The Mediocre Builders Club

[John LaTorre]

Whatever you do, don't ever sell your blue "industrial" first made bass. You should honor that one as it's the one that started it all. It's also an excellent reminder of the road you took to getting to build basses like you do right now and in the future. And it's highly original, in spite of what people may think or say otherwise.

I wish I had kept my first guitar for that very reason. Instead, I donated it to charity, where it was auctioned off for about $100, IIRC. Well, that's probably what it was worth. But each guitar since then has been an effort to improve on the last one or try something different with size or something. It's truly an evolutionary process.

But I still have the first instrument I ever built, a six-string "church dulcimer" made from a Hughes kit (remember those?). It's been rebuilt with a new fretboard and soundboard, but the body is the original one.

 

[MirandM]

Here's a nice video from a guy turning a wallmart strat kit into a barn find strat.... not a bass, but maybe an idea for someone that wants to burn his bass.....

 

[RodRy]

My latest purchase was a baritone guitar. And my main reason for buying it is that I have been wondering what would happen if a 27" scale baritone was designed like a 25.5" scale guitar but with the bridge and neck 1.5" deeper into the body. The neck would have cost me $300 with tuners, but I was able to get the whole thing for only $400. I could not get the pickups, knobs, plate, strings, wiring, pots, bridge, pickguard, 3-way, and wires for only $100, so I think this is a good deal.

Now to start building bodies to see what happens.


Should keep me out of trouble this winter.

 

[John LaTorre]

My latest purchase was a baritone guitar. And my main reason for buying it is that I have been wondering what would happen if a 27" scale baritone was designed like a 25.5" scale guitar but with the bridge and neck 1.5" deeper into the body.

That sounds a little like how I built my first bass from the body of a home-built dreadnaught guitar. The whole story can be found here:

JLT's "Tenor Acoustic Bass" - www.KitGuitarsForum.com

Of particular note is that with the 25.5" scale length, I had to buy a set of 5-strings and discard the high g. Reasoning that a B-string on a 33" scale gave you an E when capoed up to the fith fret and a 25" vibrating length, I used the four lowest strings which gave me the conventional E-A-D-G. (I also had to enlarge the string hole on the tuner of the lowest string and file a deeper slot at the nut.)

 

[bass theory]

Had to do some searching to find their site, but for the curious: Link Removed

Only 6.5 hours drive away! Or I can take the Badger over!

Yep, that's the place. Unfortunately, they don't have any of my stuff yet. When i stumbled across them i was on a business/pleasure trip for another reason and didn't have any instruments with me.

I did promise to get them a couple in time for Christmas, but not necessarily for black Friday. he did say that he never carried any instruments aimed specifically at the high-end collector market. But as Sturgeon Bay has 2 main industries... ship building and TOURISIM... he often sees some of the richest people from Milwaukee and Chicago in his store. I think he might have actually been excited about it. He has some custom stuff, mostly modifications he made like elaborately painted pickguards and a cigar-box 6 string, but never any hand-made custom instruments. His focus is more on repairing and upgrading.

 

[bass theory]

That sounds a little like how I built my first bass from the body of a home-built dreadnaught guitar. The whole story can be found here:

JLT's "Tenor Acoustic Bass" - www.KitGuitarsForum.com

Of particular note is that with the 25.5" scale length, I had to buy a set of 5-strings and discard the high g. Reasoning that a B-string on a 33" scale gave you an E when capoed up to the fith fret and a 25" vibrating length, I used the four lowest strings which gave me the conventional E-A-D-G. (I also had to enlarge the string hole on the tuner of the lowest string and file a deeper slot at the nut.)

What determines the range of a guitar is the strings... full stop. However the frets need to be scaled to match the intended range and length in order to achieve proper intonation. So if you intend to just increase the difference between the bridge and the nut without changing the neck, the only notes you will be able to properly tune is the open notes. You need to either make it fretless or use a neck which is fretted to the scale length you choose. There is a standard equation for properly spacing frets based on overall scale length, but I don't have it memorized so i will need to look it up. Personally, when i build a baritone, I prefer to use a 30" scale length rather than a 27"scale length. You can get by with thinner strings and it is easier to set up.

oops i think i accidently quoted the wrong post..... sorry.

 

[bass theory]

Good to hear. I remember thinking that some of your original seller's rules seem a bit off.

I recently delivered my first venture into the world of 7-string guitars -- the way my customer tunes it, it may as well be a bass: G-C-G-C-f-a-d
It was a bear to set the intonation on that low G (I may recommend that he go up to an 0.080 on that string) but so far no complaints!
View attachment 4846919

Cool! i love the rustic weathered finish. I don't know if i will ever have the skills or confidence to try a seven string.

 

[bass theory]

I have a question to ask of the people i trust. When i was discussing bass designs with Russ, from Door County Music company, he asked about fretless basses. I told him I could build fretless, but i wasn't ready to learn to play one yet. He commented that as a teacher he could assure me that it is easier to play fretless than fretted. Then it occurred to me that on one of my first builds i put detents (shallow holes ~1/4"diameter) in the back of the neck for my thumb to feel so that I could accurately find the proper fret without looking at the fretboard.
This made me think that i could remove the frets from a normal bass and instead of trying to repair it to look like there never were frets, I could instead replace the frets with inlays. The neck would be smooth (aka fretless) but i could accurately hit the fret positions by sight.
I could market it as a fretless trainer.

Is this a stupid idea or worth considering???? I would use a very hard resin as the inlay material...

I got the idea from your suggestions to... when i removed the big screws on the floating top bass and instead of hiding the holes put inlay dots into them to "turn a mistake into a feature".

 

[bass theory]

Good to hear. I remember thinking that some of your original seller's rules seem a bit off.

That is true to an extent. But without setting the bar as high as he did i might not have worked as hard (well i probably would have, but not realized how far I had come and still had to go). And either way he taught me quite a lot in the form of 1 on 1 tutoring. So, i harbor nothing but respect for him. Last bass i showed him. he commented that it was worth at least 100 times what the first one i showed him was. He called it true first-class work. It was then that i knew i had made it. It is one thing to her good reviews from friends who saw pictures of my work, but another thing altogether to her praise prom a pro who was holding and actually playing a bass i had built.

 

[markwrob]

There are many fretless basses (fretli?) with fretlines. My Modulus and Carvin fretli have them as original from the factory. My Squier has them after the luthier pulled its teeth and placed hard plastic markers in the old fret channels. And there are some fretli with no markers, of course.

One day i hope to see some of your axes, when i visit the area again!

 

[Jon Clegg]

Cool! i love the rustic weathered finish. I don't know if i will ever have the skills or confidence to try a seven string.

Thanks! The top is a whiskey barrel lid which had lots of natural grunge on it. The hard thing was maintaining that while making it sufficiently level. I really just built it as a bass, using width and thickness numbers I found online for the neck. My friend loves the neck -- says it feels like playing a 6 string.

 

[bass theory]

Thanks! The top is a whiskey barrel lid which had lots of natural grunge on it. The hard thing was maintaining that while making it sufficiently level. I really just built it as a bass, using width and thickness numbers I found online for the neck. My friend loves the neck -- says it feels like playing a 6 string.

the more i build the more i think i might convert to Ibanez style necks. they may not be the stuff of legends, but there can be no doubt that they are amung the sleekest and easiest necks to play on for long sets.

 

[bass theory]

We hired a new engineer at work who is basically my understudy. He also happens to play a mean lead guitar.
I took some of my basses and reg guitars in to show him and he just sat down and ripped out some awesome lead riffs. He also played my basses much much better than i could dream of. we are consdering just getting band together to Jam. No intention on playing gigs ... just playing for our own enjoyment.

 

[bass theory]

Whatever you do, don't ever sell your blue "industrial" first made bass. You should honor that one as it's the one that started it all. It's also an excellent reminder of the road you took to getting to build basses like you do right now and in the future. And it's highly original, in spite of what people may think or say otherwise.

No problem... I would be embarrassed to even offer it for sale. I might however burry it in a shallow grave and hope nobody ever finds it.

To be honest the one I consider the real start of my journey was the first floating bass i made... the third one overall. it was almost as messy as the first blue one, but it was when i first got the inspiration to try new things that are so far outside the box that most luthiers avoid them. and that has become my trademark.

 

[bass theory]

My latest purchase was a baritone guitar. And my main reason for buying it is that I have been wondering what would happen if a 27" scale baritone was designed like a 25.5" scale guitar but with the bridge and neck 1.5" deeper into the body. The neck would have cost me $300 with tuners, but I was able to get the whole thing for only $400. I could not get the pickups, knobs, plate, strings, wiring, pots, bridge, pickguard, 3-way, and wires for only $100, so I think this is a good deal.

Now to start building bodies to see what happens.
https://www.talkbass.com/attachments/img_6039-jpg.4849225/

Should keep me out of trouble this winter.

I hope you thoroughly enjoy it. To be honest, Building a bass body is the most fun, most time consuming and most rewarding thing i have done in my adult life. (excluding vacations and family events)

 

[MirandM]

the more i build the more i think i might convert to Ibanez style necks. they may not be the stuff of legends, but there can be no doubt that they are amung the sleekest and easiest necks to play on for long sets.

...
To be honest the one I consider the real start of my journey was the first floating bass i made... the third one overall. it was almost as messy as the first blue one, but it was when i first got the inspiration to try new things that are so far outside the box that most luthiers avoid them. and that has become my trademark.

You should really try to build one with a reverse headstock.
Why? Simple, if you ever plan on building a shorter scale bass, the lowest E string is the one that has the shortest length on a normal headstock. This is the oposite on a reverse headstock where it is the longest. And that comes in very handy for shorter scales as it's not always easy to find short scale strings. Since the E is the toughest string to bend using a long scale one tends to break it unless it can be longer like with a reverse headstock.

 

[Jon Clegg]

You should really try to build one with a reverse headstock.
Why? Simple, if you ever plan on building a shorter scale bass, the lowest E string is the one that has the shortest length on a normal headstock. This is the oposite on a reverse headstock where it is the longest. And that comes in very handy for shorter scales as it's not always easy to find short scale strings. Since the E is the toughest string to bend using a long scale one tends to break it unless it can be longer like with a reverse headstock.

Similar to advice I was given on a Medium (32.5") Scale 5 string; I ended up making it a 2+3 in order to move the B and E tuners further from the nut. Ended up working out great.

 

[bass theory]

You should really try to build one with a reverse headstock.
Why? Simple, if you ever plan on building a shorter scale bass, the lowest E string is the one that has the shortest length on a normal headstock. This is the oposite on a reverse headstock where it is the longest. And that comes in very handy for shorter scales as it's not always easy to find short scale strings. Since the E is the toughest string to bend using a long scale one tends to break it unless it can be longer like with a reverse headstock.

Thats an interesting concept.
I will think on that.
another option would be a V shaped headstock possibly with the tuners out the back instead of the side, like acoustic guitars like Les Pauls.
You got me thinking.....

 

[MirandM]

Thats an interesting concept.
I will think on that.
another option would be a V shaped headstock possibly with the tuners out the back instead of the side, like acoustic guitars like Les Pauls.
You got me thinking.....

If this is your idea, than look at the E string, it's the same as with a normal headstock.
The only way I see this possible is if you move the headstock edge inwards and wind the strings over the other side.
However it would a challenge to see how that works out at the nut, given that the winding post would be near the A string, quit a bit inwards. Maybe using with long shaft chinese elephant winders it would be possible...
Tricky.

 

[bass theory]

I this is your idea, than look at the E string, it's the same as with a normal headstock.
The only I see this possible is if you move the headstock edge inwards and wind the strings over the other side.
However it would a challenge to see how that works out at the nut, given that the winding post would be near the D string, quit a bit inwards. Maybe using with long shaft chinese elephant winders it would be possible...
Tricky.

I was just brainstorming. any time someone gives me a good idea that gets me thinking outside the box, i tend to go further and further outside the box until i have several ideas to evaluate.