Short Scale Telebass

[Jabba_the_gut]

This is going to be a slow build - I'll only be doing work on it in between DIy and other builds.

So a few years back at the SW Bass Bash @Rich gave me a piece of hardwood from an old window that looked like it might be useful to make a neck from. Last year at another bass bash @Frank Blank gave me a couple of pieces of hardwood that 'might be useful' to me. The pieces weren't quite big enough to make a standard body from so I put them to one side.

I saw a picture of a Telecaster bass using what looked like a Telecaster guitar. which I thought looked interesting. I checked the dimensions and still the larger piece of hardwood Frank gave me was still just a little narrow. After a quick scrat through the offcuts I had, I found a piece long enough to make up the difference and end up with a body bank of a suitable size.

My initial plan for this is for the bass to be passive using a Retrovibe Mudbucker pickup with coil tapping, hardware I already have (generic elephant ear tuners, Wilkinson bridge, Telecaster scratchplate, Telecaster control plate) and for it to be 30" scale (as that seems to suit the shorter body size). There's a good chance something will change along the way but this is something a bit different for me!

So first up, I cut the man piece in half and tried the offcut to make up the centre section. 

I thicknessed all three pieces to 45mm then flipped the two halves to get the grain running in opposite directions. The centre section was tried with the grain running quarter sawn in between the two wings.

This ended up with a block big enough for a Telecaster body. The offcut for the centre section has turned out being very similar to the wings which is a bonus. I've dried clamped this to make sure it all lines up.

I've also thicknessed the neck wood. This has highlighted a couple of small faults in the wood but nothing that can't be worked around.

Next task for this will be to glue the blank up and to make templates for the body and neck but this may have to wait for a little while as I have another mini bass build in progress.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Jabba_the_gut

[JohnDaBass]

Wow, following this sounds interesting. 

[Frank Blank]

I’m in.

[Reggaebass]

 Nice work 👍

[Jabba_the_gut]

I drilled a couple of holes for wiring options then glued the body together and applied by usual five clamps:

I'm thinking something like this which will be 30" scale. 

I am toying with the idea of using some veneer on the top and on the headstock but undecided at the moment.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Jabba_the_gut

[Jabba_the_gut]

I've got some flamed maple veneer which my dad gave me years ago that might look quite nice:

The other option I'm thinking is to use some ash veneer:

]

Anyone have any thoughts?

[3below]

In the interests of preventing 'neck dive' place the bridge as far back as possible, extend neck pocket to where the front guitar pickup is located.  Having planned (lol) and played around with a very similar idea you can use a guitar fingerboard in this configuration.  The veneer or hardwood both look good, I am thinking mahogany body and neck for mine - the licence plate cigar box 3 string I recently built finished really well with Tru-oil.  Maple, rosewood, ebony or what for the fretboard? Mine is not yet started, am awaiting arrival of some more wood.

Edited May 24, 2020 by 3below

[Rich]

14 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

I’m in.

Likewise.

[TheGreek]

That flamed maple veneer looks amazing - why would you not use it?

[Joebethell]

I'm liking the Ash you could do a take on the classic butterscotch tele style.

 

 

[wrinkleygit]

It was only a matter of time, I’m hooked as well 😃

[Owen]

Sorry I'm late guys. 

[Jabba_the_gut]

I'm still deciding which veneer to use and also looking at binding the edges (which is something I haven't done before). In the meantime, I have finished making the neck template. You'll notice that the two pilot holes for the A and D look a bit mucky. I drilled the pilot holes based on the paper template I had but they were each about 0.5mm out of line.  I filled them and redrilled them in the right place! I thinks it's always good to get the templates as accurate as possible so you don't get tolerances stacking up and something then being noticeably out of place later.

[Jabba_the_gut]

Did a little bit of work on this today. I've thicknessed the piece of wood @Rich gave me (from a window frame if believe) but it wasn't quite wide enough for the headstock so I needed to glue and additional piece on. The wood itself would be long enough to make a couple of necks but there are a couple of splits in it I needed to avoid so I'll only end up with one but that's fine - still nice to be able to recycle this.

I squared the two faces that need to be joined, glued and clamped.

Once this had set I roughly sanded the front face and marked out the neck.

Next task will be the truss rod.

 

[Rich]

3 hours ago, Jabba_the_gut said:

the piece of wood @Rich gave me (from a window frame if believe)

 

Stair banister-rail actually really glad to see it being put to such excellent use 👍

[Jabba_the_gut]

It's been a little while since I did anything to this but whilst I continue playing my mini bass instead of finishing off completely, I decided to get on with a couple of jobs on this. FIrstly, I needed to decide on what the front of this should look like. I opted for the flamed maple veneer so I can also do a matching headstock - this build is also about re-using and the maple veneer can from my dad who had this knocking around for years so sort of fits into this as it wasn't bought specifically for this build and was potentially destined for the bin as there are a few cracks in it.

I cut the cracked sections away which left me just enough width for the top. I then glued the two pieces of veneer together along the straight line I just cut. I know this sounds a bit odd as the veneer is only 0.6mm thick but I wanted to do this to give me a singe sheet to glue onto the body.

I glued along the edge of the veneer and held them with masking tape until dry.

Net up I sanded the top of the body flat ready to accept the veneer and drew the centre line. Using a gloss paint roller and wood glue I put an even coat on both the bbody and veneer them stuck them together, holding them in place with plenty of clamps!! So this is how the tope now looks  - not perfectly book matched but is fine for this project.

I'm planning on having a black scratch plate on this, only because I got given one and I want to re-use that too!! Here's a mack-up of how that might look:

But I also tried it without the scratch plate and that looks kind of nice too!!

Decision, decisions,...

[Rich]

No plate, deffo. It's a shame to cover up that beautiful flame.

[SpondonBassed]

The exciting bit of the flame is not covered by the pickguard so I'd have it.

[spacecowboy]

My vote is for no plate... Or a plexi plate so the grain is still visible?

[PaulThePlug]

whats the switch (slot in the switch n knob plate) gonna switch?

No plate... maybe rear route for V n T?

[Andyjr1515]

That's a stunning piece of veneer. Good choice of orientation too.  Looks like arrow feathers

[stewblack]

With plate. Plenty of maple on view, black plate provides an excellent contrast of both shape, colour and material. 

[JohnDaBass]

No plate. Cool, understated, beautiful veneered top.

Looking forward to seeing the finished bass.

[Pea Turgh]

Magnetically fitted plate?  Best of both worlds!

[Jabba_the_gut]

Cheers for all the comments.

The switch will be for some form of coil switching - it's a four wire pickup ( Retrovibe mudbucker) so will allow for series or parallel humbucker. If I can, I'll also wire for a single coil option probably in the neck position. I've generally built active basses but after the passive mini-bass I just finished with coil switching, I've heard how much variation you can get so I'll head the same way with this one.

I'm leaning towards not having a scratch plate as the flame is growing on me! I will cut the scratch plate to size but not drill the screw holes and then I can decide at the time. I like the idea of a magnetically fitted plate - maybe one for the future as I would need to install the magnets prior to doing the veneer. As you can get neo magnet discs that are only 0.5mm thick that really could be an option.

I want to put some form of binding on this as I think it will look pretty decent but also I haven't done it before so would like to give it a go. I'm thinking this will need a bit of practice on some scrap first!!