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Winter Build Off 2022 - Star-Crossed-Caster
- Thread starter 2groggy
- Start date
Wired, assembled and strung. Still needs a set up.
BTW, just for any other builder that had a pick-up not work, my mute was the bridge. I ghost-hunted and fixed the cold solder. It works now.
Build Summary: The neck is a normal 2 piece Fender-type neck. Very common, so I'll describe the build process.
The show faces of the body are built around a solid core and internal perimeter shape frame. The idea is that, as pieces are added, they are trimmed to the previous piece. When all pieces are built, binding hides the last raw edge.
Molds are only required for vacuum bagging the archtop panels.
There is no access cover plate, so all controls were fished into place.
The birdseye maple was an afterthought. I didn't like my cuts on the previous maple panel so I made another and chose birdseye as the new face. I hadn't even thought of replacing the headstock veneer with matching birdseye and binding until I assembled it and took the above photo the other day.
After the WBO, I will pull off the neck and fix that.
The show faces of the body are built around a solid core and internal perimeter shape frame. The idea is that, as pieces are added, they are trimmed to the previous piece. When all pieces are built, binding hides the last raw edge.
Molds are only required for vacuum bagging the archtop panels.
There is no access cover plate, so all controls were fished into place.
The birdseye maple was an afterthought. I didn't like my cuts on the previous maple panel so I made another and chose birdseye as the new face. I hadn't even thought of replacing the headstock veneer with matching birdseye and binding until I assembled it and took the above photo the other day.
After the WBO, I will pull off the neck and fix that.Attachments
This is my submission in the scratch build category for the 2022 WBO.
The Star-Crossed-Caster is a semi-hollow archtop Starcaster shaped four string bass. The design is a re-think of how to build a hollow or semi hollow body without either hogging out large amounts of valuable material or pre-building complicated bending molds for what may be a one-off shape. The top and bottom are vacuum formed from three layers of maple veneer.
Specifications:
Body: Poplar core, ¼” plywood frame, wiggle-board sides, maple veneer top and bottom. The sound holes are the only access to the control cavity
Neck: Maple neck with a maple finger board, but the headstock will still be treated with the matching birdseye veneer and binding as the body
Pickups: Nordstrand Big Blade soapbar single coil set
Controls: J-bass wiring, VVT with .047 uF cap
Jack: football jack on the side of the body,
Bridge: Gotoh 201B-4 string-through bridge
Finish: Dark navy stained sides and back, clear birdseye maple front, water based clear satin finish
Strap buttons: Generic
The build came in on time and on budget, even after changing materials on the sides.
Parts Estimate: C$ 710 including neck and tuners at original landed cost
Effort Budget: 100 hours
Effort Actual: 90 hours
The Star-Crossed-Caster is a semi-hollow archtop Starcaster shaped four string bass. The design is a re-think of how to build a hollow or semi hollow body without either hogging out large amounts of valuable material or pre-building complicated bending molds for what may be a one-off shape. The top and bottom are vacuum formed from three layers of maple veneer.
Specifications:
Body: Poplar core, ¼” plywood frame, wiggle-board sides, maple veneer top and bottom. The sound holes are the only access to the control cavity
Neck: Maple neck with a maple finger board, but the headstock will still be treated with the matching birdseye veneer and binding as the body
- 30” scale
- Zero fret
- 12” radius
- 4-in-line tuners. I forget which brand
Pickups: Nordstrand Big Blade soapbar single coil set
Controls: J-bass wiring, VVT with .047 uF cap
Jack: football jack on the side of the body,
Bridge: Gotoh 201B-4 string-through bridge
Finish: Dark navy stained sides and back, clear birdseye maple front, water based clear satin finish
Strap buttons: Generic
The build came in on time and on budget, even after changing materials on the sides.
Parts Estimate: C$ 710 including neck and tuners at original landed cost
Effort Budget: 100 hours
Effort Actual: 90 hours
As soon as the voting ended, I pulled the neck off to re-finish the headstock. I replaced the maple veneer with birdseye matching the body and added a black accent. Matching binding is coming soon.
I retroactively award bonus points for your patriotic use of Robertson screws.
I always keep a few "red roberstons" on my person in case of emergency. I keep them in my shorts. I've found the green and yellow roberstsons to be a tad too prickly for such a handy system.
Here's the headstock with binding. The Star-crossedCaster is reassembled and giggable again 
