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Triple Bucker 4 string build

Wow! Thinking you may be an engineer by day? Gonba need some training to run that. Guess if you can wire it you can play it.
Nope, Not an engineer. Just know a thing or two about wiring electric instruments. Really I just took what I liked on a two pickup instrument, and added another pickup seems simple in theory but in practice it gets a little complicated making sure it doesn't hum. I also wanted to see what happens when you have 40k of humbuckers in series.
 
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I'm anxious to see how it all work out.
That makes two of us :), some time this week I'm going to go to a wood store to get the Baltic Birch and see if they have anything for a fretboard, I've ordered a pair of double acting truss rods (one for a mini bass, one for this) from stew mac and some narrrow/lower fretwire, a fretsaw/ mitre box and the humbucker mounting rings from CB Gitty.
 
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Baltic birch is excellent material. However, for the price, you can probably score some really nice hardwoods. Alder and ash are in the 4-6 dollar/bf range. Even some good quality hard maple isn't much more. You have the skills for sure. May as well go for it!

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the ply! It is sturdy and takes a finish no problem. :)
 
Baltic birch is excellent material. However, for the price, you can probably score some really nice hardwoods. Alder and ash are in the 4-6 dollar/bf range. Even some good quality hard maple isn't much more. You have the skills for sure. May as well go for it!

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the ply! It is sturdy and takes a finish no problem. :)
Yeah it might change once I go to the wood store, but for now I think I'm going to continue with this,
500px-Birch_plywood.jpg


personally I thinks that's a cool looking edge.
 
I'm probably going to use individual string bridges though to get a 17.5 mm spacing.

There are plenty of normal bridges that are spaced more narrow than the 19mm Fender standard. If you like individual bridges for aesthetic reasons, that's one thing, but don't think that that's the only way to get narrow spacing.
 
There are plenty of normal bridges that are spaced more narrow than the 19mm Fender standard. If you like individual bridges for aesthetic reasons, that's one thing, but don't think that that's the only way to get narrow spacing.
I haven't decided yet, which way I'm going to go on the bridge, other then the hipshots I haven't been able to find any other bridges with 17mm spacing, I kind of like the look of the individual string bridges, and if there's less sympathetic vibrations that's a plus.
ADDED: I ordered a set of individual string bridges, I'll see if I like how they look in hand.

Dude, that thing looks monstrous! (Monstrous in a completely awesome way)

This song comes to mind...


It's more of a three eyed two horned purple people eater. ;)
Tone wise it should be a super high output monster though :)

ADDED:
Got the body of the mini bass basically done,
20160328_195517.jpg

Just a mini humbucker on this one, it'll also feature my first tone & kill switch combo. No other controls.
20160328_180409.jpg

I also printed out some fretboard layouts off fret find, I think I'm going to go with 17.5mm bridge spacing and a 1.625" nut width.
 
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Mini bass body just needs the bridge that's coming tomorrow along with the set of individual string bridges, I wired it up in under a half hour, something I know I won't be able to say on the 3 pickup build. I'll decide tomorrow if I want to use the individual string bridges or if I want to use a one piece bridge.
 
Just a thought, but have you played a bass with the variety of switches and stuff you have planned for this one? I ask because sometimes folks find that the myriad tonal possibilities provided by such a layout are actually quite a bit more subtle in practice than predicted. Myself included... :)
 
Just a thought, but have you played a bass with the variety of switches and stuff you have planned for this one? I ask because sometimes folks find that the myriad tonal possibilities provided by such a layout are actually quite a bit more subtle in practice than predicted. Myself included... :)
Not with this many switches, but I've had all of these options on separate basses before, my current Bass at hand has a single pickup, volume, bass and treble controls, series/split/parallel switch, south coil treble cut in series and a kill switch. Another of my basses has two humbuckers a 4 way switch (plus mute), volume, bass cut control on the bridge in parallel, treble cut on the neck in series, and a series/split/parallel switch for the bridge pickup. That said I also have a bass with just a volume, 3 way selector switch and tone switch.

3PBF.png

Basically the Final Mock-up, offset it just a little more, moved the middle pickup toward the neck a little more, and put the control knobs on a tele control plate, it's going to be shiny.
 
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Got the final body mockups printed off today and started on the template for body core pieces.
I also have finalized most of the specs,
33" scale, 3 power rail pickups, 17.5mm spacing at bridge, 1.625" nut width, heavily chambered baltic birch body, laminated neck of oak and baltic birch (kubucki style) lots-O-switches, side mount output jack,.
 
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From Kubicki Club, Kubicki club, part 2
I would have to think that if it's a high quality pressure-fitted multi-laminate, it will be as stable as wood can possibly be. Oak would be a strong wood resulting in a strong neck, but I'm not familiar with its use as a tone-wood. Not sure about birch either. The neck is where most of an instruments tone comes from after the pu's so tone-woods use are optimal.
It's going to be a bolt on so if it doesn't work I can make a new neck, I'm just using off-cuts from the body for the neck so I'm not out much money.
 
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Rough body core template with some of the hardware mocked up, it's highly chambered
2016-04-06 21.27.42.jpg

Trial Neck glue up
20160406_211632.jpg

I'm going to need alot more clamps and probably locating pins, on the actual neck. I also think I'm going to brush on the glue for the actual neck, but this will give me an idea of how it machines and how stiff it is.

2016-04-06 21.29.51.jpg

Rough "body blank" cut out, ended up remarkably close to 1.75", I debated earlier whether or not to add the center 1/4" layer after cutting the body core template and noticing it's negligible weight I decided to make thicker.

2016-04-06 21.32.17.jpg

And the top with some mineral spirits wiped on, not the most interesting grain but it does have some. I'm planning on a transparent purple finish so it's nice to get a little bit of it on the face.
 
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Wasn't this one originally going to be an aluminium body and have approx seven-hundred switched and a glowing bit?

Looks cool though! Keen to follow how it turns out.
Nope that was a 5 string based on a Ric 4001, this one is based somewhat loosely on the Ibanez fireman/reverse iceman guitar (edit-looking at the specs I guess this is very Ric like, I did that unintentionally) . After trying a bunch of 5 strings and borrowing a freinds I realized two things I don't like the wider neck of a 5 and I do like the tighter 17.5mm spacing at the bridge. In that same time I lost access to a tig welder and realized that I didn't want to spend 300$ on the carvin neck but I didn't have the experience or tools to build a neck through and I couldn't get it to look right with the bolt on neck. Thus this build. I am going to revist that build when I get a little better set up, glowing bits and aluminum body included. Might do a sister build with it that features color case hardened steel.
 
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