The Definitive Upright Washtub Bass

Hiya Diane;

       My advice: don't go buying no fingerboard. A) an upright is fretless, so you can ignore that pesky fret-placement problem. B) you can't "pre-fret", anyway, because your tune up is going to be based on a move-able bridge. C) the radius is intuitive, and it's easy to follow the flow of the widening neck, from a tighter curve into a shallower curve. D) if you use a good, hard wood (I used rock-hard Maple) for the entire neck, then a separate fingerboard is unnecessary. I think I see the misunderstanding. Don't be fooled by the pictures of the Tiki-Man- the neck/fingerboard is all one piece, and I simply taped off the maple "fingerboard" against the stain/lacquer finish (the mahogany red "neck"). I simply pulled off the tape after the lacquer job, and oiled the "fingerboard" in the natural maple color. Don't be fooled by poseurs like me! The neck is solid. One laminated piece of lumber, then cut and curved.
    Unfortunately, Diane, I'm not familiar with the internet plans that inspired you towards this project to begin with- can you throw me the link, so that I can check them out?
    One last comment: the only commercial, musically-oriented item I bought for this project was the strings.                 Ciao, Brian

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Comments

Brian Hilbers January 3, 2011 at 11:45pm

Hiya Diane;

       My advice: don't go buying no fingerboard. A) an upright is fretless, so you can ignore that pesky fret-placement problem. B) you can't "pre-fret", anyway, because your tune up is going to be based on a move-able bridge. C) the radius is intuitive, and it's easy to follow the flow of the widening neck, from a tighter curve into a shallower curve. D) if you use a good, hard wood (I used rock-hard Maple) for the entire neck, then a separate fingerboard is unnecessary. I think I see the misunderstanding. Don't be fooled by the pictures of the Tiki-Man- the neck/fingerboard is all one piece, and I simply taped off the maple "fingerboard" against the stain/lacquer finish (the mahogany red "neck"). I simply pulled off the tape after the lacquer job, and oiled the "fingerboard" in the natural maple color. Don't be fooled by poseurs like me! The neck is solid. One laminated piece of lumber, then cut and curved.
    Unfortunately, Diane, I'm not familiar with the internet plans that inspired you towards this project to begin with- can you throw me the link, so that I can check them out?
    One last comment: the only commercial, musically-oriented item I bought for this project was the strings.                 Ciao, Brian

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