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prototyping new singlecut design

Tell me - do you...

  • Like it... :)

    Votes: 73 59.3%

  • Love it! :hyper:

    Votes: 21 17.1%

  • Hate it! :rollno:

    Votes: 18 14.6%

  • Need one! :bassist:

    Votes: 11 8.9%
  • Total voters
    123
SDB Guitars

SDB Guitars

Commercial User
Jul 2, 2007
2,002
21
Coeur d'Alene, ID
Disclosures
Shawn Ball - Owner, SDB Guitars
#1
I was wondering if you guys could give me your opinions on a new direction I'm thinking about...

I have been interested in making a foray into the "singlecut" body style for a while now, but for the longest time I just wasn't feelin' it... I see all these other guys with their 4 or 5 different body styles, and it's humbling, and a bit daunting. I've only had the one style for around 4 years now, since I solidified my design with a couple of players I know.

So, I am trying to combine my "go with what you know" ideology with the "boldly going where no, er well, where *I* haven't gone before" mentality.

Here is my take on a singlecut idea (plywood template), as compared with the body style I've been making for years now:

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I started by tracing onto the plywood from my original body template, so the rough dimensions are similar, or at least they started out so... then I tweaked a curve here and there... I made the lower horn cutaway deeper, as my standard cutaway is designed for a 37" - 34" multi-scale fretboard, and I then shortened the horn accordingly. But it seemed out of balance, somehow... so instead of my normal "straight" lower horn, I added a bit of a curve to it. I was holding the template, trying to think of what to do, and I saw my thumb sticking out there. A few sketched comparisons later, and what I came up with is what you see above.

So, a piece of plywood does not a prototype make, right? I needed some wood. Into the bin I delved, and out popped a neck that I had cut for another project, but had never glued, some Spanish cedar, and a bloodwood fingerboard blank:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed].

Now, this one is going to be for me, not for sale, as I kinda like having the only one (at least the only one so far), and I wanted something different than any other bass I've got, so I decided to go with 32" scale, glued in neck. I see some of these guys who make bolted-on singlecut designs, but all my other personal basses so far are bolt-on, so I decided to go with glued in, with a tenon that passes under the top until right before the pickup cavity (as poorly sketched out on the plywood above). I also wanted to keep it simple, so it's 4 strings, Jazz bass pickups... haven't decided if I want to try a preamp in it yet or not.
 
#3
Thanks! It's basically my standard body design, only "connected" at the neck, with the "hips" offset a bit more, and a little more "butt"... so, altogether, womanly without being feminine, I think ;)

Also, to me it feels "slinky"...

Here's the wood I got for the top... I have been told it's "mumbanga" or "mubanga"... asked Larry at Gallery Hardwoods about it, and he said he'd never heard of it, but a little research (and trying alternate spellings) indicated that it is an African wood that resembles one of the variety of teak. This is spalted, so it is not as hard as it could be, but it is *much* harder than spalted maple. heavier, too.

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Re-sawn, I will have enough for a bookmatched top, headstock plate, and pickup covers, should I go that route... got this billet from Josh Helm over in the Portland area. He gave me a neck blank with some of the (non-spalted) mubanga as laminates... not sure what I'm going to do with that one yet, if I end up using it.
 
#8
Luke Sheridan said:
I like the upper bout. It keeps with the signature look of your other style. Comparing this to a woman, well it looks bit like a pregnant belly, with the butt sort of missing.
Click to expand...

I didn't say you were looking at this woman head-on... think of it like she's dancing, hips rotating, shoulders moving... skirt flaring out ;)

gabethedestroyr said:
I like it a lot for a singlecut... but i couldn't bring myself to say love it because I'm not a fan of singlecuts in general.
Click to expand...

I used to be the same way... every single cut I saw, I just said "Gibson did it years ago..." but I'm starting to see the appeal.

treebranch13 said:
I see what you mean about the shape being feminine. I like it, and i like the curves.
If you wanted you could do a very sexual paintjob...:cool:
Click to expand...

I could do that, but I think that the wood is so sexy in and of itself, that why would I ruin it by covering it up?

wilser said:
...but I would LOVE it if you made the waist a little wider :D
Click to expand...

Was that serious, or in relation to the woman statement? ;) It's crossed my mind to make it a little "thicker", but it just *feels* right to my hands.

Hang on, all, as I've got more pics coming... :hiding:
 
#9
Good! Please continue with constructive criticism... I've got the prototype about half finished so far, and will present more pictures, but as I'm new to the idea of making a singlecut, I need to know what you would add, what you could do without, and what you think is just right!

As I'm looking at it, since I'm making it short-scale (32"), I'm thinking I may have wanted to shorten the upper horn area, which would thicken up the waist a little bit... I was originally inspired to go with a kind of wasp-waist by the Ritter basses I used to drool over years ago. As I age, the Fender proportions are becomming more pleasing (again... I started playing on P-bass, then went to J-bass before going to - *shhhhhh*... gu!t4r :eek: for several years).
 
#10
Okay... so, here I have resawn the woods and assembled the body. I love working with Spanish cedar... it's lightly aromatic, soft and pleasant to the touch, and it doesn't irritate my lungs or sinuses like some other woods.

Bandsawn out, and rough-rounded over, cover plate cut frmo matching scrap:

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And here's one of the cover plate off... it's snug enough right now that it stays in on it's own... it will get sanded a bit, and attached with rare earth magnets at some point. I'm thinking of shielding with thin stainless material, which the magnet should hold. I just hope that the magnets don't pull the sheet metal off the plate. Any suggestions for that?

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And now, the long awaited picture of the front, with that spalted mubanga (???) top...

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I decided that Spanish cedar wasn't light enough, and I wanted to make this bass hollow. There is a solid core about 1/2" wider than the neck (on either side) and the rest is hollow. You can kinda see that in the pickup routes. I also decided that it needed an F hole, and after agonizing over a design, it hit me square in the teeth - the bass clef is also called the "F clef", and is shaped like a stylized calligraphic F. So, that's what I used... only later on did I realize that it also kinda looks like the Fender script. I didn't use a font, but rather "free hand" designed that logo in a program called Inkscape, an open source (read: FREE!) vector graphics program.

I bought a bloodwood lamination set from Larry at Gallery Hardwoods, and used it as an accent line between the top and the back, although you can't see much of it from this angle. I also used scraps of that for the "transition block" under the neck, to bring it to the correct height. Wilser, will that enhance anything? Hmm? Does it push the low frequencies to the front? Does it evidence sparkling highs with unmatched clarity? What does it do, Wilser? ;)
 
#14
Gone said:
Wow...looks cool.
Love the f-hole :)
Click to expand...

Thanks! I drew it up in Inkscape, printed it out, lightly glued it to the top, then used my Dremel with the router base to route it out... well, for the curves. The "dots" were just drilled. ;)

Jonsbasses said:
Honestly, my first impression was that the waist should be a little wider. But I'm not so sure now, the design is really growing on me. Great work!
Click to expand...

Growing on you? LIKE A FUNGUS? Damned spalted wood... :D

Seriously, though, my wife said the same thing... at first she said it was just too skinny, but now she said that she doesn't know if she would make any changes. As a woman, she is much better an instantly assessing the visual aesthetic than I am...

I may have to build another prototype here in a while with a "shorter" upper horn and a slightly thicker waist, just to see... I mean, it's all in the name of science, right? And you can't have too many basses. :D
 
#15
More pictures later on today...I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with the neck. Maybe a layer of BWB under the fingerboard to set it off from the neck? Maybe wenge and birch veneer instead of fiber BWB?

Do you think that would clash with the maple/bloodwood theme?
 
#17
...next picture coming up!

This is with the neck dry-fit into the body. There is a "tongue" that slides under the top body laminations, which allows the neck to extend approximately 1.25" further into the body. That should allow for *plenty* of gluing surface. The neck is pretty snug, and the body can be lifted by the neck with it dry-fit.

Without further ado, the picture:

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I haven't got the fingerboard trimmed yet. I will do that sometime this week, I hope. I'm planning on building a thumb rest into the fingerboard, basically an extension of the fingerboard... I saw something similar on a Rob Allen Mouse 30 once, but this would be wider... as opposed to following the "plane" of the line set out by the edge of the neck, it will protrude back toward the player, about the distance that, say, a soapbar pickup would, allowing you to rest your thumb about .75" or so further from the strings than if you were resting them on the edge of the neck. We'll have to see if I like it (or if you guys do? I don't know if it would actually be useful...). If not, I can always cut it off later.

Any thoughts of placing laminations under the fingerboard to look like "lined purfling" at the edges? No one said what they thought about that idea...
 
#18
So far, the poll seems to say that *most* people like it, a couple of people love it, and about 15% so far hate it. But those who don't care for it haven't added much to the conversation that might help tweak the design at all... that's too bad, as I sure would like to know what they hate.

Please, by all means, post away! :)
 
#20
Thanks, Allen! it *should* balance exactly like my standard body style (which balances well even with a 37" scale 6-string neck attached) , as the strap location/placement dimensions are identical.

This one is lighter of body, because of the cedar, and the fact that it's hollow, which might contribute to neck dive with a standard or long scale neck, but in this case I'm positive that the shorter scale will offset that.
 

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