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skeletonized body

S

swarfrat

Sep 23, 2014
2,569
2,892
#1
Kicking around ideas for my next build. It'll be a tight spaced 5-string P-bass, strung with tapes. When I hollowed out my son's bass body, the idea to do a skeletonized body occured to me.

I'm also thinking about making my first neck, using a slotted 35" massacar ebony fingerboard from LMII. But I may chicken out and just throw an SX 5-string neck on. Here's what I'm sketching for the body. The p-pickup is supported, but it's trimmed flush in this sketch. The rails from neck pocket to bridge are a bit on the thin side for doing anything inside like I've shown here. I could easily increase the size of the member connecting the rails to the body, and mount conventional controls there, but I'm kinda liking controls mounted on an internal edge like I have shown here:

This one will probably be built from 8/4 poplar. I'd love to do walnut, I'm just not sure about wasting that much walnut (if I were to route it all out from a full size body), or how it'd look if I were to glue up segments to avoid turning all that walnut into dust.

Suggestions, comments?
jpskel.png
 
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#2
swarfrat said:
Kicking around ideas for my next build. It'll be a tight spaced 5-string P-bass, strung with tapes. When I hollowed out my son's bass body, the idea to do a skeletonized body occured to me.

I'm also thinking about making my first neck, using a slotted 35" massacar ebony fingerboard from LMII. But I may chicken out and just throw an SX 5-string neck on. Here's what I'm sketching for the body. The p-pickup is supported, but it's trimmed flush in this sketch. The rails from neck pocket to bridge are a bit on the thin side for doing anything inside like I've shown here. I could easily increase the size of the member connecting the rails to the body, and mount conventional controls there, but I'm kinda liking controls mounted on an internal edge like I have shown here:

This one will probably be built from 8/4 poplar. I'd love to do walnut, I'm just not sure about wasting that much walnut (if I were to route it all out from a full size body), or how it'd look if I were to glue up segments to avoid turning all that walnut into dust.

Suggestions, comments? View attachment 850609
Click to expand...
I would keep the section between the neck and bridge fairly solid, but other then that you can get rid of everything else, I also think that you might have issues with the pot mounting where it's at.
 
#3
The center route (aka the space between the 'rails') is a major design point I wanted to try here. Actually, I first had this idea about doing a J-bass shaped guitar, with exposed tremolo springs. But decided I needed a narrow 5 more than I need another trem equipped guitar. (I'm primarily a guitar player, and have those bases covered pretty well.) But in many guitars, this space is already structurally compromised with trem cavities and pickup routes in the remaining space. Actually, I strongly suspect if you were to do some finite element analysis, you'd find that virtually ALL of string tension/torque is taken up by the back 1/2" of the body.

I'm pretty certain that virtually all of the compression and torque can more than adequately be handled by rails that are rather shocking in dimension. Perhaps it argues for a relatively stiff body wood -so that the wood flex in the direction that I AM reducing strength (laterally) is minimized and it behaves more ideally. The only lateral stresses to speak of is the weight of the body hanging on the straps. String vibration is basically nill structurally speaking. The body thickess is the primary driver in the one direction the body is stressed, and practically speaking - 200lbs is basically clamping pressure (or more) during glue up.

I can beef them up, maybe 1" each, but I want to try to keep the rails. Hard maple is substantially cheaper than Walnut, and it'd be a good fit tonally.

This is a guitar, but rather than two rails, he has one even smaller (about the only way an explorer makes sense btw, lighten the body and flip the horn so that you have an actual strap button lever and not just wate it.)
ot-sale-Drl-baywood-electric-guitar-cutout-shaped-electric-guitar-skull-limited-edition-electric.jpg
 
#5
That URB is interesting, since one of the other ideas that's popped up lately (thanks JIO) is an upright EBG rather than an URB (fretted 5 string p-bass strung with either flats or tapes, high mass bridge(s), but played in an upright fashion, and possibly between 35 and 42" in scale.

Strings choice in 42 is limited, but I think the upright position allows you to play a longer scale than would be comfortable otherwise. I didn't start out intending to make it bowable, but after seeing a fretted NS Omni being bowed ... I'm intrigued. The radius required for bowing serious complicates fretting and pickup options though.
 
#7
swarfrat said:
Kicking around ideas for my next build. It'll be a tight spaced 5-string P-bass, strung with tapes. When I hollowed out my son's bass body, the idea to do a skeletonized body occured to me.

I'm also thinking about making my first neck, using a slotted 35" massacar ebony fingerboard from LMII. But I may chicken out and just throw an SX 5-string neck on. Here's what I'm sketching for the body. The p-pickup is supported, but it's trimmed flush in this sketch. The rails from neck pocket to bridge are a bit on the thin side for doing anything inside like I've shown here. I could easily increase the size of the member connecting the rails to the body, and mount conventional controls there, but I'm kinda liking controls mounted on an internal edge like I have shown here:

This one will probably be built from 8/4 poplar. I'd love to do walnut, I'm just not sure about wasting that much walnut (if I were to route it all out from a full size body), or how it'd look if I were to glue up segments to avoid turning all that walnut into dust.

Suggestions, comments? View attachment 850609
Click to expand...

I think you might want to play it safe and add some more mass under the string area...that body isn't going to have a truss rod to keep it from flexing!
 
#8
Firstly, you are not going to need a 35" scale neck. If it's some thing you want to try, then fine but it's really not going to help your low B much. Secondly, I would avoid removing quite so much from around the pickup area...let that part be mostly solid. Have you considered a neck through design? Lastly....with P pickups and Low B, I would seriously consider a J / MM or hummer at the bridge. P's a notorious for woolly low B's due to the pickup placement...so dialing even a little rear pickup can really improve the clarity of the low B.
Thirdly, that design is looking good and I'm looking forwards to seeing how your bass progresses.
 
#11
An 1.5" body, especially in maple, should be significantly stronger than an 0.850" thick neck. (I play 1.0" Warmoth fatbacks on guitar. I ain't skeert of a beefy neck.)

I'm not sure about the J (not really a fan, and it kinda obscures the design in this case) - but I could see adding a piezo blend. I am curious about the longer scales / thinner strings in general, and not just chasing the B. (In fact, with a 34" I often tune to C or C#, cause that's where my (baritone) guitar is tuned - works better with my voice, not really shooting for doom mush metal or anything like that.)
 
#12
I think I've pretty much ruled out poplar. Going with a skeletonized body weight shouldn't matter, so I'm actually thinking about rock maple now. For tonal / finish / structural reasons. Poplar was an idea for a POC - I'd love to make it out of walnut, but I'd like to try it out before carving up a bunch of walnut at $9.30 / BF for 8/4 rough lumber.

I can always beef up the outer rim, will take that into account. Piezo would sort of require space for a preamp / battery. I used an acoustic endpin jack on my kid's u-bass (that was kind of a pain, since it wasn't totally hollow inside, and I had to make a place to put it that worked with the design.)
 
#14
Hate to disappoint, but this is way early brain fart sketches stage.

If I ditched the P pickup and went piezo only (with some decidedly non ABG/URB style EQ - they don't have to ALWAYS sound like that, just because that's what everybody uses them for) - I could do some sorta triangular truss type thing in the center web. Mostly for visual effect. Wish I had good way to tell inkscape "limit this curve to 3/16" radius minimum" to get a better idea what the router can get into and what it can't.

Also thinking some more about ditching the J-outline and going to "functional surfaces only". If you're playing with a thumb rest, I guess I can dump the forearm contour. The lower horn is cosmetic only.
 
#17
The kiddo's ubass was already neck heavy beforet the body. we ended up hollowing a body barely big enough to hold the hardware, but the horn goes all the way to the 6th fret.
ubass-strung-up_zps3zj0vpfs.jpg

ubass-back-RFH_zpsid0jqk96.jpg


(And yeah, that back is poplar, not walnut)
 
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