if there are no frets, having a couple of CF rods will add some needed stiffness.
Click to expand...


A fretted bass actually has less stiffness than an unlined fretless, not more. The frets allow the fingerboard to fold ever so slightly in the direction of the string tension. I have built several fretless basses that needed little or no adjustment from the truss rod but all my fretted basses have needed a bit of tension to induce backbow against the strings. A solid board of ebony or other suitable species has a lot of strength from end to end and wont bow easily. Think of the frets slots as compression points where the somewhat softer wood can be slightly compressed by the harder fretwire. The compression is extremely small but added up over all the frets in the neck can be quite noticeable. I prefer CF rods in all of my basses but I consider them more needed in fretted basses than fretless. A lined board, depending on the line material, is essentially no different than a fretted bass and is prone to the same pull as a fretted bass, except in this case the line material is usually softer than the fingerboard, allowing it to compress the line material. When I was younger, a neighbor once took the frets out of a cheap bass and never filled the fretlines. It took about 4 months for that neck to bow forward so badly that it couldnt be adjusted back to shape.
 

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