benh

Self built bluey goodness

I'd go side A - but whichever you choose, that is a lovely looking bit of timber

55 minutes ago, Owen said:

I used to be obsessive about this sub forum. I have relaxed a bit about it more recently. But it still brings the same emotions up for me.

 

"I did this

 

Then I did this

 

Then this happened

 

Then I did this

 

And then this beautiful bass appeared."

 

How is this even a thing? How can people get wood and turn them into playable instruments? Crazy madness. 

Nobody told me it had to be playable...

Thank you!

All done!

Now the preamp - a clone of the Darkglass Tone Capsule, there are schematics on various forums. Made on stripboard, I had most of the components already other than a few capacitor values and the IC, got them from Bitsbox. Works great

Pickups! Bought the bobbins and cases from AliExpress - dirt cheap, arrived in about 5 days so not bad time wise. Originally wound to 6500 turns per coil, reduced to 4250 as they were a bit on the dark side. Mild steel flat bar from eBay, cut to length with the angle grinder, ceramic bar magnet between the bars. I think they sound great

58 minutes ago, Richard R said:

That's a great blue!
What colour is that in their range?

Ah the colour is phthalo blue, it's a Crimson guitars water based stain

No patience to make a router jig, no money to buy one 😂 I get most of the way with a hand plane and finish off with a radius sanding block

Body finished with Cosmoslac rattle cans, never used it before so was a bit of an experiment - so far so good

12 hours ago, Silky999 said:

 

i haven’t summoned up the courage to do necks yet so just buy Chinese ones and modify/titivate them to bring them up to scratch. I will progress to doing them when I get a neck radius and fret slotting jig but as they say….Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Regarding fret slotting, I've used a simple box I made out of offcuts for pretty much all my builds - the first one I just marked out with a fine pencil and a square and cut by hand - worked a treat!

15 minutes ago, Joe Nation said:

 

You can do it perfectly well with a hand drill, just get (or make) a drilling guide so the holes go in square to the face. Use some sharpie or tape around the bit as a depth gauge so you don't go too far.

 

As far as making necks goes, just try it! As long as you're starting off with a cheaper piece of wood and are prepared to risk it turning into scrap, what have you got to lose? You don't need a bunch of expensive jigs, just lay it out carefully and take your time. The first one might be a bit wonky or maybe even unplayable, but you'll learn a lot and the next one will be better. Remember, if you wanted the best possible bass you'd buy something, but you actually want the best bass you can make!

Totally agree - before the I made my first neck I viewed it as something akin to witchcraft, once you do it once you realise it's actually quite simple, and is now by far my favourite part of the build process

Thank you! I really like them - to be honest if you're steady with a drill you can do it by hand relatively easily, although I used the pillar drill this time. Probably overkill but hey, I'm not a massive manufacturer just a hobbyist, and I prefer the look of the hex head machine screws

Round overs done with 1/2in roundover bit, forearm contour with the trusty saw rasp and farrier's rasp. Neck carved the same way, then sanded, danish oiled and waxed. Ash headstock veneer to match the body and a denim blue stain started!

Looking good!

Rough cut body shape, glued fretboard onto neck - plus obligatory mockup

Fretboard "binding" was done by layering 1.5mm ash veneer with the offcuts of the wenge planed down to 0.5mm. Also routed the channels for the truss rod and the carbon rods, the latter of which I epoxied in place

Marked out the fretboard for cutting slots - basically made a small mark for each fret using both scale lengths, from the parallel fret (in this case I settled on the 9th). Then joined those marks up very carefully using a 0.5mm pencil. Used a planed offcut of the body clamped to the top as a guide for each slot as a precaution, which worked really well!

48 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

Me, for one.

 

I have been collecting timber and hardware for one of these myself.  I'm wondering what strings you will use.  33-35.5in scale length suggests a standard set might fit with the possible exception of the low B.

I just got a Dingwall nickel set for ease - reasonably priced and they fit well

Woods chosen were a big slab of flamed ash for the body, flamed maple and ovangkol for the neck (7 piece laminate) and wenge for the fretboard. Usual glue up pics!

Well - after a rather lengthy hiatus due to work/family/mental health and all that jazz, had the wood kicking around for this for ages so decided it needs doing. Decided to go full DIY (sans hardware) - winding my own pickups and making a preamp! Doing this as more of a "proof of concept" than anything else, as I've never built a multiscale bass before, or indeed put a preamp together.

Bit late posting as most of the process is done now, but hopefully is of interest to someone! First of all, as always I spent a good few evenings designing in Inkscape, here were the results:

That looks great, love it! 🙂

Pickups wound and potted

The denim bass looks amazing - watching with interest!

I used D'addario medium scale strings on my 32" basses - available directly from them, and quite well priced. 

https://www.daddario.com/products/guitar/bass-guitar/xl-chromes-bass/ecb81m-chromes-bass-light-45-100-medium-scale/