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Building my own bass

So after over 30 CBG's I have decided to try building my own bass, to use as a backup to my early 1980's Fender P when playing out. And for the fun of it, of course.

Early on I dedided the body would be a thunderbird, but with a Fender neck because they are widely available in the aftermarket and I am already comfortable with my p-bass. Ended up missing the last neck that CBGitty had by a matter of hours, so I went to eBay and bought a Jazz neck with rosewood fretboard instead. It should be here in a couple of weeks.

So then I got started on the body. I decided to laminate a variety of woods that were gifted to me by friends and family, laid up in individual strips of Ash, Cherry, Birds-Eye Maple, and Oak.

So far I am really stoked with this project. Next week I hope to find someone with a 14" planer to level out the front and back surfaces, then have to wait for the neck to arrive before I can do the routing on it for the electronics and neck pocket.

Doing research on the project I discovered that John Entwhistle of The Who created a few "FenderBird" basses back in the early 70's... That instantly told me I was headed in the right direction.

The first pic is the prototyping work I did on my computer to get an idea of how it would look, the second pic is the laminated block for the body. So far, so good!!

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Permalink Reply by Diglydog on January 1, 2015 at 10:26pm

I've never made a 'proper' guitar so have no experience of that sort of calculation. However, on a 'blocks of wood' level, if you have a good table saw, could you rip out the centre section and glue in a longer one ? It's just a thought - I don't know whether this is feasible or whether the whole body needs scaling up.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on January 2, 2015 at 3:59am

That is totally do-able. It would be a bit of a PITA lining up the grain now that I have cut the body out, but if I screwed a square piece of scap lumber to the body I could line that up with my rip fence and get a good line from it.

All things considered, this is probably the best fix.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on January 2, 2015 at 5:25am

Chickenbone and Greg, sorry, my description was poor. It would require you to add an extra slab of wood on the back of the guitar. Extending it out far enough to make a longer neck pocket. Even if you used the same cool laminating it would look bad from the back of the instrument. Or you could cheat and extend this extra wood all the way down the back. Make it look like it was supposed to look that way.

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Permalink Reply by c# merle on January 2, 2015 at 7:32am

you're on to a winner....mistakes become features.....honestly, who hasn't screwed up at some point? but it's rescuable with some nifty thinking

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on January 2, 2015 at 2:04pm

Well, much to my eternal surprise, the neck arrived in the mail today. Which truly amazed me, as I wasn't really expecting it for at least another week.

Laying out the parts on the bench, it's pretty clear I need to rip out the centre section of the body and lay in some new strips that extend the neck pocket up under the neck. Which is OK with me, as I found a plank of walnut that really deserves an opportunity to join the party.

The neck itself really surpassed my expectations. It does not need any refinishing to meet my needs at all.

It definitely looks like a guitar I want to play. I just have to do a bit more arranging and I'll have a layout pic uploaded shortly.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on January 2, 2015 at 6:46pm

Here's the end results of an evening's research and development: The body shape has been reworked and the cad file considerably refined. Interestingly the neck tapers from 63mm wide at the base to just 60mm where it exits the body, making the pocket not quite square.

It turns out the bridge I selected is almost exactly the same dimension as the standard Thunderbird bridge, but this one offers more adjustability and anchors better to the body as well as it allows the option to pass the strings through the body. I was thinking I might use .22 shell casings as ferrules for that, because .22 shell casings.

Pickup placement was modified slightly from standard to balance the look, and the controls were spaced a little further apart than usual for the same reason. I think there is still some refining to do in the pickup and dial positioning but overall it looks considerably better balanced now that the main contours have been properly established.

For comparison, here's the new layout in brown with the original body shape overlaid as a red outline.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on January 2, 2015 at 7:04pm

Kinda promising. Definitely learned a lot already today.

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Permalink Reply by Scott McGilliard on January 3, 2015 at 12:47pm

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I built my first CBG a year ago and am just finishing number 17 this week. I am going to try a bass next. I think I'm probably the one to get the last neck from CBGitty. The longest cigar box I've found that looks good is 13" and it came today. So... I'll soon know if I can work something out with that box or if I'll have to get a way more ugly box that's narrower and 16" long. I'll post pictures when I get it done.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on February 20, 2015 at 2:40am

OK, after about 5 weeks of being way too busy with work related travel and other interferences, I am finally back in the game with the Fenderbird build.

I went back to the drawing board, invested in a new 13" DELTA finishing planer and then glued up a new blank for the body. This one includes some bamboo plywood that a friend had left over from a countertop he installed. So now I am up to 6 different woods in the body, including ash, cherry, bamboo, maple, oak and walnut.

I also did some research on routing the pocket for the neck and pickups, and used the artwork I created in Adobe Illustrator to create a routing template. So now I have my evening's work all cut out for me, so to speak.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:40pm

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:41pm

Hey, this thing looks a bit like a guitar...

I initially thought the end grain on the bamboo plywood would bother me, but it turns out I don't mind it in the least.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:42pm

My first time using a hand held router. It was a little nerve-wracking, but the results were worth it. I used a rounding bit on the perimeter, then a straight cut bit to carve out the neck pocket.