Friday, November 28, 2008

Black Friday...

Oh yea, a whole day of work on the busiest shopping day of the year. Eric the lucky guy had the day off and managed to get the other half of the body glues up.
Also here is the final drawing showing the dimensions and more the final product.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!!


Sure was. Went down to see the folks. While I was gone, the neck finally dried and Eric found time to plane the neck down and make it look all sexy.



God damn this is one sexy neck to a bass!!!






He also used the clamps to glue up the lower half of the body.

More pics from Day 1





Monday, November 24, 2008

Finally started building!!!!

Today we finally got working. We had to stop at the store for glue, maple veneer and some clamps. Then we headed on up to Eric's place and got started.


First we Cut the Walnut and Purpleheart into 48" long pieces using the Circular saw. We also had to cut the Zebrawood into 2 22" pieces and 2 16 1/2" pieces. Also one of each of the same measurements of Wenge.



Next we used the band saw to cut the walnut into 2 1 1/8" pieces and the Purpleheart into 2 1/2" pieces. The Plainer was used to straiten and smooth out the wood to make it able glue.


The Glue was definitely the interesting part, and messy. We had to move fast, rubbing glue over each piece. Actually, I was quite slow at it, but the job was done in the end. Then the clamps were put on and set to dry for a couple days. The first formation of the final product.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Wood shopping and gear buying.



Today we went shopping for wood. I rented a zipcar and off we went. To go back in time for a second, I finished the final blueprints and finished buying all the parts. Very sweet.




We drove to a woodshop up in Rowley, Ma. They guy there is a bit out of his mind, but he has some really nices woods. Here is the shopping list:

-10BF of 8/4 Walnut
-6 BF of 4/4 Zebrawood
-1.9 BF of 4/4 cocobolo
-10BF of 8/4 Purpleheart
- 6 BF of 4/4 Wenge






Originally we were going to have a Bubinga fingerboard, but then we saw this beautiful piece of cocobolo and realized I was going to have the most beautiful fingerboard that has ever touched a musicians
hands.

Spent about $400 for the wood, not bad.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Final specs for the Bass

Here are the specs:

Neck through design: Made of strips of Walnut-Purpleheart, 2 each. There will be a very small strip of maple to seperate the woods.

The body will be 3 pieces, Wenge with Aebrawood on the front and back.

The fingerboard is made of Bubinga.

The scale of the bass is 34" and there will be 24 Frets.

The bass will be a PJ setup with a Bartollini 8S P pickup and a Bartollini 9J1L Jazz pickup in the bridge of the bass. The preamp will be an aguilar OBP3-TK with a bypass switch and switchable midrange frequency.

The hardware is as follows:

-Chrome hipshot tuners
-Chrome Badass III bridge with string through design
-Chrome ferruels
-Wood knobs made of the spare wood. Not sure what kind yet though.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Gonna Build a bass

So in all my searching for the perfect Bass to buy, I was told by Eric, my repair guy and friend, that I could just build one. Interesting idea, thank god he used to work for the Gibson custom shop and knows how to build guitars. But the best part is, I get to help and learn in the process. I wicked excited. Can't wait to start.