TRBboy Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) Hey folks! A dream of mine for many years has been to build my own bass, from scratch. I was formally a carpenter, and I've done repairs, services, setups and mods on guitars and basses for many years. However, making the neck from scratch always scared me too much! My long time friend and guitarist/singer in my band started building guitars a few years ago, and has made quite a few now, with great results! I asked if he would help me build a bass, and at the start of this year we began. Finally, in early December we finished it, and I have already gigged it! I'm so happy with how the neck turned out, and it sounds incredible. I still have a few minor setup tweaks to resolve, and I did mess the paint job up not once but twice, so a respray might be on the cards in the spring. I had it in my head that I wanted to use native British woods, so the body is solid Poplar, and the neck and fretboard are Sycamore. It's nice and lightweight! I based the shape roughly on my old Yamaha BBN5, as it's just a good, generic, comfortable shape, but nut width, fretboard radius and string spacing are based on my Sandberg California TT5 passive. I struggled to find Alnico V PJ5 pickups at the right spacing, and was recommended Catswhisker pickups. Allan did a fantastic job, and they sound amazing! I'm really pleased with it, and I really look forward to playing it more next year! I'll try to take some better photos when I can. I did mess up the paint job not once, but twice, so a respray is probably on the cards in the spring! 😅 Specs: Solid Poplar body Sycamore neck and fretboard Black dot inlays Dual action truss rod with carbon fibre reinforcing bars Gotoh hardware Graphtech nut Custom Catswhisker Alnico V PJ5 pickups VBT 'no load' passive controls Lychee pink Matt finish Edited January 1 by TRBboy 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 That's lovely, especially for a first attempt. Well done. I have a lot of respect for people who can craft things like this as I possess no skills whatsoever to even begin to start something of this nature, let alone finish it. Loving the colour too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreek Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 21 minutes ago, TRBboy said: the body is solid Poplar, and the neck and fretboard are Sycamore. It's nice and light My Psilos are made of similar timbers. As you say, nice and light. Yamaha shapes are very ergonomic and usable. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocco Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 This looks amazing! I'd really like to do something like this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thump Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Oh that is nice! If this is something you will continue to do , i would be interested for the future 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRBboy Posted January 1 Author Share Posted January 1 22 minutes ago, Thump said: Oh that is nice! If this is something you will continue to do , i would be interested for the future Thank you, I'm flattered! If I had the time and facilities to be able to make basses for people I'd love to, but really can't see it happening in the near future. 😔 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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