I have no woodworking skills at all. What could possibly go wrong?

[Owen]

I am really not sure where the best place for this kind of question is, but this is the closest to a luthier forum on here.

I have an itch to build a bass. As I said, I have very few woodworking skills, but a local luthier is going to suffer me messing about in his workshop and give me guidance.

My first question (I know I can ask him, but really I am in such early stages that I am just sniffing around) is how heavy is Elm?

I fancy doing something with wood which looks like this

[url="https://www.facebook.com/benjamin.crowe2#!/photo.php?fbid=10150680909650760&set=a.10150659138380760.492933.601360759&type=3&theater"]https://www.facebook...&type=3[/url]

https://www.facebook.com/benjamin.crowe2#!/photo.php?fbid=10150680904050760&set=a.10150659138380760.492933.601360759&type=3&theater


because the grain is flowing and lush. I want one solid piece of wood, not a top on something else. Am I going to regret it on weight grounds?

Edited February 13, 2012 by owen

[Dom in Dorset]

I don't remember elm being that heavy, probably about the same as oak. There's still a fair amount of dead elms around here, I used to use them for firewood, they do tend to be quite wormy (having been dea for many years)

[BassBus]

Found this on the net, might be of some use.

[url="http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html"]http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html[/url]

Might also be worth your while looking into the tonal properties of different woods. I'm sure your luthier friend can help you there.

[url="http://www.koolauukulele.com/woods.html"]http://www.koolauukulele.com/woods.html[/url]

[scojack]

Elm will be fine as a one piece imho, as Dom sais it's not particularly heavy. .(I quite like it myself ).
I have seen it used like this before (cant remember where though ...).

Edited February 14, 2012 by scojack

[Owen]

The BC Massiv have spoken. It shall be Elm.

Where do I get a nice piece of Elm?

I am new at this. Can you tell?

[charic]

This looks promising... I'm clueless too though!

[url="http://www.scottishwood.co.uk/stock.htm"]http://www.scottishwood.co.uk/stock.htm[/url]

[Dom in Dorset]

I had always assumed that it was only available as salvaged floor boards since Dutch Elm Disease.
I did a google search for "elm timber" and found a few results, mainly in Scottland. It seams that there are a few places that still have mature elms, as soon as the disease is spotted they are felled.
Our old house had elm floors in some rooms (oak was reserved for ship building at several times in the past) it is realy beautiful.

[Owen]

OK. I seem to have sourced some wood, but just trying to get some measurements together. What I fancy doing it cutting the pickup cover from the wood of the body so that the grain will be kind of unbroken. I would route the inside of the extracted block to make a housing. Obviously I use the words "I" here in a non-literal sense. I am thinking of having a mahoosive 2 x J + 1 x P pick up set in one housing so that it is all a kind of pretty large ramp set up. How difficult would it be to cut the wood out to do this? I am thinking of going neck through which will mean that I can dig out bits of the back without worrying about getting it super tidy on the back of the instrument. I cannot see how I could lift wood out of the front, but I see basses with pick-up covers which are obviously continuations of the body wood. Is this just exotic top stuff that is easier to do or could I do it with a solid piece of wood. It might be possible but, as I have already mentioned, I am a woodworking numpty and cannot see how it would work.

[velvetkevorkian]

Could you mount the pickups from the rear and therefore not take any wood out the top at all? I'm sure I've seen this done but I have no idea where or by whom This would work especially well if you could have the neck sit lower on the body than on a normal bass (because you don't need to clear the pickups).

[Dom in Dorset]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1330211291' post='1554273']
OK. I seem to have sourced some wood, but just trying to get some measurements together. What I fancy doing it cutting the pickup cover from the wood of the body so that the grain will be kind of unbroken. I would route the inside of the extracted block to make a housing. Obviously I use the words "I" here in a non-literal sense. I am thinking of having a mahoosive 2 x J + 1 x P pick up set in one housing so that it is all a kind of pretty large ramp set up. How difficult would it be to cut the wood out to do this? I am thinking of going neck through which will mean that I can dig out bits of the back without worrying about getting it super tidy on the back of the instrument. I cannot see how I could lift wood out of the front, but I see basses with pick-up covers which are obviously continuations of the body wood. Is this just exotic top stuff that is easier to do or could I do it with a solid piece of wood. It might be possible but, as I have already mentioned, I am a woodworking numpty and cannot see how it would work.
[/quote]
Your idea for the pick up cover (if I understand you correctly) quadruples the difficulties and skill level required. I can't think how you'd extract a block of wood in a condition that it could still be presentable/usable . Elm is also a very grainy , I wouldn't fancy working down to less than 7-8mm in thickness and there is a serious risk of it distorting after it's been shaped. It might be possible to get some elm veneer?

[Owen]

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' timestamp='1330227310' post='1554389']
Could you mount the pickups from the rear and therefore not take any wood out the top at all? I'm sure I've seen this done but I have no idea where or by whom This would work especially well if you could have the neck sit lower on the body than on a normal bass (because you don't need to clear the pickups).
[/quote]

I guess that means the whole of the body could be like a ramp then! Tragically it looks like Dom's reply suggests that the wood would not be stable enough to take down to the thinness needed. But you never know until you ask I am not too worried about the difficulty of the woodworking becuase the luhier who will be doing the tricky stuff can treat wood like paper and do bonkers things with it. I guess it will be a large pickup housing then, like the Enfield (?) basses Simms make. I can live with that.

[Dom in Dorset]

In my line of work I mainly use tight grained , dense timber (boxwood, African Blackwood, ebony and several indigenous fruit woods) you can work that stuff like metal or plastic. You luthier might be able to achieve what you are after in elm (I'm a metal worker that's learned wood turning) but my experience of courser timbers would suggest otherwise. It's still worth running the idea by him, it might be possible to rout out the internal cavity, glue the pickups in before reducing the thickness from the outside.

[Owen]

>it might be possible to rout out the internal cavity, glue the pickups in before reducing the thickness from the outside.

Now that makes sense. I could see that working as the installed gubbins would actually give the wood the support needed.

The veneer idea is interesting but not really what I am after. I love to follow grain patterns in wood. Nice grain as attractive as figured stuff for me. It is like the movement of birds flying in flocks and stuff. I have just installed a 13 foot piece of 2" solid Oak as a windowsill. I can happily sit there just idly following the grain patterns. What I was thinking was that I (!!!!!)) could create the pickup cover from the wood in a way that would use the grain that was there and it would be a sort of continuation or development of the original grain patterns. The guy who is going to help me is building me a Bass Electric Uke at the moment and is using a 4mm Burr Elm top so I am guessing that this is technically do-able, even though the initial cut might be pretty scary.

Thanks for letting me bounce ideas around.