Basvarken

Also made a few pics of the bass without the pickguard

Laser cut the pickguard. Customer wasn't sure about the pickguard. I gave him the choice between none at all, White or Vintage White. In the end we chose for Vintage White When the bass was wet sanded to grit 2500 and polished with Meguiars I mounted the hardware and pickups It's hard to capture the color of this bass. Looks different in each light Final step was soldering the electronics

Cut the top nut for a piece of bone Filled the pores with Rustins porefiller And then took to staining the bass First a coat of yellow to give to that golden glow under a certain lighting and angle. I use Clou waterbased stain. Then did the edges with a light mahogany stain and feathered it out with a dry brush. Stained the neck and headstock And the last phase was to stain the sides of the body a very dark mahogany color mixed with dark walnut Then sprayed with sanding sealer And then started to build up layers of clear. With lots of wet sanding in between When the surface was completely smooth I applied the decals to the headstock Customer found out it is the 100th bass guitar he has ever owned. So he asked me to add the number 100 somewhere And I live in Velp 😉

Routed the pickup cavities. As you can see the customer had decided he wanted two pickups instead of just one. Glued the first wing on And then the other Drilled the bridge stud holes Roughly cut put the body shape, prior to routing it along the template Routed the body outline Didn't risk to route too close to the neck join area. So I had to clean that up by hand. Starting to look like it Routed the controls cavity Drilled some holes. Ready for the finishing process

Shaped the neck profile Prepared the ebony faceplate for glue up Cut out the moustache (or open book) shape with a jewelers saw, before I glued the faceplate onto the headstock Glued the faceplate to the headstock Drilled the tuner holes Didn't drill all the way through to prevent tear out. And to keep the diameter of the holes on the other side slightly narrower than the front. I've learned that the Hipshot Ultralites barely cover the entire width of the holes. Shaped the volute Shaped the headstock outline

Cut out the truss rod access slot And made the truss rod cover from a matching piece of rosewood Planed the centerpiece to the desired neck/body angle After the angle was done I roughly sawed the neck shape, in preparation to glue the fretboard on. Shot in a staple and cut it off just a little bit proud of the surface. This helps to prevent the fretboard from sliding off center when glueing onto the neck. The glued the fretboard onto the neck. Using inner bicycle tubes for a clamp. Drilled the holes for the side markers Glued the side markers in Filled the gaps underneath the fret tangs with a past of Titebond and rosewood sawdust.

As always the build starts with same blanks. I had my limber supplier make me a nice neck blank. He made it to the exact specs that I asked for (nine ply khaya mahogany with walnut strips in between. Plus two khaya body wings. Ordered parts and hardware. Initially the customer and I agreed upon a single pickup bass, so I ordered just one Thunderbird humbucker. Routed the slot for the spokewheel trussrod And chiseled out the spoke wheel part. Next I prepared the fretboard for the inlays Glued the inlays in After I had sanded the inlays flush to the radius of the fretboard, I prepared the fret slots for the frets. Cut the fretwire a little oversized to the width of the slots. And taped off the fretboard for protection. Hammered the frets in Cut off the excess ends. And filed them.

Completed the build of the Brooks EB-TB-IV today. - Neck through with mahogany body wings - Nine ply mahogany/walnut neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Tobacco burst gloss transparent acrylic finish - Rosewood fretboard - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Handcut bone nut - Three ply white-black-white pickguard - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop - Spokewheel trussrod - Thunderbird style pickups nickel. - Hipshot Ultralite tuners - Output Pure Tone - d'Addario EXL170BT Balanced Tension strings - Strapnuts: Dunlop Straplok Nickel Dual Design - Weight: 3.5 kg I'll post pics of the build process in posts below

Most of the twelve string bass guitars thats I've built have stacked knobs. Here are a few of them

It is my tribute to the legendary Quad Bass that Jol Dantzig of Hamer built for Tom Petersson back in 1978. Instead of the built-in 4 channel mixing console with one fader for each coil, I gave it a built-in compressor and a built in Sans-Amp type overdrive. Plus I made it 34" scale. You can view more pics and the entire build process here:

Two more bursts done by me:

Nope. It's 34"scale

My latest build has a nice burst:

it is coming along nicely 😉

Headstock of the Brooks EXB-MS-10, a ten-string multi-scale bass. Bass tuners are Gotoh GB350 (Res-o-lite). Octave tuners are Gotoh CXB-01 (carbon base plate).

From the initial idea and sketches to the completed build, I'd say about a year. The actual build took about four months (in my spare time) Then I had to wait about two months till the built in effects were ready.

Enter Bas Becu of BQ Music I had asked him to build a SansAmp type over drive for this bass. Almost ready except for the led lights

First applied the yellow all over. The did the red on the outlines while the yellow was still wet. And feathered them to the inside with a dry brush. After the first few layers of lear it already looked gorgeous and a few layers later... The effects panel go the same treatment. And when it had enough layers of lear to be perfectly flat, I applied the lettering for the effects with decals When the lacquer process was done, and after the polishing I could start mounting the pickups. Then put the tuners and bridge on. And strung her up for the first time.

I made some cover for the effects panel and control panel of left over pieces of Khaya. But also made them out of plastic. Because I wasn't 100% sure about the wooden ones...

When the neck profile was done I drilled the holes for the tuners And did the final shaping of the headstock Routed the neck pocket Shaped the heel to make it a perfect fit Used a an aluminum profile as a straight egde to check the angle of the neck Starting to look like a bass... (Neck not glued in yet) Drilled the output holes And some more holes

Then made the mounting plate for the effects panel. I chose a thin plate of steel. To save weight and to make sure it would take up too much height in the effects panel (as it would get pretty crowded in there later on) Made the holes for all the pots The glued on the laser cut flamed maple panel. It had sanded it much thinner, in order to get the right height for the knobs. I didn't want them to protrude above the top of the body. The drilled the holes for the potentiometers.

Back to the neck. The fretboard was glued on and I left it alone for while. Now I could start shaping the neck And when the neck profile was almost ready I did the side dots Routed the profile for the binding around the top of the body Glued the pearloid binding in. I use acetone because the bass will be stained. And stained does not work on spots where glue was spilled. Acetone leaves no residue. Attention shifted to the back side of the body: Routing the profile for the controls cover. And the wider cavity for the effects So far so good

Then back to the body Routing the channels for the wiring first And glued in a piece of mahogany because that is where the channel later meets the effects cavity Then routed the controls cavity Roughly cut out the outline for the flamed maple top. And glued it onto the body. And then routed along the template Up next was routing the pickup cavities And squaring the corners with a chisel Routed the effects panel cavity Test fitted the panel itself. Of course it fits. It was laser cut. But I just had to do it 😉

With all that sorted, I started working on the neck. Routing for the stiffening rod first. And then the two slots for the truss rods. The controls panel in the bookmatched set was laser cut. This way the grain would continue perfectly with the rest of the top It took me a while to find the right knobs for this panel. Especially the size was rather difficult. Most knobs are too big. And they would be too close to each other as a result Up next was the fretboard. This one did not get inlays on top. I cut out the truss rod access slot at the end of the fretboard And make a cover for it from the same piece of ebony In the meanwhile I had roughly shaped the neck. So that I could glue the fretboard on. I always use strips of inner bicycle tubes as a clamp for very ven pressure all around.

Each build start with selecting the right wood. My supplier made this body blank out of two pieces of Khaya Mahogany And from the same batch of (lightweight) Khaya I selected a piece for the neck blank. It was sawed in three pieces and laminated with pieces of Maple in between. Already pretty sturdy and stiff. Ideal for a bass neck that has to withstand a lot of tension From master carpenter Frank Hoffmeyer (Holz Faszination) I scored a beautiful set of flamed maple and a very nice piece of ebony for the fretboard. A while ago I bought a few bridge sets from a German company that makes hardware for Ritter and Marleaux. This is the last one I had. Im not sure if I'll ever buy from them again. But that has nothing to do with the quality. Which is outstanding... The neck features two spokewheel truss rods and one carbon stiffening rod To make sure this bass does not suffer neck dive I used lightweight tuners by Gotoh. Res-o-lite for the bas strings. And Stealth for the octave strings After the design was ready I made templates for the routing. I laser cut these at a FabLab which is in-house at my employer. Making these templates always requires some good thinking ahead. But it all worked out according to plan 😉 Same goes for the QuadBucker. It consists of two Nordstrand NM4 pickups that are meant to be mounted on a Mustang bass. I used them parallel to the strings instead of perpendicular to the strings. Because of the staggered pole pieces they can pick up the amplitude of the three strings per triplet better than the original pickups that Hamer used (three in a row, under the middle of each triplet). I designed base plates and a frame for the QuadBucker. And also a matching frame for the Lace Alumitone. And I laser cut them too. Initially I tried to use the NM4 with the casings over the pickups. But eventually I chose not to use the casings, because I think this looks better without. 😉