Winter Build Off 26 - Every Bassist Needs a Guitar

[Alex Xander]

We have a fairly tight local group that hosts a monthly open mic night. Despite living in a town of only 12,000 people, I sometimes find myself being one of five bassists present, and there's often a spare guitar that I spend the night playing, rarely touching a bass.

Sounds like a good reason to build a "six string, short scale piccolo bass", right?

Specs
Two piece macassar ebony body
One piece macassar ebony neck
Macassar ebony FB
Evo gold frets
Quad coil "hot rail" pickups with gold rails to match the frets
Modified Telecaster shape
All hardware sourced from the polarising Aliexpress

I figured @Gary_M needed some competition in the non bass build category, so here it is, mate!

 

[Alex Xander]

I had a day in the shed today with it any real purpose. Just cutting stuff up and gluing it together. In the midst of this I bookmatched two tops, that could end up on this build.

Firstly some black wattle that I epoxy filled for a chopping board eons ago. It failed for that purpose, so I resawed it and built bookmatched it.

The spalting took 700ml of epoxy in an attempt to stabilise it!

The next option was a very nicely figured piece of QLD maple

The chances are better than 99% that the guitar will have no top and she'll be ebony all the way through. I figured it couldn't hurt to have a contingency or two.

 

[Gary_M]

I figured @Gary_M needed some competition in the non bass build category, so here it is, mate!

Hey, competition is great but ya didn't have to kick me right square in the Jimmy from the get-go, man! I'm over here with my crappy tulip poplar and you're just flaunting all the exotics! BAH!

This is gonna be another killer, looks great!

 

[JFlo]

Can't say I've ever seen an all ebony guitar. Very exciting!

 

[Crawforde]

Are you going to tune it all in 4ths as a 6 string piccolo bass, or use that weird guitar tuning?

 

[Bass4ThePublic]

"Only" 12,000?? Where I live theres a population of 330 people. More cows than people

 

[Alex Xander]

Hey, competition is great but ya didn't have to kick me right square in the Jimmy from the get-go, man! I'm over here with my crappy tulip poplar and you're just flaunting all the exotics! BAH!

This is gonna be another killer, looks great!

Ah yes, but I've seen how good your paint jobs are - I'll need all the exotics I can get my hands on to compete with perfect high gloss!

Can't say I've ever seen an all ebony guitar. Very exciting!

There's probably a reason for that, that I'm soon to find out.

Are you going to tune it all in 4ths as a 6 string piccolo bass, or use that weird guitar tuning?

I have heard something about that weird tuning. One string get tuned a major third up or something like that. I guess I'll see when it's assembled

"Only" 12,000?? Where I live theres a population of 330 people. More cows than people

It's the same here, I'm 20km from said 12,000, but it's the town I call home.

 

[Slidlow]

Can't say I've ever seen an all ebony guitar. Very exciting!

Not all ebony but both have a good chunk through the middle. I once saw a one piece ebony guitar carved from a single slab.

 

[Crawforde]

"Only" 12,000?? Where I live theres a population of 330 people. More cows than people

My town has just over 300 frozen people too. It seems like a popular population for people who prefer a bit of space.

 

[Alex Xander]

First problem - my two pieces of ebony aren't wide enough to make a body!

The question now is whether I insert a third piece of ebony and hope it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb (it usually blends better than most woods), or I put a contrasting laminate in place. Hmmm.

I took the QLD maple out of clamps. The join on the bookmatch is not perfect, but crikey this is some nice timber.

 

[ddm0502]

First problem - my two pieces of ebony aren't wide enough to make a body!

The question now is whether I insert a third piece of ebony and hope it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb (it usually blends better than most woods), or I put a contrasting laminate in place. Hmmm.

I don't like trying to hide a mismatch, it often doesn't look right. If you want to use a 3rd piece to widen it, use something that contrasts so it looks like you planned it that way. I always like the method of, hide the error by pointing it out and pretending you did it on purpose.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

It depends on the actual chunk of wood and how it looks but my first thought would be a contrasting piece in the middle of the body.

 

[Alex Xander]

I don't like trying to hide a mismatch, it often doesn't look right. If you want to use a 3rd piece to widen it, use something that contrasts so it looks like you planned it that way. I always like the method of, hide the error by pointing it out and pretending you did it on purpose.

It depends on the actual chunk of wood and how it looks but my first thought would be a contrasting piece in the middle of the body.

I am usually very much a "if you can't hide it perfectly, make it stand out" kinda builder, but the darkness and irregularities of macassar ebony make it an easy wood to glue together without an apparent join.

I may have made a stupid mistake with this build - wish me luck!

The neck through below is a good example.

 

[Alex Xander]

If you didn't already know it, you might be hard pressed to find the joins in the three pieces. With a finish, I'm confident it will be close to impossible to spot.

 

[AK4570]

Lurvly!

 

[Alex Xander]

Battling a few fairly hot days, I got the headstock scarf jointed and the trussrod routed

The headstock with be a Les Paul(ish) style, albeit a little shorter.

I also got the roundover on the body done and started sanding it. Unfortunately I got some chip out that will require attention.

Two things I haven't mentioned about the body. Firstly, it is thin - 30mm. That's less than 1 1/4". Secondly, I snuck in a cheeky radius. It's hard to capture in a photo, but it's about 6mm convex (or concave, depending on the side ).

This was achieved through putting a couple of degrees on my jointer fence when dressing the three parts of the body. Some 80 grit to blend things in, and it was done.

I'm slightly on the fence about pickups. I might go with a single humbucker yet (in middle or bridge position) with series/parallel/split wiring. I also have cream coloured rail pickups that I can use. I'll have to wet the body down once the neck is on to see how things look colour-tone wise.

I don't have much of an idea on what works tonally for guitar, so aesthetics might win out.

Suggestions most welcome!

 

[Alex Xander]

The single cream pickup is calling my name. Perhaps with a series/parallel/split switch to give it some versatility.

If it becomes a one trick pony, it might just be an excuse to build another

 

[Beej]

That looks great! A 'cream' nut and maybe knobs? chef's kiss!

 

[Alex Xander]

That looks great! A 'cream' nut and maybe knobs? chef's kiss!

You read my mind!

 

[Alex Xander]

That looks great! A 'cream' nut and maybe knobs? chef's kiss!

Something like this @Beej

At present I'm trying to work out whether I can wire an on-on-on DPDT to give series, parallel and series with a capacitor shunting on of the coils. The last position is basically G&L's OMG switch, but I think it might be useful to get some more lows out of the one bridge pickup. Every time I think I've found a wiring solution in the third position, I find I've snookered myself and compromised one of the other two. Copilot/chat gpt tells me it's possible and gives extremely detailed instructions that do not make sense. Series/parallel/split will be fine if that's where I end up.

I posted some other tops earlier in the thread. Today I glued up a back from some mystery wood l have (it's Australian and feels very much like a light coloured mahogany, but it could be anything), then cut the epoxy and black wattle top to shape. This thread may end up with a couple of builds. This top will probably be for a guitar that I will run exclusively with my Boss SY1000. I'll run an internal GK pickup kit, without any other pickups. It could also end up a short scale headless bass. I'll see what creative direction my hands want to go.

It's begging for a high gloss finish, but everytime I spray one, I am most humbly reminded that there's a reason spray painting is a three year trade (at least in Oz).