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SBO 23 - The Long Black
- Thread starter Alex Xander
- Start date
Thanks Matt. That doesn’t look nearly as daunting as I first thought.
Body wings glued on - check
Control cavity routed - check
Neck-body transition shaped - check
Control cavity cover routed - failed
I was using acrylic templates and unbeknownst to me, the bearing on one of my router bits had seized, melting the template.
I recut it a smidgen bigger and came up with this veneered edge to make my cover a little bigger.
On the bass, it looks quite fine. Almost like I meant to do it.
And finally, here’s how all the major bits look glued together.
Control cavity routed - check
Neck-body transition shaped - check
Control cavity cover routed - failed
I was using acrylic templates and unbeknownst to me, the bearing on one of my router bits had seized, melting the template.
I recut it a smidgen bigger and came up with this veneered edge to make my cover a little bigger.
On the bass, it looks quite fine. Almost like I meant to do it.
And finally, here’s how all the major bits look glued together.
Gorgeous woodworking! Stunning bass design. Reminds me a bit of the union jack, but in a very positive way.
These builds are just fantastic. I’m really impressed with your work. …and envious of your access to such amazing woods to inspire your creativity! I just binge-read this entire thread.
So, who cares?, you’re all thinking! Well, the reason I bring it up is that about 15 or so years ago, after being known for building basses for decades, Carl finally decided to build a bass for himself. And what did Carl choose to build for himself? A fairly plain 4-string fretless with a 38” scale.
Carl is not a big guy. Not even close. But he has no trouble managing the 38” scale length whatsoever because he uses exactly the tactics you describe; a very long upper horn and a strap button moved closer to the neck.
I’m not sure how busy he is lately, but he used to gig often in a piano trio with guest singers at Arturo’s in Manhattan and a couple of bars in Brooklyn. If a small guy in his 80s can play frequent gigs on a 38” scale fretless, I guess it’s not impossible! Incidentally, he’s a pretty good bass player!
Going back to a much earlier post here, you mentioned Carl Thompson as a design influence. Carl is here in Brooklyn where I live and I’ve known him for close to 30 years, albeit not well. I haven’t seen him in quite a few years but I used to run into him all the time and stop by his shop once in a while. Anyhow…. Carl was never a bass player; he was a swing guitar player who sometimes had to sub on bass. That’s where he developed his dislike for Fender basses and strove to build something better sometime around 1971.
So, who cares?, you’re all thinking! Well, the reason I bring it up is that about 15 or so years ago, after being known for building basses for decades, Carl finally decided to build a bass for himself. And what did Carl choose to build for himself? A fairly plain 4-string fretless with a 38” scale.
Carl is not a big guy. Not even close. But he has no trouble managing the 38” scale length whatsoever because he uses exactly the tactics you describe; a very long upper horn and a strap button moved closer to the neck.
I’m not sure how busy he is lately, but he used to gig often in a piano trio with guest singers at Arturo’s in Manhattan and a couple of bars in Brooklyn. If a small guy in his 80s can play frequent gigs on a 38” scale fretless, I guess it’s not impossible! Incidentally, he’s a pretty good bass player!
Very cool. 
There is a lot going on in this design; I like how the wood insert in the back of the neck and the fretboard on the front break up the busyness of the laminates.
Side note, I'd be tempted to use that headstock to slap my guitarist. The reach and size looks perfect.
There is a lot going on in this design; I like how the wood insert in the back of the neck and the fretboard on the front break up the busyness of the laminates. Side note, I'd be tempted to use that headstock to slap my guitarist. The reach and size looks perfect.
Thank you. I feel unworthy of such praise, but I’ll take it.
Funny you mention the Union Jack. I showed the bass to a non musician friend and his first comment was “you could nearly do a Union Jack like that”.
Thank you for the kind words!
Carl’s basses with longer than usual scales were part of what led me to going down this rabbit hole. With the right design tweaks, they aren’t that much harder to play. I’m not sure if it has always been the case and I’m just noticing now, or if it is a recent adaptation, but my left hand technique on any bass is primarily index finger and pinky when playing in the lower registers.
While I’ve never laid eyes on Carl in the flesh, I can confidently say I’m a much bigger bloke than he is.
Very cool.
Side note, I'd be tempted to use that headstock to slap my guitarist. The reach and size looks perfect.
Thanks Beej. The pickup cover on the front will break things up even more, but the back is going to remain a sea of mad laminates. What was originally planned to be a fairly basic body kinda just morphed over several points in construction into what you see now.
I hadn’t planned on using it as a weapon against over zealous guitarists, but you’ve certainly sowed a seed in my head.
I’m very much on the home stretch now.
The body and neck are finish sanded, pickup is routed and tuner holes drilled. All that is left is to install the bridges (currently waiting on the postman to deliver them), install position markers and do the wiring.
I couldn’t resist swiping a coat of danish oil for a sneak peak at what the finished item might look like. The red in the bloodwood (Australian bloodwood, not the proper red stuff more commonly seen) came out with some finish into a rich maroon colour.
Pending some kind of unforeseen setback, my next post should be that of a finished instrument.
The body and neck are finish sanded, pickup is routed and tuner holes drilled. All that is left is to install the bridges (currently waiting on the postman to deliver them), install position markers and do the wiring.
I couldn’t resist swiping a coat of danish oil for a sneak peak at what the finished item might look like. The red in the bloodwood (Australian bloodwood, not the proper red stuff more commonly seen) came out with some finish into a rich maroon colour.
Pending some kind of unforeseen setback, my next post should be that of a finished instrument.
Well, let's be honest: the Union Jack is a sea of mad laminates. Perhaps not unfitting for such a famously seafaring nation. ("Brittannia rule the waves!")
Seriously OP, a fascinating build. It's been a pleasure reading all this.
@Lo-E Thank you for sharing that story!
I still need to put some position markers on, but I have an otherwise finished and playable bass.
Here’s a sneak peak for those interested before some glamour shots and video in a week or so.
Now time to move onto the fretted bass.
Here’s a sneak peak for those interested before some glamour shots and video in a week or so.
Now time to move onto the fretted bass.
Thank you for the kind words! If I were not a die hard republican in a country still part of the monarchy, I might be tempted to build a Union Jack laminate body.
Building this bass is just the suppressed royalist inside you, asserting himself.
Not content with one unfinished Long Black, I started a third bass today.
In the haul of ebony I got, there was a piece of New Guinea ebony thrown in that was half ebonised, half sapwood. I posted a picture somewhere earlier. Upon cutting it up, I discovered the ebonised pieces were a little rotten, and I was left with a bunch of small pieces not big enough to do anything with.
Enter the rosewood (Australian stuff, I think it’s actually a mahogany), mudbucker powered F#BEA 4 string.
This one will be a bolt on, probably with a solid rosewood neck if I can find out it’s engineering properties (specifically it’s modulus of elasticity or rigidity). If anyone has a lead on where I might find such information (couldn’t find it on the wood database), I would appreciate it.
Back to the build.
It started with this rather large piece of rosewood
man’s a bunch of bits of ebony like this
I’m generally of the view that epoxy and wood is a far from classy look, but it was the only way I could find to use this ebony. These are the bass body wing blanks, which will be joined with a nice piece of rosewood. 5mm of Ebony on 35mm rosewood with a clear epoxy river joining the ebony.
By joining three pieces together, I got this nice piece for a fingerboard. One join is rather visible, but I will position it such that it’s obscured by a fret.
Thanks for looking. Stay tuned for more XL scale, Australian madness.
In the haul of ebony I got, there was a piece of New Guinea ebony thrown in that was half ebonised, half sapwood. I posted a picture somewhere earlier. Upon cutting it up, I discovered the ebonised pieces were a little rotten, and I was left with a bunch of small pieces not big enough to do anything with.
Enter the rosewood (Australian stuff, I think it’s actually a mahogany), mudbucker powered F#BEA 4 string.
This one will be a bolt on, probably with a solid rosewood neck if I can find out it’s engineering properties (specifically it’s modulus of elasticity or rigidity). If anyone has a lead on where I might find such information (couldn’t find it on the wood database), I would appreciate it.
Back to the build.
It started with this rather large piece of rosewood
man’s a bunch of bits of ebony like this
I’m generally of the view that epoxy and wood is a far from classy look, but it was the only way I could find to use this ebony. These are the bass body wing blanks, which will be joined with a nice piece of rosewood. 5mm of Ebony on 35mm rosewood with a clear epoxy river joining the ebony.
By joining three pieces together, I got this nice piece for a fingerboard. One join is rather visible, but I will position it such that it’s obscured by a fret.
Thanks for looking. Stay tuned for more XL scale, Australian madness.
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Australian rosewood, or rose mahogany (dysoxylum fraserianum) is listed here, but I couldn't see the deets on my phone:
Invalid Link Removed
Invalid Link Removed
Formatted the data because that's the sort of thing I find relaxing when I'm mentally drained between chores. You'll have to refer to the paper beej linked to for footnotes and references.
Not sure how to post a table proper so here's a screenshot; if you want the CSV file DM me an email address.
Not sure how to post a table proper so here's a screenshot; if you want the CSV file DM me an email address.
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Looks like you have what you need, but if you can’t get the data for a particular species, you can work out the modulus of elasticity with a relatively simple bending test.
That’s a great find, @Beej ! Unfortunately it looks like the researcher has tested red mahogany (Eucalyptus resinifera) and attributed the scientific name of rose mahogany to it. Looking at the hardness and density (and having both red mahogany and rose mahogany), I am certain of this. I made a tele from red mahogany and it’s definitely heavy, hard and stiff enough for any application.
That paper is a very useful find, nonetheless.
DM inbound, thank you. Do you know if such a table exists for all the woods listed on the wood database website. Now there’s a project for something between chores
I had considered that. I was going to simply support a length of it and hang a known mass from the beam in the centre of the span. Measuring deflection, and calculating the moment of inertia, I can solve for E. I was hoping someone had done a less crude test, as I suspect the wood is borderline stiff enough, and the error in my testing might make me feel just comfortable enough with something that I shouldn’t be doing.
That’s basically what I did for my bamboo neck project, though I used a cantilevered beam in order to get a larger deflection. I was also not too confident about the test, so I also checked a couple of beams of common woods and got results that looked reasonable against the published properties, so it seemed like a reasonable test.
