HazBeen

I might have just bought a single saddle bridge off @Andre_Passini with the intention of making the above a (semi)headless....... 😎

I have to admit I cannot be @rzed to read all 7 pages, but moving around or not does not make you a boring bass player. It may make you a boring stage presence, but boring bass player not so much. Playing all root notes all the time does, but even that can be viewed “cool” in the right context. I must be growing old, all the shallowness on YT confuses me.

Plus 1, great pickups

I agree, you are making me feel all inadequate 😂 This build is just gorgeous.

Not wanting to take anything away from some of the constructive feedback I am reading, @benh if this is your first build my advice would be: accept that you are learning and that you will make mistakes, building is as much overcoming and finding solutions to issues as anything; this will not be your last build (trust me) so it is much more about enjoying the process and getting a feel for it; you are building your bass (yeah!) so nothing to stop you do whatever you want with whatever design which is the best thing about building your own instruments.

Perfectly fine bridge solution.

Yes, but the shorter the distance of the pocket, the shorter the distance between front and back screws and the less surface area to spread the load of the strings. But regardless, everyone is agreeing it makes sense to extend the pocket.

It feels the same playing on the ramp section as it does on the pickup over the screw hole, it is like that by design. I have very particular wishes wrt a ramp (I love them) and this one (counting the pickups themselves as part of it) covers all main playing positions and still leaves enough room to pluck.

+2 to the above. It is shorter than I would make it in any case.

Many have seen my 5 string build last year. Originally I planned it to be fretted, with 2 EMG MMCS pickups. As the project progressed, I decided to make it a fretless with 1 MM pup. Then the Wenge fretboard turned to not be hard enough, so I took off the fretboard and turned it into an ebony fretboard lined fretless. I have since found that my two 4 string fretless basses are all I need, so I thought let’s have some fun. So I added the 2nd pickup, replaced the single saddle bridge with a Schaller I had laying around. I did this so I can use the single saddle bridge for my upcoming multi scale 5, and fretted the thing. Since I had holes in the back from the single saddle bridge, I doweled them, and then created a battery cavity. I created a solid integrated finger ramp by routing out the cavity a little larger and creating a wenge insert between the pickups. Result as per the below. It plays and sounds great..... and I can now move on to my next build 😂

Been playing around with the head stock and the “neck flare”. Think this will be roughly what I al going for. You can see the wider part of the neck starts around fret 14. The lighter line shows the body shape under the neck. You can see how I have really good access way up the register this way. I also makes sense to (I did later, see final pics) to let the neck heel follow the slant of the pickups. Getting quite excited about this build. Will make a start on it, in a week or so.

You don’t ... when I cut my slots I generally use a slot template, pretty accurate but not .382mm accurate. If you stay within 1mm or so, you are fine. A bass or guitar is approximately in tune, never totally.

That is exactly what I did to measure the fan on my new 33-35” 5 build. I have a slotting template that is 35 and 34”, used that on the B and A string and the 35 less 1 fret on the G to get the correct fan. The difference was 0.5mm on the 1st fret and pretty much zero on the 24th. Well within the margin of error. So if you do not want to slot yourself, get a 35” 24 fret board. Cut off the first (well don’t forget the nut!) and the last and you have a 33” 22 fret fretboard. Presto!

Very cool!

Gorgeous!

Fantastic result, well worth 💃🕺!

You get all the fun projects, last thing I got to build for someone was a finger ramp 😂

As an alternative to CNC price isn’t ridiculous, but I will stick with my 2 Tritons and Makita palm router just for now. There is no way I could get my mrs to approve 🤑

I iPads and Basschat upload don’t mix well .... that and I’m lazy

In case you are interested. Body shape I am happy with and will keep as is. Neck dimensions, same. Headstock and tuner positions, still under review. I am going to be a bit creative on the bolt-on approach. My mini bass gave me an idea (which as later turned out I appear to have nicked off Claas guitars). Where the neck meets the body, I will extend the width of the neck by 2 cm. That enable me to bolt the body to the extended neck part, which in turn means I will have pretty much full access to the entire back of the neck up to the 24th fret both top and bottom strings.

Operation turn this lump of timber into a 5 string multi-scale coming to a bass forum near you soon ...... 😎

Cheers mate, and on to the next 😂

I stuck flats on, definitely the way to go with a super shorty (imo). Great little bass this thing.

To compare size, my 34” fretless and the 27” side by side.

And (bar some tweaking) done. Not perfect by any means (well the neck carve is ) but pretty happy with this.