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Steinbergerish headless carbon fiber bass

MPU

MPU

Sep 21, 2004
3,703
10,692
56
Valkeala Finland
#1
Here's some pics of my latest carbon fiber project. I had the neck made before but I found out that with alder body the sound was not exactly what I was looking for. So carbon fiber "body" was in order.
I made the molds out of plywood and bondo as the shapes were very simple. I also made a mold for the center beam.

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I made a vacuum bag out of liquid latex for the back and it worked great. I didn't remember to take pics of the laminates in the mold but when finished they looked like this.

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I filled the center beam with two-part urethane foam before joining it to the back. The neck heel is empty but is filled later after the epoxy joint has cured.

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I joined the neck to the beam and back with thickened epoxy.

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After gluing the top with thickened epoxy resin I cut the pickup hole and control cavity hole, sanded and painted the bass before clear coating it with 2k acrylic. The clear coat is matted with 2000 Abralon pad.
The pickup is EMG CS with EMG VMC control, 18V . Tuners are ABM single tuners.

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I still have to make a better looking strap hook but other than that I like the bass a lot. VMC is a great tone shaping preamp.
 
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Reactions: anotherhomeysan, Gilmourisgod, Means2nEnd and 3 others
#2
Very cool! Your center beam design is very much like the original Steinberger L/XL basses; they're basically a continuous beam from headpiece to bridge, which drops down in the body area to make clearance for the pickups. The side areas are hollow, like yours.

Steinberger didn't use CF mat though; from what I've seen they're more like a "soufflé" of chopped CF strands all mixed up in some sort of resin matrix, cured in a mold.

Did you put any kind of different material in the beam at the bridge for the screws to thread into?
 
#3
Yes there is a piece of birch plywood epoxied inside the beam at the bridge. Also at strap button and strap hook mount there are pieces of plywood for the screws. I looked pretty carefully at Steinberger pics at Headless USA when planning this build. That's why it looks a lot like Steinberger inside.
 

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