Winter Build Off 2022 - Explorer Bass

Hello all, and welcome to my thread!

My plan is to build an Explorer bass. This shape belongs to the Gibson world, which is new territory for me. So far in my bass life, I've played mainly Fender Shaped Objects, or FSOs. This will be a GSO.

The body I'll build from scratch, the neck is a ready made product. Clearly then, this is a Partial Build.

Enjoy!

 

THE PLAN

4 strings
34" scale
Swamp Ash body
Maple neck
Maple fingerboard
20 frets
Tuners on bass side
EMG 35HZ passive humbucker in neck position
Volume pot, Tone pot
Black hardware
See through red acrylic pickguard
Black strap with peacock motive

 

MATERIALS

Here's my wood "pile":

That headstock still looks "fenderish", but trust me: it won't when I'm done with it.
That's what the piece of maple to the right is for. It's the same thickness as the headstock, and I'll use it to make the headstock look quite "gibsonesque".

Incidentally, if ever I replace that table, I'll make at least one instrument out of it.


Even the strap pins are black.


EMG 35HZ humbucker, plus harness. On the next build I'll take up soldering. I promise. Next build. Or the one after that.

 

THEME: REBIRTH

- a very personal angle -

When I think of "rebirth", all I can think of is myself. Around five years ago, several things happened in my life in a rather short span of time, and together they make me feel like I'm finally alive. After half a lifetime of making music I found my true instrument (bass guitar), I found a job I really love and will keep doing till retirement, and I got out of a personal commitment that was never going to work and had been weighing on me for many years. In conjunction with all that, I feel I've finally grown up into someone who knows to be someone and make his own decisions.

This is not to say that the good things that happened before that, didn't happen or don't count. But there was always a shadow, a feeling of total inadequacy, a permanent gloom. This has a lot to do with the twisted way I grew up, but I won't expand on that here.

Bottom line is, I transitioned from "one day life will be worth living" to "I'm enjoying life".
Reborn.

And this bass will be a celebration. The Explorer shape is one that speaks to me like not many extraverted things do. The natural finish reflects how much more natural and "close to home" I've become. The Lightning Bolt pickguard will be red, the colour of blood and hence of life. There's no symbolism in the black colour of the hardware, I just feel it will offset the red pickguard better.

All in all, splashy in my very own way.

 

For the pickguard I bought a 1000mm x 500mm x 3mm (20"x40"x1/8") sheet of acrylic material. It is RED, the reddest red there is, and it is somewhat see-through. I haven't made a pic of the sheet, as most of it is still in protective wrap, but here's a bit I cut off to try some techniques:
I hope to see the grain of the oil-finished swamp ash through this.

 

I bought a 3" wide black leather strap with a peacock motive at the front end.
The brand name is Fame, sold by MusicStore in Germany.

It looks glorious, but it's hard to photograph. I chose it based on the pics on the seller's website but they don't do it justice.

My attempts:

 

Here's something that has inspired me.

Gibson Guitar of the Month, September 2008.

If you thought you saw a lefty guitar, you're not alone. I thought that at first. But no, it is not a lefty. (See the position of the knobs and the strap pins, for instance.)

It's a righty. Gibson has just swapped the body shape around. They call it a "Reverse Explorer". Strictly speaking, I feel they should have said "Non-Reverse" by analogy with the Thunderbird shape.

Normal Thunderbird:


"Non-Reverse" Thunderbird:


Normal Explorer:


"Non-Reverse" Explorer:


But that's just me being nitpicky. What really drew my attention on that (non) reverse guitar is the pickguard. If you can call it that. The Lightning Bolt! I want it on my bass. In red acrylic.

So I made a mirror image of that pic, put it up on my tablet screen, and drew it by hand full-scale on tracing paper. I think I got very close, and I'm calling it good. I've cut out that shape and will use it to cut the acrylic. In its bright red, it will be quite an accent on a natural wood bass with black hardware!

 

I have made a mirror image of the pic, so now it looks like this:

From that, I drew my lightning bolt full size on tracing paper. So now my lightning bolt fits a "normal" Explorer shape.

 

Bottom. Kind of like this: