Here's a odd one. A friend gave me this project many years ago, it was started by her son when he attended the Roberto-Venn Lutherie school here in Phx, AZ. Sadly, he ODd and suffered a severe brain injury and was never able to finish it. She moved with him back East to be near family and care for him. I've not had contact with her for several years now so I'm not sure of his condition today.
Anyway, it's an interesting piece. When I received it the body had an odd 'Batman' style center 'dongle' for lack of a word I'm allowed to use.
Not long enough to make it playable as an upright, but long enough so that it would never be able to be leaned against a wall, or even a guitar stand....So I reshaped it as best I could. It's OK looking, but not what I would have done. That said, it's made from some really choice woods and rings like a bell.
The neck is another series of interesting choices. 3 piece Maple and Walnut, it has two CF rods that were epoxied in and IMO placed way too far out from the truss rod slot. This made a 5 string the only choice and given the depth of the rods the neck is going to be 'beefy' to say the least. I don't play bass and chose the final dimensions based on Googling various models. It had no fretboard so I made it a 35" scale Wenge one with a matching overlay.
I put in a 2-way Stew-Mac rod and some Gotoh tunes. Waiting to mount the neck to see how it balances before deciding on a bridge. If it's neck heavy...which I expect...I'll buy a brass bridge, but if it's not I was thinking of a making it a string-thru with a floating Wenge/bone bridge. We'll see.
The area around the neck joint looks odd right now because I'm waiting to finish shaping the cutaways till after I mount the neck.
Anyway, here's what I got so far.
Anyway, it's an interesting piece. When I received it the body had an odd 'Batman' style center 'dongle' for lack of a word I'm allowed to use.
Not long enough to make it playable as an upright, but long enough so that it would never be able to be leaned against a wall, or even a guitar stand....So I reshaped it as best I could. It's OK looking, but not what I would have done. That said, it's made from some really choice woods and rings like a bell.The neck is another series of interesting choices. 3 piece Maple and Walnut, it has two CF rods that were epoxied in and IMO placed way too far out from the truss rod slot. This made a 5 string the only choice and given the depth of the rods the neck is going to be 'beefy' to say the least. I don't play bass and chose the final dimensions based on Googling various models. It had no fretboard so I made it a 35" scale Wenge one with a matching overlay.
I put in a 2-way Stew-Mac rod and some Gotoh tunes. Waiting to mount the neck to see how it balances before deciding on a bridge. If it's neck heavy...which I expect...I'll buy a brass bridge, but if it's not I was thinking of a making it a string-thru with a floating Wenge/bone bridge. We'll see.
The area around the neck joint looks odd right now because I'm waiting to finish shaping the cutaways till after I mount the neck.
Anyway, here's what I got so far.
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...then I ran outta 'butt'...Freakin' bass bridges are yuge man! Seems like an excessive amount of travel, but I've never intonated a bass, much less a 5 string, so I don't want to limit myself and run out of room by moving it forward. I'll just assume Fender knew what they were doing.
