PhilR Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 (edited) This was inspired most obviously by the bass made famous by Les Claypool of Primus, which was made sometime in the mid 70's by Brooklyn luthier Carl Thompson. I made a number of changes. The original was built from mahogany, curly maple & walnut. Mine is made from sepele, regular maple, fumed ash, wenge & paduak. Mostly because I either already had those woods or could source them easily. The original was a 32" scale with wayy too many frets but mine is a 24-fret 34" scale. Below is my design, both my trace of the original and the modifications I made to the shape to tweak the bits that didn't quite work for me. These are the raw materials and the body blank being glued. The core section was actually a glued up sandwich of ash & figured sepele that was originally going to be for a different project, but that didn't work out and I figured I may as well make use. The neck laminates were mostly offcuts, so I'll be scarf jointing the headstock which is a first for me. The body blank then gets flattened in my router sled. The the shape is rough cut on the bandsaw, and routed to the final outline using an MDF template. Then the edges get a roundover cut. Then I draw on the contour lines, and get to work on carving. The really big carves I do with an angle grinder & flap disk, and the rest with a shinto sawblade rasp and a drum sander. Last pic with a wipe down with shellac to seal it and pop the grain. To the neck! The laminate strips have been glued & planed. The fretboard is radiused, slotted & tapered. Scarf joint is glued & shaping underway. I cut the neck pocket by forming a template around the neck itself. This gets routed in and the neck glued and clamped in place. Much drum sanding to shape the neck heel, and some refining of the headstock shape. Cavities are routed in, and after sanding to about 220-300 grit, the french polishing process begins. Then we've just got fret dressing & assembly to do. I made some last tweaks to the headstock, and made the nut from scrap paduak & truss rod cover from wenge. The pickup is a Wilkinson WJM with the vari-tone wiring I found on this forum. And here's the finished result. Gotta say that I'm super happy with how this one turned out. Ergonomically it's pretty much bang on, and really comfortable to play. Now, if only I can nail that riff from "Tommy The Cat".... Edited October 26, 2020 by PhilR 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Do you ever sleep? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilR Posted October 26, 2020 Author Share Posted October 26, 2020 8 minutes ago, owen said: Do you ever sleep? It's lunchtime, why would I be sleeping? 😜 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songofthewind Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Crikey, great work. How long did it take you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilR Posted October 26, 2020 Author Share Posted October 26, 2020 42 minutes ago, songofthewind said: Crikey, great work. How long did it take you? Not including the initial design phase, I started the woodwork on the 10th of this month. So a couple of weeks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecowboy Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 That's really really nicely done! Great work!! 👌 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreek Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Love it....made to look really easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellzero Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Top notch work. 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba_the_gut Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Really nice and really quickly made!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopthebass Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Very nice.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted October 26, 2020 Share Posted October 26, 2020 Love it!!! Great work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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