A Slightly Different Bass Build

[Nick JD]

Okay - I got the dremel back from the hardware store where I took it to get fixed on warranty ... took it home, plugged it in and it didn't work, at all. When I took it in it at least turned, albeit in a smokey way.

So I took it back again and they said, "Just go get another one off the shelf." Which was cool because the warranty was "repair" not "replace" - now I know there's a big difference! Mental note: buy things that offer a replace warranty. The bonus was that I initially bought the pack with a gazillion atachments n stuff, but only took the actual dremel in ... so now I've got two sets of attachments n stuff.

The short version is I got the "body" cut out.



I could claim that I meant this to happen, but the cool thing about doing the "body" mold as a male mold (the composite is layed on the outside of a mold, not the inside ... female) means that the inside has the same sized body as a normal Tele - the outside line is bigger. This works with the longer neck to keep the whole thing in scale.



I also made the string anchor plate that's to be buried in the butt-end of the body. The holes are 3mm, which is the size of the big E's winding bumps at the ball-end. It's hard to explain, but the strings will load by the rear strap button and come out through the top of the body like a car coming out of an underpass tunnel - and then go over the bridge.

My aim was to have the strings anchored in the piece of wood that goes the entire length of the bass.

Here's the tuners. Gotohs in "cosmo" black, which is black chrome and looks dead sexy. They're black in dull light and chrome in strong.



Time to build the bridge. It's gonna be real simple because one of the beauties of fretless ... no intonation hassles. And that heel needs to be shaped to the shape of a hand's heel.

[Nick JD]

I did some weighing.

Through neck 2.6 pounds
Body 0.7
Tuners 0.6

That's 3.9 pounds. The pickup and stuff will be about 1/2 pound, so it's gonna be less than 4.5 pounds before the 500g (1.1 pound) dive weight is put in the butt-end. Having a quarter of it's weight at the rear strap button should balance things up nicely.

All up it's looking well under 6 pounds - pretty good for a bass.

[Nick JD]

Here's the pickup and preamp. Just need a couple of 25K pots. It's a 1 watt amp I was going to use for another build. I think it'll be better run at 3V than 9V.



And the bridge blank. The clear plastic is cling-film surrounding a 3mm insert where the piezo pickup will sit. Above that will be the saddle. No need for intonation on this build.



And two supports of epoxy clay that I'm about to sand right down and finish coat with black pigmented epoxy.

[Shoved BassVIII]

So what became of this?

[Clive Hugh]

Yeah,
Me too, just discovered it. Thanks for the tip on Tassie Oak, was wondering about a Tele body out of it.
Clive