Brooks EB-MM-Q

[Basvarken]

Just finished the build of a new bass.
It is a hybrid of a Gibson EB-0 (Les Paul Junior Double Cut) and a MusicMan Stingray.
The shape of the body and headstock are the Gibson ingredient. The scale (34"), the pickup and the bridge are the MusicMan ingredient.

Hence the name
[B]Brooks EB-MM-Q [/B]
(The Q is for Quilt)

- Mahogany body
- Bookmatched quilted maple top
- Mahogany set neck. Glued in
- Transparent black stain on top
- High gloss finish on top and headstock face
- Solid matte black on back of body and neck
- Pearloid binding
- Ebony fretboard with m.o.p. dots
- Aluminium circle 12th position marker
- Jumbo frets
- 34" scale
- Buffalo horn nut
- Guyker MM style bridge
- Spokewheel double action trussrod
- Lace MM style man o war humbucker
- Hipshot Ultralite tuners plus Bass-extender
- CTS pot Volume  Push Pull
- CTS pot Tone
- PureTone jack output
- Dunlop StrapLocks
- D'Addario Chrome Flatwound strings 50-105
- 3.75 kg

 

I'll post pics of the build process in separate posts below.

[Basvarken]

I asked my wood supplier to make a body blank of two nice slabs of Khaya (mahogany)

 

 

And a neck blank of three pieces of the same Khaya. 

 

 

 

I routed the trussrod channel.

 

 

 

And chiseled the spokewheel part

 

 

 

 

Cut the headstock angle with the band saw. And planed it nice and smooth

 

 

[Basvarken]

Ordered a pre-radiused ebony fretboard at Holz Faszination in Germany.
And drilled the holes for the potion markers.

 

 

Glued the markers in and sanded everything flush with the 16" radius beam

 

 

 

Hammered the frets in

 

 

 

Before I glued the fretboard on, I closed up the part where the spokewheel part lies deeper. Maybe it's nonsense, but I think it's neater to have a bit more wood in that place 😉

 

 

 

Glued the fretboard on. As you can see I roughly shaped the outline of the neck prior to that.
The rubber strips of inner bicycle tube pull the fretboard and neck nicely together.

 

 

 

Let it dry overnight. And then took to cleaning up the sides and shaping the neck profile.

 

 

When the sides were all cleaned up nicely I drilled the holes for the side markers.

 

 

And glued the side markers in

 

 

[Basvarken]

Worked on the headstock shape a bit...

 

 

 

...And the neck profile some more.

 

 

 

Then moved on to the body.
First I drilled some holes with a forstner bit to make it a bit lighter

 

 

 

Routed the controls cavity

 

 

 

Glued the bookmatched set up quilted maple on top

 

 

And routed the outline shape along a template.
This time I tried a different method by not cutting out a rough outline first.
I just routed along the template straight into the slab.
This way I hoped to reduce the risk of router tear out. Which in this case did work. But the downside is that the router bit get dull sooner (I guess)

 

 

[Basvarken]

Routed the profile for the controls cover

 

 

Later on I decided to widen the controls cavity a bit more, to create some more room for soldering.
I have no pics of that (sorry)

Then routed the channel for the binding

 

 

 

Glued the binding in, using acetone instead of glue. Because I was going to stain the top I did not want to risk any glue on the top. Acetone just softens the binding and makes it stick to the wood by itself.

I used the same rubber strips of bicycle tubes for the clamping.

 

 

 

 

 

[Basvarken]

Drilled the holes for the machine heads in the headstock

 

 

Routed the neck pocket

 

 

Shaped the heel

 

 

Checked the alignment of the neck, before I glued it in

 

 

 

Drilled the holes for the bridge

 

Made a template for the pickup cavity. And routed it.

 

 

 

[Basvarken]

Test fitted the pickup and the Guyker two point bridge with separate tailpiece that I originally had planned to install.

 

 

Only to find out I did not like how that combination looked.
Plus the guy who commissioned the build came by with a Rickenbacker he had acquired recently and he told me he wasn't too fond of its narrow string spacing. Which was the same as the string spacing of the Guyker two point (18mm).

So I decided to order a MusicMan style bridge as an alternative. And see how that would fit.
This one has a 19mm string spacing.

In my opinion it suits the bass very well. Especially in combination with the Lace MusicMan style humbucker.

 

 

The only problem was I had already glued in the neck. With the angle set for the Guyker two point bridge.
And the bridge post holes already drilled...

I was going to have to plug the holes. And redrill them, with a different (narrower) spacing.

Plus I had to gain some extra height, since the MM style bridge is a fraction lower than the two point bridge.
So I made an extra bridge plate out of a plate of brass. And sprayed it matte black to match the Guyker MM style bridge.

 

 

[Basvarken]

The bridge "problem" was solved.

Before I did the staining, I sanded a little curved at the end of the fretboard

 

 

Then stained the whole bass black.
It really made the quilted pattern pop.

 

 

 

Drilled the potentiometer holes

 

 

Built up quite a few laters of clear. And sanded in between.
Then applied the decals to the headstock.

 

 

When everything was perfectly flat and well sanded I  spayed the back of the body, the sides and the neck a matte black. And the some layers of transparent matte.

 

 

Applied the serial number

 

 

 

And then mounted all the hardware.
Put some old strings on for a little test drive.
Took care of Intonation, Action, tweaked the Hipshot Bass extender.

 

 

 

And then put the new set of d'Addario Chrome flatwounds on (per request of my customer)

 

 

 

I'll make a demo video after the weekend

[Hellzero]

Amazing work as usual @Basvarken and I liked the bridge problem solving. 👌🏻👍🏻👏🏻

[BassTool]

Stunning work! What a unique and beautiful bass, fantastic 😍 

[Doctor J]

Always exquisite work!

[LowB_FTW]

Oohh that matte black on the back. Nice.

 

Mark

[MichaelDean]

Big oooof from me! That's stunning.

[AndyTravis]