One man's trash is another man's trashy Dolphin Nose bass

[guitarbuilder]

With my new Jet drum sander purchase, I've been able to thickness sand the poplar panels that were from a pile on the side of the road by my home. I decided to proceed with a Silvertone 1444 AKA dolphin nose bass. These were Danelectro made and sold through Sears back when I was a kid. I had one later on in life as a flea market purchase and flipped it. I always said I'd make one sometime and now is the time.

 

[crazydave911]

SWEET!

 

[guitarbuilder]

I have a pickup. I don't have the bridge and they are out of stock at the moment, so I'm going to proceed with the idea that I " may" have to make one. Danos were masonite top and back with a poplar and/or pine core.

I'm not about to use masonite as I don't think today's masonite is the same hardness based on a Dano Convertible I did a long time ago. The middle is hidden with a strip of leather looking plastic strip on the originals, and smooth plastic tape on the reissues.

The neck will be from part of the poplar built-in that all this wood came from. It has a couple holes where some drawer handles are mounted. I'll either do a walnut or rosewood fretboard. I have other cast off wood that I could use but the idea of an oak fretboard doesn't really thrill me. Oak was also in this pile of wood by the road that I harvested.


The weather has been up and down and we had a nice day, so I sanded the panels to a hair over .25" thick. You can see the stained rabbets that the guy did. I think these were door panels to said built-in.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Now as far as a design and drawing goes, there isn't any available one for a single cut Dano that I've found. I started to trace a body in my drawing program and got bored quickly. I have a reissue U-2. I was going to trace the pattern and cut and scan it. It wasn't working out that well, so I found a dutch instrument builder that sold the plan. I emailed him about availability. He said it was still a thing, so I bought it and downloaded it.


I'll give him a plug as it's nice to be recognized for providing information to people.

Instrument Plans | The Dutch Luthier (wordpress.com)

 

[crazydave911]

Red oak?

Looks pretty good to me

 

[guitarbuilder]

The other day we had like hurricane force winds so I stayed inside waiting for the inevitable power failure. The lights blinked about 10 times but we never lost power. I believe this is because I had gasoline and started the generator. I also filled up some spare containers of water and ran the spare extension cord to the sump pump area. You only need to lose power for 10 days once ( 1991)before you become quite paranoid in an all electric home. But I digress. I took the pdf and converted it to a DXF file for the body perimeter. I figured I'd try cutting out a pattern for the body. Looking around, there weren't any sheet goods, so I just decided to cut the top and back out.

I stuck the two panels together with some double sided tape.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Then I stuck on some cardboard so I could cut through without cutting into my cnc bed.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Next I clamped it down to the X carve. I chucked up a .5 dia straight bit.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Using a relatively new laptop with a relatively new X controller and a relatively new software program called the nightly build of universal Gcode sender, I did a dry run cutting air. Now it was kind of interesting that I needed 17.75" long piece of material to make the parts, and that is exactly what I had in between rabbets. This wood was destined for this bass. I carefully lined up the cutter to the zero point.

I started the cut through both panels. Keeping my fingers crossed that nothing stupid would happen. I used Easel to generate the Gcode for this. This was the first time trying it out for that.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Nearly made it through into the cardboard.

 

[guitarbuilder]

So I cut the excess wood off on my bandsaw and flush trimmed the little bit off. I still had the whiteside pattern bit in the router table from the last thing I did.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Lastly I peeled the cardboard off and pried apart the two parts. One will be the back and one will be the top.

 

[guitarbuilder]

Red oak?

View attachment 928657

Looks pretty good to me

With all the walnut and rosewood fretboard stock here, I just can't see Oak at this time. You never know though...just not on this one. I have two rosewood bass fretboard blanks that I bought for this particular project a few years back though.

 

[crazydave911]

I've always suspected (but can't prove) Gibson used this for the Les Paul (general shape). All their shenanigans patenting body shapes and all, wonder who gave them THAT idea

 

[guitarbuilder]

I've always suspected (but can't prove) Gibson used this for the Les Paul (general shape). All their shenanigans patenting body shapes and all, wonder who gave them THAT idea

I think the LP shape was already designed by a couple years when these came out though.

 

[crazydave911]

With all the walnut and rosewood fretboard stock here, I just can't see Oak at this time. You never know though...just not on this one. I have two rosewood bass fretboard blanks that I bought for this particular project a few years back though.

The original WAS rosewood so hey

 

[crazydave911]

I think the LP shape was already designed when these came out though.

Possible, but one thing I always liked about Fender, he didn't bother with a patent. He KNEW if you wanted the real thing you'd come to him

 

[W.L.Weller]

https://www.gra8.com/products/allpa...ddle-bridge-in-chrome-upgrade-for-wood-bridge

But also, this isn't a fantastic bridge design, at least based on the Korean reissue guitars I've fiddled with and the Korean baritone I own.

 

[crazydave911]

https://www.gra8.com/products/allpa...ddle-bridge-in-chrome-upgrade-for-wood-bridge

But also, this isn't a fantastic bridge design, at least based on the Korean reissue guitars I've fiddled with and the Korean baritone I own.

I don't THINK it's exactly like the original. On the original you can **** the bridge saddle for intonation and use the front screws to set the height, simple and robust. Not that many seem to like it

 

[guitarbuilder]

https://www.gra8.com/products/allpa...ddle-bridge-in-chrome-upgrade-for-wood-bridge

But also, this isn't a fantastic bridge design, at least based on the Korean reissue guitars I've fiddled with and the Korean baritone I own.

I saw those yesterday. Allparts sells one but they are all out at this time and I'm not going to spend 120 dollars to get one from Japan. I can make a new rosewood intonated saddle if I was really worried. I have the Allparts guitar version of that bridge in front of me too.