Winter Build Off 2025 - Cleo Fenderson

[rojo412]

This will be a SCRATCH BUILD.
I have yet to fully furnish my supplies for it, but you see what I've decided on so far, pictured above.

THE CONCEPT:
This may be shoehorning the "TWO" aspect a little bit, but bear with me...
In the world of bass, there are 2 iconic designers that couldn't be further apart when it comes to basses, but both are incredibly well known and well regarded -
LEO FENDER and CARL THOMPSON.

In a somewhat jumbled story of plans I had for different basses, I was discussing things with my bass BFF, @rogerbmiller and we started jawing about the concept of a bass that was built in the style of Carl Thompson, but using the more traditional woods that were mainly found on designs from Leo Fender.
Lo and behold, Roger threw out the name "CLEO FENDERSON" and my brain lit up with ideas to make it a reality.

So here's the plan:
I'm going to build a short (possibly medium?) scale bass that is really lightweight, using the outlandish shaping cues found in CT basses.
But I have to make it using the woods that Fender uses on almost any of their common instruments. Yes, they did some oddballs with different woods, but I mean I'll be focusing on using what they tend to use most often:
- Ash
- Maple
- Walnut is in skunk stripes in the necks (and a few bodies here and there)
- Rosewood or Pau Ferro for a fingerboard (not sure where I'm leaning on that yet)

I won't be doing much if anything with mahogany, cocobolo, wenge, ebony, etc. Those are awesome, but not the Fenderish way for the most part.
I may get saucy and use some of the techniques that CT uses for accents and whatnot, but not sure on that just yet. This is mainly a placeholder to start the project for now (I have a few irons in the fire that need to be finished up before I can concentrate on this one).

Parts to be used that I already have picked out:
- Dimarzio Model P
- Hipshot A bridge, aluminum
- Gotoh Resolite tuners
- Stainless small frets
- Dual action wheel truss
Yes, none of those are Fendery, I get it. But I like them all a lot and I'm building it so .

It will have 2 pickup coils, 2 knobs, 2+2 headstock, 2 neck supports, and whatever other dual things I can manage as this progresses.

 

[Reedt2000]

I can dig it

Sub'd

 

[mapleglo]

Sub'd!

 

[Beej]

Cleo Fenderson made me laugh out loud.

 

[rojo412]

That happened to me too! That's how I knew it was a winner.

 

[rogerbmiller]

I am excited to see the end result @rojo412

That is, of course, if one of our wives doesn’t have us committed first!

Subbed!

 

[Rocket Queen]

No alder?

 

[rojo412]

If I had some, I could use it... I just don't have any. And I'm not much of a painter, so the ash seems to make more sense.

 

[timendous]

Where's this guy going once it's finished??

 

[rojo412]

Not sure! We'll see how it turns out. But you're certainly welcome to check it out once it's all finished.
(Or during the process, up to you!)

 

[rojo412]

With some other projects giving me fits, I decided to clean off the bench and do some sketching...

I'm actually going to do a reverse P, for what that is worth.

The one thing I just kinda now noticed is that the "fish tail" feature I thought was so common, is really not found on any of the 4 strings I saw. Not that I couldn't do it if I wanted, but seems kinda silly to do it for this particular one.

The bummer of the piece of wood I had slated for the body is, the section of wood that was messed up would have fit the lower horn point.

And yes, I could graft something, but it would stick out like a sore thumb (which... I mean, the lower horns on these don't NOT resemble sore thumbs, amirite?!).

So this becomes a matter of:
a) do I switch to a different piece of wood?
b) do I do a center block in the body to expand this outward?
c) do I just go neck-thru completely?
d) umm.... there is actually no D option in my head at the moment, my bad.

Gotta think on this. Was hoping to glue up the body blank, but that isn't gonna happen today.
Oh well, plenty of time left.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

Hitch-hiker's Special!

Walnut thumb, cherry thumb...black locust thumb (yeah, sure, Fednerd didn't use black locust, but it's domestic & florescent!) Wildly dyed section of the offcut of this piece (darn right it don't blend in, it sticks out!)

 

[rojo412]

(HUGE fan of the Boosh, especially this episode. IYKYK!)

 

[mapleglo]

I use the center block method on mine, even on builds that don't need it because of the wood size. I like the way it looks.

 

[rojo412]

I do have another piece of Swamp Ash that would fit this. And if I were to borrow from that to do the 3 piece thing, then it basically becomes scrap wood for something like this down the line. So I kinda don't wanna do that.

HOWEVER... since Fender is in the mix here, doing a 3 piece (or more) body is DEFINITELY part of their recipe. Hell, if we're taking a trip back to the 70s when Carl started doing his thing, then 70s Fender bodies were damn near mosaics sometimes! So it's not out of the realm to consider that as a thing to do.

As it so happens, I think I have a board of just regular ash somewhere, too. If I make that the center block (maybe some accent woods as well?), then I could certainly use the one slimmer board as planned, with the accents coming into play to make it fancier.
I'll be thinking on this, for sure. More to come once I actually warm up the shop.

 

[MPU]

Center block (maybe with thin contrasting walnut veneers) between them would be my choice.

 

[rojo412]

Okay, so I'm doing a center block. It's gonna be tapered, center is walnut, ash next to that (where I actually cut the taper), then walnut next to that.
All that said, I decided to change things up a bit for the body wings:
- Bookmatched swamp ash top
- Walnut core
- Regular ash back

And since it's CT-like, I'm gonna attempt one of these scary-thin bodies. It's only coming in at a smidge under 1.25" thick

One thing is for sure, that will keep it LIGHT. Just hoping it can hold up to the pressure of string tension. I've never attempted anything that thin in a body before.

 

[Reedt2000]

Okay, so I'm doing a center block. It's gonna be tapered, center is walnut, ash next to that (where I actually cut the taper), then walnut next to that.
All that said, I decided to change things up a bit for the body wings:
- Bookmatched swamp ash top
- Walnut core
- Regular ash back

And since it's CT-like, I'm gonna attempt one of these scary-thin bodies. It's only coming in at a smidge under 1.25" thick

View attachment 7126707

One thing is for sure, that will keep it LIGHT. Just hoping it can hold up to the pressure of string tension. I've never attempted anything that thin in a body before.

I think you'll probably be fine structurally, won't be much room for pots and such. Gonna do one of the CT wooden control plates?

 

[rojo412]

I think I will be doing a control plate like that, yeah. The thought of using TORT was Fender-ish, but I don't have any and I think plastic would look odd with a CT shape.
That said, I have some INCREDIBLY ornate pieces of walnut. They could possibly resemble tort in some aspects. If anything, they'd act as contrast to the stark lightness here. Not 100% sure where I'm going with that, but it's in my head.

Typically, I like doing push/pull pots but that is a "NO WAY!" on this one. So if I want to do any switching (blower switch, cap select?), then I'll just need to use switches.

 

[smart51]

No problem with strength with a thin body. It's thicker than the neck and wider too. Think carefully about the jack. I've made bodies so thin, I had to put a small hole in the back for the tip of the jack plug. The thinnest body I made was 28mm, just over an inch. It had a 4mm top and back and a 20mm core. I drilled a 20mm hole into the core from the edge and glued in a turned wooden plug with a jack socket hole in it. A 20mm diameter jack socket went in from the control cavity with a bit more persuasion than was ideal.