Basvarken

Drilled the holes for the bridge studs Drilled the holes for the tuners Center piece almost ready for glueing the wings I had a nice slab of curly mahogany for the wings. First I glued the lower wing. Then the upper wing. No pics of routing the control cavity in the lower (sorry) Cut the rough body shape to get ready for the router to cut along the template. I have no pics of the planing of the wings to make them taper (just like the Thunderbird wings do) But here's a (not so clear) pic of the taper in one of the wings. You can see I had to fill up the gaps between the wings and the template because of the taper. Routed the body shape

I bought a piece of ebony and sanded it to a thickness of about mm. Sawed it in the shape for the headstock overlay. I drilled small holes for tiny nails that prevent the faceplate from sliding while glued and clamped. Printed out a paper template of the design to check the definite shape. Did a few tests for the sliding mechanism. I used scrap wood that I had lying around When I knew the sliding mechanism worked according to plan, I glued the fretboard onto the neck. I always use strips of bicycle tubes tied together by mean of clamping. You get a nice and even pressure on the entire fretboard. And it doesn't slide because its wrapped all around. I cut the parts for the sliding mechanism from the same nine ply center piece. I just used the part that was under the neck. I had to remove a lot of wood there anyway. And I routed some slots for the pickup screws and the pickup wiring I sawed a hole for the pickup in the part that was going to be the frame. Plus I routed the back side, so the plate with the pickup would fit in nicely.

I started out with a big mahogany neck blank. I went to a friend who has a saw table and cut it into four long pieces. Plus I bought some maple veneer to put in between those pieces. I had another piece of slightly darker mahogany lying around, which I used for the middle. It was a bit of a puzzle because there were two tiny) knots in the blank that I would rather avoid in the new laminated blank. I made sure they were in the outer ends of the blank. Next I routed the truss rod channel. And chiseled out the part where the spoke wheel goes. Sawed the neck blank into a rough shape for the neck, headstock paddle and the middle part of the body. Bought a nice piece of rosewood. And drilled holes for the position dots. Glued them in and sanded them flush with the fretboard in tjhe correct radius of 16".

I have just finished my latest bass build. It's the Brooks Grabbird. This bass combines the 1964 Gibson Thunderbird II with the 1973 Gibson Grabber. It features a nine ply neck through construction just like the Thunderbird. But with strips of maple veneer in between the mahogany, instead of walnut. The nickel covered humbucker resembles the pickup of the sixties Thunderbird. But the sliding mechanism in the raised middle section refers to the Grabber of course. The shape of the headstock echoes the Grabber headstock, but the ebony veneer on top is a nod to the Thunderbird headstock. The shorter headstock and the Ultra-lite tuners make sure it doesn't suffer any neckdive! Specs: - Neck through with figured mahogany body wings - Nine ply mahogany/maple neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Cherry 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 - Sliding Thunderbird pickup nickel. 9.2 K Ohm - Hipshot ultralite nickel plated tuners - Volume pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Tone pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Kemet capacitor 47 nF paper insulation - D'Addario Nickel plated Roundwound 45-105

Not exactly a Fenderbird like Peter Cook made them. It's my take on the theme of a hybrid between a classic Gibson and a classic 7ender I call it Telebird:

Here's another one. Also named Gibson Les Paul Bass. The body shape is slightly different. It's a prototype. And another one. Epi Jack Casady signature (which is actually a Les Paul Signature Bass reissue. I mounted a Gibson Les Paul Bass pickup, because I wasn't impressed with the Electar.

They sound rather different. The Gibson Les Paul Bass has the unsurpassed low impedance stacked humbuckers. Dead quiet, very even across the tonal spectrum. From crystal clear highs to super tight and deep lows. They work very well together creating a sort of a subtle and natural compression. The Entwistle pickups are good but quite different. They sound more generic and less well defined in the higher frequencies. They do sound deep but just with less definition. When ran together the pickups do not create the subtle compression of the Gibson lo-z humbuckers. But all in all it's a well built bass. Haven't played it much yet though...

I love Les Paul Bass guitars. My all time favorite is my 1969 Gibson Les Paul Bass. Short scale with Lo-z pickups. I love it so much that I built another one myself, but I used Lo-z Gibson Les Paul guitar pickups and controls. The real Gibson is the lower bass in the pic. The upper bass is the one built. The first Brooks that I built is also inspired on my favorite bass. same shape and scale length. But with different pickups and a maple top. The Gibson Triumph (aka Les Paul Bass) is long gone. I had to sell it when I was in between jobs seven years ago. The Allen Woody Signature aka Rumblekat was a lovely bass. But didn't feel as substantial as the Gibson Les Paul Bass (to me). Sold it. The Magic is an old Dutch bass (1963), built in the town near to where I was born. Bought it for sentimental reasons. But it was practically unplayable. Sold it. This Japanese CBS bass was built for the Australian market in the 1970's. Found it on Ebay. As rare as hen's teeth. Kept it for about ten years. Sold it three years ago, because I didn't really use it much and i wanted to make room for new bass builds. Gibson GFB bass. Long scale monster! Also pretty rare. Sold it to make room for new bass builds Revelation RLB. Clever clone of the Gibson Les Paul Bass. But with different wiring. Great quality for not too much money. Couldn't resist buying it when it popped up at a second hand website.

Wow! never seen one before.

I made a new video. I wasn't very happy with the recording quality of the first one. It has too much distortion in the low end. I didn't have any proper recording equipment to go into the iMac. Now at least the the sound quality has improved a bit. 😂

Thank you. I use acrylic lacquer from spray cans that I buy at Action, which is a super cheap supermarket. Per can only € 2. But I use a lot of them per instrument. I build up a few layers, then I sand it, spray again, sand it, ad nauseum. The final step is sanding it with finer paper 500 > 1000 > 1500 grit. Then polish it with polishing compound and a foam pad on my Makita accu-drill. Last step is a very soft cloth with some carnauba wax. With figured maple you don't need to do any grain filling. The grain is so tight, the paint won't keep sinkin' in, like it does with mahogany.

Indeed. They are not Gibson bodies. They don't even feature the raised middle section.

Thank you. Haven't built a short scale in years. But it wouldn't be a problem of course. I personally love short scale bass guitars. If anyone would ask me to build a short scale bass for him/her, I'd surely love to. The first three bass guitars that I built were all short scale: Brooks -1 The first one I ever built. 2009 Acoustic Fretless My goal was to build an acoustic bass that would be loud enough to compete with an acoustic guitar without amplifying. So I gave it a very big body (wide and deep). I used a bass bar and a staple, just like a Cello. The experiment failed. The bass is not loud enough. Les Paul Bass This is not a real Gibson bass. I built it myself after my personal favorite: the 1969 Les Paul Bass I tried to stay as close to the real thing as possible. Except it uses guitar pickups and controls

Haha, It's a table model. Not really that heavy.

And I've made a quick video of the new bass. Just me noodling on the EB-N. But you get an idea of the sounds 😉

Taped off the body to do some pore filling on the mahogany Next I stained the top a light brown colour to make the flame pop Sanded it back to get a bit of contrast After much deliberation I chose blue (other options were bright red and naturel) Stained the back the same colour. But oddly enough the colour simply disappeared after several layers of clear coat... Looks almost black now. Top after a few coats of clear lacquer

Routed the neck pocket Used the smoked oak veneer too for the headstock (completely invisible in the end result...) Test fitting the neck pocket And checking the neck angle Cut the slot for the nut Once the angle was correct, I glued the neck onto the body

Drilled holes for the side dot markers Making the 12 position side marker And glueing in the other side dots Side dots sanded flush with the side of the fretboard

Used a coarse rasp and a file to shape the contouring Routed the pickup cavity Chiseled the corners to make it a clean fit fort the Lace Alumitone Drilled some more holes Routed the back for the control cover

Glued the fret board onto the rough shape of the neck Beginning to look like a proper neck Working on the control cavity And routed the channel for the pickup wires Next I glued a thin veneer of smoked oak as a contrasting layer in between the mahogany and the maple Made a template out of MDF for the body shape Glued the bookmatched set of flamed maple onto the body Routed the shape of the body

Found a huge blank of beautifully figured mahogany. Can take at least four bass bodies out if this one. And found a nice bookmatched set of flamed maple for the top. Plus a pre slotted ebony fretboard Drilled holes for the position markers and glued them in Cut a short piece off an aluminium tube for the 12th fret position marker Sanded it all flush to the right radius Sawed the fret slots to the right width and depth Filed a tiny angle to the slots to make the frets fit in nicely Cut the frets and hammered them in

I'll post some pics of the build process. Starting with a pic of the quarter sawn neck blank that I cut into four pieces on the saw table of a friend of mine. Next is three pieces of that neck blank with two strips of American walnut veneer in between that are going to make a five ply Glueing them together. Lots of clamps Used an old fashioned saw to cut the headstock angle Routed the truss rod channel And chiseled the shape of the spokewheel

I've completed the build of a new bass. Unlike other Brooks basses that I've built this does not feature a mix of a classic Gibson bass with another non-Gibson classic. The Brooks EB-N is an original design that I came up with in an attempt to give it a bit of a classic vibe without referring to well known designs. BROOKS EB-N - One piece mahogany body - Smoked oak constrasting veneer in between layer - Bookmatched flamed maple top - Five ply quartersawn mahogany/American walnut neck - Ebony fretboard - Mother of Pearl position marker dots. 12th circle inlay - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Zero fret and buffalo horn nut - Babicz FCH4 bridge - Spokewheel double action trussrod - Lace Alumitone Bass Bar - Gotoh GB 707 bass tuners - Push-pull volume pot for humbucking or single coil - CTS tone pot

This 1997 Leland Sklar Signature Bass was designed by Mike McGuire and the Gibson Custom Division. Sklar only played this bass for a fleeting moment in his career (if at all). Not too sure that Lee Sklar ever took it too serious either, as in interviews he quickly forgot about mentioning it. Which is a bit unusual for a dedicated signature model...