- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,633
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
i love Tele basses but since i switched to playing short scales about 2 years ago (after playing long scale basses for more than 50 years!), i decided to build a short scale one. below are some pics of the build................
i stated out with a lightweight swamp ash body blank that was almost 2" thick, then planed it to 1.75" and cut the perimeter of the body (that was scaled down to 96%) on a band saw.
then i rounded the edges with a 1/8" roundover bit and cut the neck pocket, pickup route,control route, drilled it for the string thru 2 saddle bridge, drilled the pickup and bridge wire tunnels and bored a 7/8" hole for the side jack cup:
i used a 30" scale one piece maple neck from musikraft, reshaped the profile to my preference (kind of on the chunky side), and mounted the bridge, and a seymour duncan stacked tele bass 'Sting' pickup (for no hum) and control plate:
i used chrome schaller clover leaf keys and strung it up to make sure everything fit and worked properly:
then disassembled it, sealed it and shot it with 4 coats of slightly translucent blonde nitro followed with 6 coats of clear nitro:
gave the neck 6 coats of very slightly amber tinted clear nitro and applied my own logo decal, then buried it under more clear nitro:
once it cured, i blocked the body and wet sanded it with 1000 grit. then i made a pickguard for it, assembled it and strung it up. To save a little more weight (almost 4 oz), i used G&L aluminum posts for the schaller keys. the bass ended up weighing in at a comfortable 7lbs 5 oz.:
the funny thing is, it sounds nearly identical to my full scale tele bass and i couldn't be happier with the way that it came out.
i stated out with a lightweight swamp ash body blank that was almost 2" thick, then planed it to 1.75" and cut the perimeter of the body (that was scaled down to 96%) on a band saw.
then i rounded the edges with a 1/8" roundover bit and cut the neck pocket, pickup route,control route, drilled it for the string thru 2 saddle bridge, drilled the pickup and bridge wire tunnels and bored a 7/8" hole for the side jack cup:
i used a 30" scale one piece maple neck from musikraft, reshaped the profile to my preference (kind of on the chunky side), and mounted the bridge, and a seymour duncan stacked tele bass 'Sting' pickup (for no hum) and control plate:
i used chrome schaller clover leaf keys and strung it up to make sure everything fit and worked properly:
then disassembled it, sealed it and shot it with 4 coats of slightly translucent blonde nitro followed with 6 coats of clear nitro:
gave the neck 6 coats of very slightly amber tinted clear nitro and applied my own logo decal, then buried it under more clear nitro:
once it cured, i blocked the body and wet sanded it with 1000 grit. then i made a pickguard for it, assembled it and strung it up. To save a little more weight (almost 4 oz), i used G&L aluminum posts for the schaller keys. the bass ended up weighing in at a comfortable 7lbs 5 oz.:
the funny thing is, it sounds nearly identical to my full scale tele bass and i couldn't be happier with the way that it came out.
