SamIAm

After really enjoying building Twiggy I'm enbarking on a second build (Boy is this compulsive!). Twiggy was a prototype made from a 2x4, she is lovely ... but a few things came up. Hey body has developed a crack. I was too ... enthusiastic ... carving the neck leaving me without adequate room to safely install a truss rod and my neck relief seems to increase weekly, tuning is a nightmare! I did not have enough room to house the electronics. I've decided I want an EndurNeck™ .strandberg* style neck, By pure luck, Twiggy's is close but not quite right, albeit very comfortable ... careful use of a CAD design will assist me here. Pine is not unattractive, but I'm going for Maple this time, both for appearance and stability. I found my multiscale approach was suboptimal. Lessons learned I can build a bass, she plays well and sounds nice (I've rotosound tru bas strings and they are gorgeous) it's been quiet a buzz the number of folks who come up after the gig to enquire what sort of bass she is. Plan 5 times, cut/carve once (or even 0.2 times and repeat) I can get a good sound tension from a 30 B0 STRING. Multiscale is hard, I don't like to look at the front of the fingerboard and I find it hard to figure the fret positions from just my side markings, esp for the treble side strings. Not using a trussrod -> too much relief so action is too high for comfortable playing. Similar to Twiggy 5 string fretless. Single piece construction Short scale of about 730mm Minimal overall length Changes for Flo Through documentation so I can remember everything for the next build lol Template based neck shape with adequate space for a truss rod. Loosely based on the Milled single aluminium string anchor at the head end. Finer threads on the tuners to allow for better tuning control, I mill mill the whole things and cut/die my own thread. Adequate width/depth in the body section to allow for embedding of electronics. Nice brass insert side fret markers, tho I am considering glow in the dark for dim environments. Battery state indicator. Some shape to bottom (or fold down support) to facilitate seated playing. I love the .strandberg cutouts bu fear the weight, perhaps some cavities/cutouts will keep the weight down. Self mad pickup. (No idea how just yet) Addition of piezo pickups (No idea how just yet) LED based side fret markers. I spoke to David Dyk of luthiersupplies.co.uk, (Thanks to @3below & @Andyjr1515 for pointing him out) what a delightful fellow! Their production centre is only 25miles from here and I was kindly invited to view the facility and even select some wood! So in the next week or so will begin the tale of Flo! S'manth x

I built Twiggy, a 5 string fretless shortscale from a 2x4. So much fun that I've decided to try again with another ... Flo - A 5 string fretless EBB5 homemade shortscale bass( Diary will be here) and I intend to document as much as I can. I thought woodwork and shaping was beyond me at 60 but it turned out to be so enjoyable and relaxing. I'm blessed to have received much support from BCers and I know have access to a fairly complete woor/metal/electronics workshop so am kicking things up a notch. I've often pondered winding my own pickups and wondered if folks could direct me at any useful resources, offer advice and experience to support me in this undertaking. I've a fair amount of experience in digital electronics but nil in analogue so it seems rather daunting, but the thought of doing so really appeals! S'manth x

Hear you! I'm an NHS critical care nurse. The seemingly random shifts I work play havoc with rehearsals ... for gigs I have to book leave. But playing (albeit badly) does feed my soul ... so I make it work. S'manth x

Just received a HX Effects I bought from @Yan_Huriey. Transaction was so smooth it was unbelievable! A day after paying, he posted the unit and I received it today. Packaging was superb and the unit itself was exactly as described. Would deal with him again without any hesitation ... top class BC'er. S'manth x

I sold my HX Stomp to @Steve Woodcock today. What a delightful fellow! He popped down to Brighton today, was able to play with the Stomp and we chatted ... a lot! Cannot rate too highly how well the whole transaction went. S'manth

That had not even crossed my mind. I shall explore it further, thank you!

@Andyjr1515, those figures gave me hope! Routing the back of the neck I can do with a CNC machine. However, I measured incorrectly! The distal end is indeed 15mm thick, however (either to allow extra space for the mounting screws or simply as I got too enthusiastic with my neck shaping) upon measuring at various points along the neck I've found that the minimum thickness drops to 13mm and runs for 14mm ... and that this is at the thickest section, the profile has a triangular shape and it drops off either side. Having said that, it strikes me that when correcting for too much relief (My situation) the truss rod force acts towards the rear of the neck at the most distal and proximal ends and towards the front of the neck in the middle of the trussrod. I'm thinking that I could either add a bigger section of wood at the distal end of the neck (A bit like the lump found at the end of Strandberg neck) or add a aluminium plate over that end. What length of the neck does a trussrod run? From zero-fret to joint with body? S'manth x

@tauzero, thanks. I'm unclear as to whether the truss cable would need to exert less/same/more tension than the sum of the string tensions (On Twiggy, with TruBass Flatwounds it is under 95kg. Rotosound quote 207.5lbs, but that is for long scale length and Twiggy, being a short scale, will have a lower tension); I'm guessing it will be less. So I'm aiming for a truss cable that will allow up to 100kg of tension (or a pair of 50kg each). Regarding insertion of pipes/carbon fibre supports (Also @3below) the issues I see here is twofold; 1) No adjustability; 2) Upon insertion and whilst glue dries I would need to have the neck at the exact relief I wanted and this might be problematic to do. @Random Guitarist, very interesting perspective. The neck cross section looks like this. The yellow box is 45mm by 15mm. This is the extreme at the zero-nut end, it gets thicker as it approaches the body (abt 60mm by 20mm) ... neither offer a high proportion of the original 2x4 cross section. A 2x4 I see is 38mm by 89mm -> 3382mm^2 My thinnest neck profile is perhaps 75% of 45mm by 15mm -> apx 500mm^2 If the load bearing is directly proportional to cross sectional area than it suggests it can cope with only 150lbs, less than I already have acting on the neck. I wnoder what sort of 'safety factor' is in that 1,000 lbs. S'manth x

Amazing ... I've an aim of building all my own kit (Bass mostly done, effects system progressing nicely) and a cab is on the list, this is inspirational in that respect!

I've built myself a bass out of a 2x4. (Build diary) her name is Twiggy. She started as a pure prototype with a bit of wood I had lying around, to try out some ideas, to have a play ... but as I've put more work into her I've fallen in love. Her neck is asymmetrical, quite thin and ... is starting to develop a bit too much relief. The idea of installing a truss rod simply did not occur to me at the start (She was just a prototype); now I rue this lack of foresight; there is not enough depth to accommodate a truss rod near the zero-fret end of the neck. I got to thinking/pondering and wanted to throw my thoughts out here to benefit from the collective wisdom of BC. Without any strings, my neck would probably remain fairly flat. The strings apply a force that is pulling the neck into a bow shape providing relief, but this relief is too much and so my action is too high. The extremely silly thought experiment of putting a set of strings on the rear of the neck to counter this got me thinking ... I was reminded of the rigging on sailing craft that needs to be light and strong. Why not route a channel (or even two parallel channels) into the back of the neck, say 5mm deep, lay in stainless steel cable of 2.5mm diameter and tension this up to apply a counter force to the 'playing cables' (strings!) then drop a 2mm strip of wood in to hide the cable (Skunk stripe style). Any lateral forces would be applied towards the fingerboard so having such a thin piece of covering would not be a problem. The zero-fret end of the cable would have a fitting that would be anchored to the neck, perhaps something like this: These are rated with a breaking point of 165kg and my total string tension is about 95kg. At the body end I'd need some sort of screw to adjust the tension and an anchoring system, probably run the cable right down to the end of the body with an exposed adjustment hex bolt accessed from the end. I've found a UK supplier of bits (https://www.tecni.uk/) and their costs are quite low, well under £10 for a complete assembly. I could increase the depth of the cable slot at the ends, shallow in the middle to introduce an arc along the length of the cable which I think would impart some mechanical advantage (not sure of the proper technical term) I've been unable to find much on google about this topic, one thread discussing it (), suggesting that they thought that Ken Parker might have investigated this approach with his Fly bass but ... Pros Able to be installed in a thin neck Low cost Light weight Flexible Cons Untried Others ??? Thoughts/views/experience welcome. S'manth x

Thanks @Andyjr1515! I am definitely not looking at installing a 'trad' truss rod, I intend a 'dual action using a flat slot' type. Is there any reason that this cannot be installed using a 'back of neck' approach? I'd route a flat slot (deep enough to take the truss rod plus the extra 6-8mm for the skunk stripe insert) and the necessary extra cutouts to accommodate the adjustment nut, pop in the truss rod and then (like gluing on a fingerboard) glue in a skunk stripe. I'm still going back and forth on how I feel about a 'single piece with truss rod (and possibly a pair of carbon fibre rods to maximise stability) inserted from the rear ' vs a 'single piece with fingerboard' vs 'two piece veneer with fingerboard'. Hmmm ... I really like the idea of having some lovely grain showing on the front of the body, but not sure that is the best thing for the fingerboard; this would point me towards having a separate fingerboard that is glued to the front of a slab cut neck/body. Would having a separate fingerboard add structural stability to the neck (and perhaps obviate any need for carbon fibre rods)? S'manth x

We (The band I'm in) had our first recent 'outing' on Sat, we played open air to entertain the folks waiting for the start of the Pride march in Worthing. It was a beautiful day and the crowd seemed to enjoy it (perhaps almost as much as we did!). I became aware of a few things: 1) twiggy is light, wonderfully so! I took Ponty (My shop bought 4 str short scale) along 'just in case' as this was twiggy's first outing ... didn't need him, but I realised how much heavier he is than twiggy ... I've a bad back so it was a blessing. Flo will probably be a bit heavier as I'll be using harder wood, with a similar design to twiggy, tho the 'body' will be a few cm wider and thicker to allow me to house the electronics fully in the wood. 2) My battery powered Roland Micro Bass Cube cannot compete with any noise, I had it cranked up to 11 (with my effects box gain up to pre-distortion levels) and even then the band member at the other end of the lineup could not hear me! I took advantage of the recent Prime Day sale and just received a small inverter and lithium battery so I can use my more powerful Ant + Mighty Mini combo for our next gig (We might even have power there) 3) The 'grab the ball end of the strings' mechanism on my tuners are failing ... the stress is just too much for the Nylon 3D printed parts. As a result I was struggling to keep my D2 in tune; one advantage of a fretless was I could make an allowance for it in my finger positioning but still ... So I set out to replace them; I decided to go for Aluminium replacements ... I bought a small block of stock and after a bit of CADding I fired up Xena. xena.mp4 Even at the mildest of cutting depths, this task is wavering around the upper limits of what she is capable of ... so I decided to finish them off by hand. I must say, it was not a great finishing job I managed, but they work and seem very solid. I've redesigned them to be fully CNC'd next time and sometime over the next week or so I'll pop into the MakerSpace where we have a more robust CNC machine and then they'll look quite nice. S'manth x PS, this is us finishing our set after the march participants departed, you can make out the tones of twiggy! Qukulele.m4v

Thanks @tauzero, the AGC thread is excellent reading! S'manth x

Thank you @3below, both videos were informative (and I've now queued up a list of others by Ben Crowe to also watch). Very cool idea about leveraging the laminate layer for the truss rod ... if I do laminate then I will use that approach. After looking at loads of necks on google I'm becoming less inclined simply because I prefer the visual appearance of a single piece fingerboard. S'manth x

@3below and @Andyjr1515 ... thank you both! I've spoken to Luthier Supplies, how very helpful they were! They said they can produce a custom cut for me if I send in the details. My discussion tho did pose me a couple of ... points ... for consideration, I wonder if anyone has any pointers. My approach of using a single piece of wood for the neck was questioned, it was suggested that it is more common to glue two or more splices. Will this result in a superior (stronger or more stable) neck? I'd prefer to not go to the trouble if it is not significantly better. It was suggested it was more common to use a separate glued on fingerboard, 1) ensuring the strings are sufficiently far from the front of the body to clear the pups was a reason for this as well as 2) hiding the truss rod. In my twiggy prototype, I embedded the pup into the 'body' to provide clearance. 2) I plan to use a rear-installed truss rod with a skunk stripe. I foresee that the 'finishing' of the stripe can be incorporated into my working the rear of the neck to form the profile. Are either of these choices a ... mistake? S'manth x

I've been quite busy hence the long gap since my last update. As well as starting back clinically at work (Bedside critical care nurse) the band I'm in are doing our first performances since covid changed our world ... this has meant loads of practicing (I'm not all that experienced so for me it is simple stuff I need to get right ... and I will be gigging with twiggy so I'm getting used to a 5 string fretless) but also offered me a power challenge! I've taken to using a Helix Stomp with an Ashdown Ant, lovely sound but it ties me to mains power (Or a too costly battery/inverter combo). We are going to "entertain the troops" getting ready for a Pride march next week and we have a b'day party garden gig at the end of July ... for both, the presence of mains power is doubtful. So I did some research and have built, printed a case for and assembled a multi-effects device (I call it effectlåda) that runs off a USB power brick ... measurements so far indicate I should get about 10h out of it on a single charge; my first Amp was a Roland Micro Bass (now glad I didn't sell it!) which can run of batteries also so I'm now good for power, and for our setup it should be plenty loud enough. An added bonus (That I have been trying to implement for a while) is the ability to playback simple drum backing to some of our songs, in fact I can plug in my USB midi keyboard and select from a wide range of synth plugins (FluidSynth soundfont based/DX7/DX10/Etc) ... effectlåda runs patchbox os on a Raspberry pi, this offers a slightly modified version of the Moddevices software (Tho a couple of versions older and not as powerful) ... the audio quality is not quite on a par with my Stomp and the tuners I've found so far for the system are rather crap but the combo of effectlåda and micro bass will do the job nicely for our gigs. Despite all this I've still made some progress with twiggy. I've now put a set of Rotosound tru bass black tape wound strings (60-135) on her and OMG ... they sound glorious! I had a bit of a disaster as my "head" mounting system started to fail; I had to redesign/rebuild it ... I was very fortunate to be able to do this without sacrificing the strings ... phew! Once I've figured out how to capture audio with the effectlåda, I'll post some recordings up. I've also modified the way I mounted the saddles, cutting slots to hold them (used my baby CNC machine, which did a great job). This has had the dual benefit of lowering my saddle action and also much reduced the risk of a saddle slipping out and getting lost. I'm now starting to get concerned about twiggy's neck stability, I might try to install a truss rod but I think I may have made the neck too thin at the head end to give me sufficient depth ... but I am now starting to look at moving onto Flo proper. Given my experience with twiggy I feel that a B0 scale length of 780mm works well for me and whilst twiggy is a couple of inches longer than I had intended for Flo, I will probably use a very similar layout for Flo, but with higher quality wood and most likely off the shelf tuners. I've reconsidered my earlier idea of using a pulley system to take the tuners to the rear (Both shortening the length overall and allowing me to hide the tuners); twiggy is really nice and light but dows not sit easily on my knee and there is nowhere to rest my (R) forearm ... I'm pondering giving Flo a body shape like twiggy's but adding in a fold out stand (Like the Steinberger Spirit) or implement the ability to affix a "body expander", bolting it to the rear of the "body" section of Flo ... this could be wood or even 3D printed. S'manth x

Hi, I am now looking to make a neck for my bass guitar project Flo. I've played with a pine 2x4 and been surprised that the making of the neck (fretless!) was within my limited abilities (Tho it won't win any prizes for look or feel). My goals One piece Thru-Neck design Headless Fretless Scale length of 780mm Asymmetric profile Wood/Cut Would appreciate your views on this. Considering Maple or Wenge. Not sure which (if wither) will be 'better' for the fingerboard. Strengthening/Adjustment I plan to fit a truss rod (from the rear with a) , not sure what length I should use ... I see it is fairly easy to buy a dual action as long as 650mm ... is that suitable or is it too long? Am I correct that a dual action means I can cut a flat (not curved) slot for the rod? Is there much to guide a choice between hex/slotted/disk adjuster? Given an asymmetric profile, Is it worth installing two truss rods? I'd like to avoid any twisting of the neck but am concerned this approach might make the neck too heavy; combined with a small/light body I might get some serious neck dive. Is it worth supplementing the truss rod(s) with carbon fibre rods? Images from https://www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas/online-resources/learn-about-truss-rod-installation-and-repair/working-with-carbon-fiber-reinforcement-materials/ Finish Ideally oiled ... is this suitable for back & fingerboard? Source I've looked and looked and am finding it difficult to identify somewhere good in the UK to buy the blank for the neck, would love your suggestions, ideally a nice looking bit of wood (Where the supplier either provides photos/choice or has a reputation for not sending out nasty stuff) that is already dried to a condition where I can start working it straight away. Given it will bass-ically (sorry!) be the neck and body of the bass, I am aiming for a blank of 60x100x900mm. There are undoubtedly other things to consider that have not even occurred to me ... I'd love to hear about any tips/suggestions/gotchas. S'manth x

The neck is thin on the treble side and thicker on the bass side and feels pretty good from a playability perspective. As you say I need to either expect a limited neck life or add in some beefiness, the latter seems most likely for sentimental reasons as well as giving me experience of another technique that I can learn from and apply to Flo.

I was very surprised also. I went for Nylon filament (Overture Easy Print Nylon to be exact) as I gather Nylon has the second highest tensile strength of 'conventional' £d filament and I printed the parts on the large side ... touch wood they seem to be holding with no ominous cracking or even creaking! I printed at 0.15mm layer height.

With Twiggy's asymmetric, thin, non reinforced pine neck I suspect that it will not be long before physics start to come into play and I get unwanted twist. I'm toying with routing out a channel to drop in a dual action truss rod, but will that help with any twist I might get? I've been surprised how much I like the feel of the fretless neck, so Flo is likely to have the same. But this time a more considered neck profile, with internal supports and truss rod. If I were to craft Flo from a single piece of wood ... which wood should I go for? Or is it a better design to go for a through body neck made from a different piece/kind of wood? With the equipment I have available at the maker space I've joined I will be able to plane/fit/joint wood and I've the clamps & space to assemble them. If I go this route, what recommendations for neck wood/body wood? I think I will got for a dark fingerboard (either stained wood or 3D printed if it works well on Twiggy) but I love the idea of the natural wood of the body showing with a protective oil (or similar) finish to give her a nice satin sheen. I feel that Twiggy is short enough for me not to have to try out the pulley system I was thinking of, tho it would allow me to hide the tuners on the rear leading to a really minimalistic look from the front. My plan for Flo is that the electronics will live in body cavities, the knobs for such will present on the top edge and be hidden (From the front view at least) by a recess. S'manth x

The Trampa-nator is not on the loose, Zena is safely quiescent on my desk, Twiggy is far from firewood. (I did laugh at the comments tho!) Things have been progressing. I reprinted the ball-end holders for the tuners; they now have an extension that sits against the 'body' to prevent them just spinning. The Nylon filament is well strong enough, but it does tend to 'string' (Hence all the fuzzy bits which I was in too much of a hurry to play and so did not file down). I also mounted some ball races to cut down on the force required to turn them; it's still not great but it's workable. In the first photo you can see I've also printed strap buttons and a case for the electronics (Well apart from the battery lol), there is an active 3 band tone control + volume in there). I've also printed a new style pup holder, the pup was sitting too high in the body forcing a crazy high action ... it's a fair bit better now. I've settled on a 780mm B0 to 740mm G2 and started to shape the neck accordingly. The neck is asymmetric (by choice) and meanders all over reflecting the relaxing just go for it hand crafting (with some one eye closed, tongue poking out, power jigsawing) I've been doing. I was so chilled, I goofed and did not leave enough space at the edge of the fingerboard so whilst my B0 is just about OK, my G2 tends sneak off the edge. With an unfinished pine fingerboard I'm not getting the flatness nor hardness of surface that I think I need, so I'm trying to print a fretboard. I've actually got a 500mm radius on it. I should be in a position to try it out in the next week or so. So ... S'manth, why have you fitted a strap!? Twiggy had her first outing to band practice on Tuesday ... the reception was warm! OMG that's amazing was repeated a few times. We are not in the habit of taking a photo at practice, this was our first time all together, our new lineup, where everyone remembered to bring their "shirt"; some 'photoshopping' to be done before they go on the web site, but you can see Twiggy! To be honest, I need to do a lot more practice with her. The longer scale length than I am used to, the fact she has 5 strings, her being multi-scale and fretless ... all new and different for me, but I'm enjoying the journey! And she sounded pretty good! We've our first "performance" in a couple of weeks (We are playing to entertain (hopefully) the folks who will be taking part in the Worthing Pride march whilst they are getting organised) ... I am hopeful Twiggy will make her first public appearance there Once I've got the fretboard printed and on I'll try to get a recording to share. S'manth x