Headless, fretless, & [almost] bodyless - DONE!

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

I've started work on my Steinberger/Kramer Duke/Kubicki (Dukubicki?)-esque travel/practice bass (general details here), with the first of many coats of TruOil on the fretboard.  I've also cut the purpleheart plank into 2 pieces to sandwich together.  They'll need quite a bit more sanding before the fit is smooth enough to get it to work, but I'm getting there.  Then I'll get to routing out the middle a bit to save some weight.  The next big thing to do is make up a routing template for the neck pocket, which I suspect will take me several attempts.  :sad1:  I'll be practicing my technique for the ball end holder on the headstock before doing the cutting on the neck.

The rough layout is below, though I've obviously got a lot more cutting & shaping the body, but it gives you an idea of the scale.

EDIT:

- DONE! Pic here & probably more coming to my flickr stream (need to take a good one for the GOM  :glasses10  Got it wired up last night & will spend the next few hours fine tuning the setup & intonation.

 

[Patriot54]

Cool! I love the headless theme that's been happening on the forums lately, but a fretless and almost bodyless guitar really has me interested. I'd like to see what this thing weighs when it's done.

If you really want to take it to the extreme, you could make it a chambered body.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Well, I am chambering a little - it'll have about an inch deep channel right in the middle to save weight.  Not a lot of room to have all kinds of tone chambers, though.  I guess it will probably affect the tone, but I'm not quite sure how.  Won't have a chance to do more work on it until tomorrow night at the earliest, but my priority is getting the neck template done.  Once I have that ready to go, then I can measure exactly where to hollow & not hollow in order to knock out the most weight, as well as place the control cavity. 

With the headstock mostly going away, and with the tuners being moved to the end of the body, I'm not at all concerned with making the body so light it'll have neckdive.

 

[NonsenseTele]

Hummm you forgot "helpless" on the thread name :laughing7:
Sorry I just hate headless guitars

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Did some work on the neck/headstock, last night: I did the rough cut of the paddle (most of it went away, to be saved for later), and some shaping of the remaining section where the strings will anchor, as well as the drilling of the string through holes.

I did some rough shaping of the headstock, and it's really close to the design I had sketched out. . .

. . . now I'm looking at it in real life, and I don't like it.  :sad1: :sad: :-\    :doh:

It doesn't help that the string through holes are not quite spaced evenly.  It won't really be visible with the strings in (I did a mockup), but it bugs me that it's not perfect.  It's got me rethinking the entire project, and I'm almost ready to abandon my original plan of putting the tuners at the rear. 

Before you worry that I've ruined a gorgeous piece of purpleheart, though, all is not lost.  :sign13:

I had the vague fear in the back of my head that I might screw up the headstock cutting (which I didn't) or the drilling (which I did), so I made sure to leave myself plenty of space for A) a different string through pattern, closer to the nut, or B) enough real estate for a true headless bass headpiece, such as the ABM or Hipshot.  There's also Steinberger bridges at headlessusa.com.

I'm really leaning toward the Hipshot, since I know it will be good quality, and will be cheaper than the ABM.  Bonus, though: I can actually make the body even smaller, since I don't have to use all the space on the end to fit the tuners.  And I have a bridge & tuners left over.  :glasses10:

The body, however... that is going swimmingly.  Planed & sanded to get the 2 pieces to fit together, and have routed a small channel right in the centerline for where the chambers will be.  Just tapping the pieces now with a little routed out makes a wonderful plonk sound.

Since I don't have pics though, it hasn't really happened.  :icon_tongue:

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Google sketchup works great for lining up holes, etc.  It's free to download and there are tutorials available online.  You can draw in full scale and print it out on your printer.  Draw your circles with a crosshair in them.  Then print it out and tape it down where you want - you can even put guide lines, etc.  Then use a small wood drill bit (with the point in the center and use your fingers and make a pilot hole.  That's how I did my string through holes on the headstock and it worked perfectly.  They lined up exactly where I wanted them.

 

[DangerousR6]

This is just my observation but, if it's got a headstock it's not headless. :icon_scratch:

 

[Cagey]

Are you sure?

 

[DangerousR6]

Pretty much...

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

It'll be almost entirely headless: Hipshot Headless system has just 1.1" of space past the nut, which is about 1/3rd the size of the previous set up I was going for.  The Hipshot was originally something I ruled out due to cost, but I recently got A) a raise, B) a bonus, and C) an attitude of "meh - my wife is going to be annoyed no matter how much I spend".    :icon_biggrin:

Waiting to hear back from Best Bass Gear to see what it will cost through them, then order away.

 

[DangerousR6]

It'll be almost entirely headless: Hipshot Headless system has just 1.1" of space past the nut, which is about 1/3rd the size of the previous set up I was going for.  The Hipshot was originally something I ruled out due to cost, but I recently got A) a raise, B) a bonus, and C) an attitude of "meh - my wife is going to be annoyed no matter how much I spend".    :icon_biggrin:

Waiting to hear back from Best Bass Gear to see what it will cost through them, then order away.

LOL, they are always going to be annoyed at how much we spend on our gear..That's just in their nature.. :laughing11:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

And actually, since I'm going all out for this one, I suppose I need to PM someone about a custom neck plate...  :icon_thumright:

Hmm... PM sent, but doesn't show in my sent box... ?  PM me if it doesn't come through.

 

[DangerousR6]

And actually, since I'm going all out for this one, I suppose I need to PM someone about a custom neck plate...  :icon_thumright:

Hmm... PM sent, but doesn't show in my sent box... ?  PM me if it doesn't come through.

I got the pm..

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

WHOO HOO!  Not only did my custom engraved neck plate arrive today (thank you Doug!), but I was able to spend some time sanding my purple heart knobs.  (Headstock leftover + hole saw = cool knobs!)  And: Best Bass Gear just sent me notification my Hipshot Headless system has shipped, will be here by next week!  With any luck, I'll be on to finishing the neck this time next week.

Next step: tracking down someone with a planer or thickness sander.  I've tried the router jig thing, and as carefully as I've done it, I'm still not able to get the pieces flat enough to fit just right, so it's off to a cabinet shop or something I go.  I'll also probably get them to make me a template for the neck pocket, as my attempts thus far haven't been any good.  Buying the pickup template from BBG was a wise decision.

BTW:  Best Bass Gear has been great to deal with; I highly recommend them both for their selection and their service.

 

[DangerousR6]

arty07: :rock-on:

 

[clearerphish]

:guitaristgif:  cool knobs, looking forward to the next phase of this project!  :guitaristgif:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Megatons of work since the last update, lame phone pic below:

- Neck has been fully prepped for the Hipshot headpiece, and that's temporarily installed.  I'll be doing some more shaping of the remaining headstock nub, and I still need to decide what to do about the string through holes that remain from the previous string configuration.  But I'm happy with the shelf I was able to Dremel & file out from the paddle.  It's not pretty up close, but at a glance from the front, you'd never realize how badly I originally screwed it up.  :laughing7:

Side note: this Hipshot assembly is seriously high quality stuff.

- The rest of the paddle will be used for my pickup cover/pickguard combo.  I had it planed down to .25", so I just need to sand down the top of the pickup, rout out the bottom of the paddle, apply a tiny bit of glue, and it will fit together in the pickup rout in the body.  I don't have a lot of space to spare, so having it all in one pickguard/finger ramp/pickup cover seems functionally and aesthetically ideal.

I'll only using 1 knob, but I don't trust myself to get the hole perfectly centered the first time.

All of the above has received many thin coats of TruOil.  I took the neck, paddle/pickguard, and knobs to work, just to make sure I can varnish a little, do some work & leave them at my desk, then come back a few hours later & put on another thin coat. This week, I've probably put 15 coats on the pickguard, and I believe 8 on the back of the neck (stopping there, I want it more satiny).  The pickguard & knobs will get more & more coats and much finer sand paper grits.

Strange, though: purpleheart is thirsty!  I've learned to put only thin coats of varnish on to get the best result, but it seems like it sinks in right away.  Curing wonderfully so far!  :headbang:

- Body halves are both planed to fit together perfectly, so I routed out a chamber right in the middle, and I'll probably draw out the final shape tonight on the body itself (so that I don't cut into the chamber!  However, there are no pix, so it didn't happen.  :icon_jokercolor:

Still have to come up with a neck pocket template, but I have a few more ideas to try for the best result. 

Stay tuned, kids!

 

[Pelagaard]

Holy PURPLE Batman! 

 

[stubhead]

That purpleheart's some wacky stuff. It can be about four different colors, depending on how you squint at it, what your mood is, what IT'S mood is.... I was sorely tempted for the upcoming, partly to honor Johnny Jerome Cap'n Trips, partly for the weird, but a few years back I saw a couple of satine/bloodwood, ebony-boarded necks in the Showcase (most likely wasted on standard thin, 22 frets etc)  and said "well if I EVER..." and I just did. (it might be the last legal piece of bloodwood found til... you can figure out who to bribe again!) :laughing3:

I saw a Schaller bridge in your collage(?) group intercourse scene, the 496? Another thing I figured out about it's compatriot guitar bridge (475) was that you can put a Hipshot Trilogy behind that.... sort of like your tuner thing. If that's the beast, great bridge. Regarding strings, it's good that you know what you want, because that cam be a critical part of bass sound, there's far more variation out of that than with guitar strings. "My own" are D'Addario Chromes, been playing them most of... yikes, 40 years? Anytime I try something else, I endure it for a week or so, then say "well that was dumb...." Though I can get along with Fender flats, way back then all there was were Fender flats, tapes, and those lovely Rotosounds - you could actually need a refret with those before the strings wore out! Great tone, but they were far safer for snaring the pterodactyls and cave bears than for playing music.

The moral of the story is, when I made my 30.5" scale high-C five string fretless, I was fully prepared to tune it up a half or even a full step to get a good tone:
E~A~D~G~C ---> F~Bb~Eb~Ab~Db ---> Gb~B~E~A~D

But I didn't need to. What I did do was raise the action some, it ended up with just about the same feel. And it's done exactly what I wanted it to do - when I'm playing a duo with a singer/songwriter type I think bass usually adds a meatier chunk of substance than another guitar, but if singer/songwriter can't solo, well..... wank-a-doodle-doo! Meatily...

 

[ThePhilosopher]

That's looking quite yummy. :cool01: