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The "Scrappenberger"

Bassmanmike1

Bassmanmike1

Sittin' In Limbo
Jan 13, 2011
682
261
67
Marysville, CA
www.facebook.com
#1
Hello my TB brothers and sisters. Sharing with you my latest build. This is #5 for me and each one has been a learning experience. I've learned so much and am getting a little better with each one, and I have many of you to thank for that. This forum has a wealth of knowledge that I have availed myself of time and time again. Some of you I have had direct contact with, others I have searched and found answers to problems in the many informative posts here.

Thank you all.

This is a completed build and the original build thread is on my Face Book page here.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...073741833.119889761468442&type=1&notif_t=like
I am sharing here for the non Face Book TB'ers, and now on with the build.

Back in the 80's I used to have a Hohner Steinberger bass copy and really enjoyed the lightness and easy portability of it. I wanted one again so I decided to build my own. All of the wood used in this build is cutoffs and scraps from my first four builds, and the hardware is almost all stuff I had on hand so I decided to call it the Scrappenberger.

Caution! Contains graphic representations of Wishbass decapitation and dismemberment!


This is Wishbass #135
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Some of you may recognize this as the 12 string Wishbass my friend Odell brought to me to have the neck shaved. The neck was very thick and the body was just very unwieldy. It was pretty much unplayable. We ended up stripping all the hardware and using it to build him a new bass. The build thread for that bass is here. http://www.talkbass.com/threads/klingon-12.1075023/
http://www.talkbass.com/threads/klingon-12.1075023/
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Part of the deal for building Odell's new 12er was I got to keep the Wishbass carcass. Here it is all stripped and ready to begin it's conversion into something usable.
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The headstock was a real mess so it had to go.
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All I really wanted was the neck itself, so the body wings had to go too. I cut off each side and then the head.
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And here is the head. I forgot to take pics while I was cutting it off.
The hole you see in it is where I made some plugs for the holes on the body where the old tuners were.
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And that is the end of Wishbass #135
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This was the first step in transforming this little piece of Wishbass history into something completely different. Stay tuned, will post a little more later.
 
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#2
Here is the next set of pics in the conversion of Wishbass #135

The first thing I did was take some cutoffs from my six string and Aerodyne clone builds and glue them to the sides of the neck. The pieces I used were cutoffs from the necks from both builds.
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Then I plugged all the holes for the tuners and pickups and glued a 1/16" thick layer of purple heart to the front. That will a show as a stripe on the sides of the bass once the top is on.
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Next I glued up the top. The top is all scrap pieces too. The sides are maple I had left over from the Aero, the two dark stripes are ebony from the first fretboard I ruined while learning to do the inlays for Odell's 12 string build, and the center stripe is the original fretboard of the Wishbass turned upside down so you can't see the fretslots. Then I glued it to the body
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Behold the "Scrappenberger". SCRAP wood, frankENsteined parts, steinBERGER shape.
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I cut an angle at the bottom and layed out where the tuners would go. Here you see the four tuners I reused from the Wishbass, plus a gold tuner I had on hand just to do the layout. I replaced it with a new chrome one later. I put black barrel knobs on the tuners to simulate the tuner knobs on a Steinberger.
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I cut a reverse angle from the body on the top of the neck. I filled the two slots from the old double trussrod system the Wishbass had with some maple strips and got set up to cut the slot for the single trussrod .
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Test fitting the trussrod. The two holes either side of it are where the two old rods were.
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The next set of pics will be making and gluing on the fretboard.
More to come.
 
#3
Next I had to make a fretboard.
The one I used was from my Violin bass build. I had cut it too narrow so it was unusable for that.
I added two scrap strips of maple to the sides to make it wide enough for this bass and I rounded the bottom and added a piece of maple there too so the ebony is completely bound in maple. Then I glued it on.
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Next came the position markers. I still had some of the original Wishbass fretboard, and that is what I used to make these.
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I made a little three sided jig for my trim router and put a 1/4" clean out bit in it. Then I laid out my center lines, clamped the jig on, and cut the slots for each one. Then I glued them all in and finished off the fretboard with a 16" radius.
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The next thing I address is the headpiece that will hold the ball ends of the strings.
More to come........
 
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#5
Before I had done the position markers, I had been experimenting with different materials to make the headpiece. I had tried ebony, but settled on this piece of brass I had left over from another project that never panned out. I cut it to the rough shape I needed and did the layout for the string slots and cut them out. I also drilled the holes for the trussrod adjustment and the mounting screws. I'm using a zero fret on this bass so this takes the place of the nut in establishing the string spacing.
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The next thing I did was rout the cavity for the pickup, a Bill Lawrence P46, which is one of the few things I had to buy for this build.
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Next up, the control cavity. I made another jig and routed out the cavity, and used the last little bit of wood from the Wishbass fretboard to make a cover for it.
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Then I used another leftover piece of maple, to make a cover to go over the back of the tuners and hide where some of the old routs from the Wishbass were still visible. I also put in the hole for the jack right behind the cavity.
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The next set of picks will cover installing all of the electronics and hardware. Right now taking a break to go out and enjoy some of this beautiful Labor Day.

Stay tuned.....
 
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#6
Well back from a turn around town. Spent some time by the bay (Benicia) and had some Ice Cream at Rainbow. A scoop of World Serious Brownie.

Time to get some more pics up of this build.

I had an idea of adjusting the pickups from the back using these little cap screws. I'm installing threaded brass inserts into the pickups themselves. The half on the left is already done. I found all of these parts at my local Ace Hardware. I first did a mockup to see if it would work then went ahead and installed them in the bass.
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The bridge was a little high and I couldn't get it adjusted down low enough, so I had to rout out a pocket for it to sit in. First I made a jig, hogged out most of the material, then cleaned up the corners by hand with an exacto knife.
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The tuners, bridge and frets are installed. The brass head piece is on. The pickups and controls are all wired up, volume and tone, with a push/pull pot on the volume to switch the pickups from series to parallel. The knobs are the original Wishbass gold speed knobs.
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More to come soon......
 
#7
Next installment.

After stringing it up and strapping it on, it didn't sit right on my body and neck dived terribly. Imagine that, a headless bass with neck dive! I think it has a lot to do with that big hunk of brass the strings are in. I decided to add a little arm to it to move the strap button out to the 14th fret. This is a really rough cardboard mockup of what I had in mind. The wood I'm using to make it is one of the cutoff wings from the wishbass.
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After doing a complete disassemble, I sanded from 80 to 600 grit paper, and applied two coats of tung oil. Then I put it all back together, did a setup, and took some pics.
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Last pic shows the nice Rockbag I picked up for it.
Still need to do a little fine tuning and finishing.
More to come.......
 
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#9
ICM said:
Really nice so far! I'd consider painting the horn for the strap black so make it a bit more incognito.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I address that very thing in this batch of pics.
I was looking for a place I could inlay my name/logo and that is where it ended up. I took it to my friend Robert lee's shop and he used his laser to cut my logo out of maple, and cut the cavity to lay it in. I then sanded the arm up to 600 grit and applied two coats of Tung oil to it as well. I also swapped out the gold speed knobs for wood ones I made from layers of rosewood and zebrawood.
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And that's it for this one.
Here are the specs.
Five strings B-E-A-D-G
32" medium scale.
Weight-6.5 lbs.
Passive electronics, volume and tone with push/pull pot on volume for series/parallel option.
Bill Lawrence P46 pickup.
Gotoh tuners with black barrel knobs.
Hand made brass headpiece.
2" at zero fret.
21 frets, 2-1/4" at 21st fret.
Generic five string bridge. 2-3/8" at bridge.


I'll try to get a sound clip up later.
 
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#12
Well here is the clip I promised. I have a friend who has an informal jam in his living room once a month. It's just a bunch of 50 something's, drinking beer and jamming. This is from last month. I brought this bass over and gave it a nice test drive. This is me singing and playing an old Grateful Dead tune, "Mr. Charlie". The bass is pretty hot in the mix so should have no problem hearing it.
Enjoy.
 

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#15
Looks pretty neato, a vast improvement over the original build, and some cool ideas. Gotta say to, the orientation of the B,A,D & G-string ball ends, with the windings sharply angled over the 'balls', and the very little brass actually holding the A string in place would give me concern, but I still really like the bass (sorry, honestly not trying to be a jerk, just sharing opinion)...

Sounds really good. Love them Lawrence pups. ( have one in my P )
 
#16
hover said:
Looks pretty neato, a vast improvement over the original build, and some cool ideas. Gotta say to, the orientation of the B,A,D & G-string ball ends, with the windings sharply angled over the 'balls', and the very little brass actually holding the A string in place would give me concern, but I still really like the bass (sorry, honestly not trying to be a jerk, just sharing opinion)...

Sounds really good. Love them Lawrence pups. ( have one in my P )
Click to expand...

Thanks.
No worries. Yes I had some concerns with the headpiece at first too, but it's really a lot more solid than it looks, and so far it hasn't shown any flaws. If it does I'll just have to redesign it.
 
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#18
Cool build! I love out-of-the-box thinking. Excellent job recycling existing materials too! Bet you get some looks/comments with that one!

I've been considering using a P46 on a five-string build. You don't see many people doing that, even though they're advertised as compatible. Visually, it looks like the A string is sensed by both halves of the pickup. Does that cause any change in the tone for that string?
 
#20
randyripoff said:
Where did you get the knobs from?
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They're just basic knurled black volume/tone knobs like you would find on a p-bass or a tele. All-Parts carries them, but these are cheap Chinese knock-offs I got off e-bay a while back. I slipped a piece of copper tubing on the shafts of the tuners to shim them out enough for the knobs to fit snugly, then I just tightened down the set screws.
 
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