1988 Bakelite BX

[bnt]

With all these stories of beautiful bespoke instruments, lovingly crafted by expert luthiers, and heading to appreciative owners who will cherish them for life... I feel compelled to share my tale of amateur industrial lutherie. The following story is not suitable for sensitive readers, professional luthiers, and owners of custom basses, and I accept no responsibility for any emotional distress, hare-brained ideas, injury or death that may result.

By 1988 I was really dissatisfied with my first bass, a P-copy (Hondo?) with an OK neck but a dull plywood body. This was in South Africa, where I was an apprentice at a steel factory, and was placed at various departments for months at a time. In one outlying department the technicians I worked for were laid back, and spent a lot of time making fancy knives, some good enough to win prizes at shows. My sole knife attempt produced a glorified letter-opener (I used the wrong steel), so I decided to replace the body on my bass. I already knew I'd need to buy a new bass some time, and decided to experiment a little.

I didn't like Fender shapes (and still don't): this was the period when I lusted after a Steinberger XL-2, but was also aware that the ergonomics could be difficult. I "designed" a body roughly similar to a [url="http://instruments.garyhendershot.com/Yamaha_BX1.html"]Yamaha BX-1[/url], perhaps a little bigger, with a shorter horn. I later tried reducing the headstock, but the first version had the full-size P-bass neck attached.

OK, I'm in a steel factory, where do I get suitable wood, or woodworking tools? Yeah, right. I made the body out of 2 one-inch-thick plates of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite"]Bakelite[/url]. No router available, so I drilled the pickup & control holes on the front plate, then the rear "rout" on the back plate, and glued them together with some evil industrial adhesive. Bakelite is bloody tough stuff: hard to cut (killed a jigsaw) and evil to work on, even with protective masks. I shaped the edges with an angle grinder, so the workshop looked like a DDT bomb had gone off inside. I bet you could go back there today, and still find orange Bakelite dust in the corners.

The single pickup was an Ibanez-branded P-type, in a bigger soapbar case, like they used in the 80s, and I wired up a volume control only, no tone control. The neck was OK (no more than that), and the sound was a bit like a piano with a stronger fundamental. From memory, the closest comparison I can think of is Status Graphite - sharp attack, full-bodied and deep, but not as consistent. There were dead spots, but where there was sustain, there was a lot of it. The neck was heavy, so the total weight made the thing nearly unplayable. The horn was too short, so the neck dived as much as (insert footballer's name here).

If I ever get workshop facilities, I'll be looking at Bakelite (or similar) again. It's like a prehistoric "luthite", and was the material used to make the first ever solid-body "Spanish" guitar (the [url="http://www.gruhn.com/articles/rickelectro.html"]Rickenbacker Electro Spanish[/url]). It's a b**ch to work with, however - toxic dust everywhere, and it chips easily if knocked (brittle).

The Bakelite BX is long gone, and I have no pictures, which is probably a good thing. The memory is quite enough.

Edited September 2, 2007 by bnt