Building a bass with a local highschool kid.......

[Brian]

Hey gang,

I am not sure if this is common around the US but all graduating highschool seniors in WA now have to do a project with a business mentor. Some do events, projects....all kinds of things. A local kid Chris was sent to me by our Seattle luthiers group, and will be planning and building an electric bass with me. It is going to be a kick in the pants.

After a meeting today he decided on a four string neck through, with only a partial fret.....fretless in the upper registers.

I need to locate some neck through dimensioned wood for the neck lamination. I need it to be for a maple walnut maple walnutmaple lam....or ebony in there......preferable walnut, wenge, or something warmer brown colored for those stripes. Does anyone have those, or even a rough lamination I could buy? I need to get that ASAP.

Thanks!

~B

[tlguitars]

What dimensions do you need? This type of stuff is a lot of what I make, for the most part. And I'd rethink the walnut in the neck. 80% of your bass tone is your neck through and the walnut can be so density inconsistent. Wenge is better although I'm not a fan. Indian Rosewood is my preferred core laminate wood. Kiiat is great. It's like a brown version of Paduk with out the pigment bleed.

Check out the John Brown Fretted-Less basses. http://www.brownsguitarfactory.com/ It's the same frets verses non frets, as I'm sure you know.

[Brian]

Thanks so much for chiming in on this Todd! You are the neck through pimp! You work is stunning to me. I have no experience with neckthrough construction, I have only owned and play them. I mentioned walnut to show the color stripe we are looking for.....actually anything dark brown will work....he just doesn't want ebony. I have some wenge that will work fine. I also found a local guy south of me that has some crazy maple. I am actually going to ask him to come visit the community here. We need a good maple source! Please comment and suggest on anything in this post....we will need some good help on this project.
~B

[Dennis Leahy]

Hi Brian,

Let me look through my Maple. I know I have some Hard Maple, which I'm guessing would be better for a bass neck. (yea or nay, Todd?)

I just don't know if I have a piece the right size. So, what size Maple pieces do you need?

Dennis

[tlguitars]

Sorry, forgot I posted a note here. I use the Rock or hard maple in my necks. I just go to Youngblood (best local lumber yard) and get some of the 5/4 flat sawn stuff, cuz after you cut it to shape and flip it your grain is running vertically (1/4er'd) through the body, all you need is a table saw or a skill saw. Any decent lumber yard should have maple in large stock. Soft is fine , because with the glue and the other laminations it'll stiffen a little, but if you can get the hard or rock maple that's the best.

I just pick a board that I can get at least 3 cuttings of 5/4 X 2 5/8 X 38 for my guitars, that way I've got neck left and right planks and I've got another one that I can cut 1/4 cores out of to get my 5 or 7 + piece necks out of. And I used the 5/4 because with my core laminate expansion it gives me a neck width that is as wide as my headstock. Just check out my 26.118 build and you'll see how I put it all together.

I should also say if I didn't in the previous post that Peruvian Walnut is much better, more consistent in color and density, although a little light for me. I use it only in my thinnest laminates. I'm not sure it really matters but that's what I do.

Neck through is easy as long as your thinking 20 steps ahead; i.e. the electronics cavity runner. But it's a cinch.

1 week later,
Todd

[Rod True]

Brian, I've got a killer piece of curly maple (BC wood too, so it's soft maple) that I was going to make bindings out of (I already have more curly maple binding then I'll use in a lifetime though) so I'll gladly give it to you for this project. The dimensions are 1"x4"x35" (the 1" thickness is only planed on one side mind you). Now I know absolutely nothing about base guitars or neck throughs so I don't even know if this piece is long enough.

Here's some pictures, as you can see, there are a couple of knots in it (that's why the sawer stoped cutting it into sides sets) but you might be able to work around them.







The board is yours if you want it, just pay the shipping.

[Brian]

Hey bro.....I would love to use that board, but I am not certain either if it will work for what we need. I need to do smome calculating here and see exactly where we are at.
Thanks!
B

[Brian]

Hello to my family!!!

I finally got the upstairs computer working, so I can post pictures again. I know I owe you guys a ton, and I have them all stored on memory cards. Here is a current shot of this bass as of tonight. This is just a fill coat, so I start the real spraying tomorrow. I have like four build threads to catch up pics on now, so bear with me......