What I did while on my IL vacation

[CrealBilly]

Hooked up with a buddy I've had since grade school, who is a full time luthier. After 15 hours in his shop and under his careful supervision, this is the result. Meet Deana, my new fretless 4 string bass. Did we cheat a little? Yep we sure did we ordered all the hardware, a soapbar pickup, and a 34" scale preslotted 24 fret ebony fretboard. Since I'm not used to playing on a fretless we used a old aluminum cookie sheet for fret markers and sanded them flush when we dressed the fret board. The neck is laminated QS heartwood hard maple with two strips of 3/16 QS back walnut (skunk strips) for side to side stability. The neck also features a "Hot Rod" (dual adjustment truss rod) The body mahogany, semi hollow with a spruce top, The mid-evil horns and double teardrop F hole designs are my idea. She plays and sounds just like a fretless. The neck is extremely fast and custom shaped for my hand. I leaned a couple of "tricks of the trade" from my buddy. Every night I wrote down what I learned in a note book. I got a few little things to finish up, like taking care of the drop of coffee in right hand teardrop and tweaking the truss rod a little. But right now the strings are almost laying on the neck and no "fret buzz" :gar-La;
Picture is a little bright and I put fast fret on the neck before the picture, so it looks a bit funky sorry about that.

I just got done learning my first fretless bass song (Hey You by Pink Floyd)

 

[JackLeg]

Mills, I'm impressed!! :icon_thum

Nice job man! :eusa_clap

 

[FredP]

nyyyssse job mr mills!:icon_thum:icon_thum

 

[TracyP]

Mills, I'm impressed!! :icon_thum

Nice job man! :eusa_clap

Ditto!!

 

[sawduster]

DOOD !!!!!!! :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :headbang::headbang:

 

[ehpoole]

One of these days I'd like to get around to building my own guitar as well. I figure it should keep me busy and out of trouble for a good while at my pace.

Of course, then I would have to figure out what to do with it... back in my 'band' days (middle school) I played trumpet... haven't a clue how to play a guitar! :wink_smil

BTW, yours came out beautifully -- you are rightfully proud! :icon_thum

 

[CrealBilly]

Thanks Guys - remember this I built this bass under the watchful eye of a full time luthier who has a fully equipped studio. Any question I had was answered immediately You might not believe me if I told you just how much I learned building this one, it's not all that precise as one would think. Anyone who is wanting to build a guitar really should give it a try. I mean if I can do it anyone can...

As for the bass - I like a good straight neck and strings so close to the finger board that'll it play a note if you stare at it. So over the course of the last few days, I've been tweaking the truss rod and bridge, I'm to within a 16th of a turn on each. I think it's as close to "right" as it's going to get - so I'm calling this project 100% complete.

I'm really looking forward to building my next one... I need a couple more builds under my belt before I attempt to build the one I really want.

 

[MarkE]

Rock on dude.

Can't wait to see the 'one you really want'. Really, I can't wait to HEAR the one you really want.

 

[RayH]

Beautiful job. You bringing it to the picnic?:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap
Ray

 

[CrealBilly]

Beautiful job. You bringing it to the picnic?:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap
Ray

Hey Ray thanks - but I'm sorry to say I won't be able to make the picnic this year

MarkE - There's a lot to learn first before I attempt to build the one I really want. Although this one is much better than my first attempt, I still need to learn how to do binding and pickup making, etc... After talking with my buddy - my scaling on the one I designed is custom and would be a lot of work. At some point in time I'm going to have to go back and decide if I should change the scale from 33 1/2 to 34. 34" scale is pretty common for a short scale bass and parts are available in abundance.



I finshed up "Hey You by Pink Floyd" and also pounded out Heart of Gold by Neil Young. So I'm contently working on my third fretless bass song "Ready for Love by Bad Co." He's got a muffy timing sort of style thing going on that's proving challenging for me to try and duplicate. Once I'm satisfied with Ready for Love, I think I would like to move on to Shooting Star by Bad Co.

Needless to say - I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of this bass

Again anyone who is thinking they should try and build an electric guitar really should try it. It's like Earl's building a house saying.

 

[CarvedTones]

Great job on it!
Bad Company - sound track of my high school daze; good stuff!
I concur with your buddy - custom scale is a lot more work. I only built a few mostly oddball string instruments and can tell you that getting the fingerboard exactly right is really hard. Even if you make your own with a standard scale you can use an existing instrument to cross check.