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

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Holy PURPLE Batman! 

No, actually magical purple. 

:icon_jokercolor:  Ok, so the coloring is going to end up looking nothing like Twilight Sparkle, but the general color palette of light-purple/dark purple/black/pink was what I had in mind for this bass.  I'd have to get a pink or lavender strap to really nail the look, but I can't bring myself to do that; my Brony-ism only goes so far! 

I saw a Schaller bridge in your collage(?) group intercourse scene, the 496?

That's what's on the Kramer Duke & Hondo Alien, but I've given up on that particular arrangement, going with the more traditional Hipshot headless system.

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...."

I hear ya - I've been all about the nylon tapewounds since I played a Carvin AC40 with them back in the 90s, and I'll never change to anything else except to experiment, then go back to what I know.  The low tension makes them really nice to play for long periods.  Once upon a time, I had a fretless ABG with the Labellas and would sometimes practice as much as 3 hours a day.  Can't do that with stainless roundwounds!  I'll never come close to that with the way my life is now, but I'm hoping with this bass I'll at least be able to lug it around to a lot of places where it's otherwise not possible to play.  The chamber should make it loud enough unplugged to be heard in a quiet room, plus mine will be tuned High C down a step: D-G-C-F-Bb, which will be easier to hear un-amplified anyway.

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...

That's such a fun type of arrangement for a bass player: lots of room to fill up the space with low note drones, harmonic chords, high register fretless zings... you have my envy, sir!  :headbang1:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

WOOOOOT!!!  Played hooky from work today thanks to a seriously sore throat, and wow was I productive!

As the pic below demonstrates, I have forged myself a neck pocket template that fits the neck perfectly!  I'll be gluing & clamping the body today, then routing out the pocket sometime later this week.  I'll try to remember to grab a pic of the chambers before I glue up the body halves, but first: lunch!

Also, after some consideration of the color, I hereby dub this instrument: "BLOOD OF THE ALICORN!"  Because it has the magical bloody shimmer one could easily imagine flowing from the wounds of a freshly slain unicorn. 

:evil4:  :toothy12:  :headbang1: 

This is imagery I'll be sure to bring up with my daughter, since she's the one that got me watching that stupid pony show!  :icon_jokercolor:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Did I say I'd get a pic of the chambers before I glued it? I lied!

Clamped & glued for about 48 hours, routed the neck pocket & roughed out the body today; couldn't resist a quick test fit of everything together.  Still have lots to do on the body before I get to final finishing, but it's coming along nicely.  I was worried about the glue seam, since there were a few spots at the outer edge that looked like there was a gap, but it came out great.  In fact, it's actually kinda hard to see it unless you're looking for it.  Pix below, more updates coming soon.

 

[tubby.twins]

Wow!  Nice work so far!

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Lookin' like a bass guitar now!  I had it strung up briefly to test out the fittings, and I'm glad I did.

Things to fix/modify:

- The bridge angle is off by about 2 degrees.  It's hard to see since the whole body has lots of off set angles, but it's obvious when the strings are on.  It's an easy fix, though. It actually didn't make a difference for playability, except for....

- The pocket/slot for the truss rod adjuster is just a hair too small.  A bit of dremeling will take care of that, but it's not possible to adjust the truss rod at all.

- The shelf under the tuners really needs to be cut down, maybe even another 1/4".  There's not enough room to move my fingers around the bottom.  Might just sand it down with 60 grit rather than break out the router.

Still to do:

The electronics. The pickup cover looks too good to mess up with an output jack & knob.  Don't know if I'll put the knob & jack on the bass ("up") side of the body, or the treble ("down"), or maybe try to run it out the back end. 

Also:

As much as I love the Hipshot headless system, I discovered too late that when cutting the strings to fit the headpiece, the spot is right past the wind.  Not a problem at all for just about any kind of bass string.  But for nylon tapewounds?  Yeah.... cutting it there causes the whole nylon wrap to unravel.  :sad1:

Having ruined one, I decided to just keep the steel cores for strings now, play them til they gunk up, and get more tapewounds, or maybe some flatwounds.

I'll have to either drill string through holes for the extra string wind, or cut down the headstock shelf even more to allow the wrap to go though the headpiece, rather than cuttting it right at the head piece.

If none of that makes sense, see here for a diagram of how it's supposed to be laid out.

Irony:

I designed this to be a smaller travel style bass that is more portable.  I got the smaller part down, but even after the chambering (it's about 9.5" x 3.5" x 1" right in the middle), it weighs in at just shy of 9lbs!

 

[klangster]

nice work!  I have never been that moved by the look of the Steinberger but this one looks bad ass

 

[DangerousR6]

:headbang1:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Getting closer to being done; summer has been crazy busy.

The headstock/neck is finally done.  As I previously had it configured, there wasn't enough room for the string wrap on the tapewounds to go through.  That's fixed, so the headpiece overhangs the nub of a headstock.  It's just about as small as I can make it.

Figured out how to get the electronics stuffed in: going in through a 1" x 3" hole on the bass side, just a little south of where my hand will rest. But now I need a cover for the hole/spot to put the knobs. I'm trying not to just grab any piece of spare wood (I have lots of 1/8 mahogany left over from the Macrobird), but find some way to use another piece of purpleheart to use as a cover since the rest of it is all purpleheart.  I don't really have any leftover pieces quite the right shape, and don't want to buy another plank just to get a thin sliver to use as a cover.  Might just have to suck it up and see if they have some 1 x 4 of purpleheart I can plane down.

.... Which might just leave me with enough to use as a nice top for another project down the road.  :icon_biggrin:

Pix coming soon.

 

[Perry Combover]

Aw man, all purpleheart?  Now I'm gassin'.

 

[stubhead]

I was reading through this from the start (cause it's taking as long as some of mine!) and my horror was growing, even starting to throb a little, as I was reading your "take a bit more off here" philosophy - thinking, didn't anybody (me?) TELL this guy that really lightweight basses sound like polyethylene banjos through a bozo'ed pitch shifter -
(AKA EEEY-YEW!!)
Then I got to

it weighs in at just shy of 9lbs!

and all was well with the world.  :hello2:

That purpleheart just isn't gonna LET YOU escape the deep-jungle boogie, son.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Yep, the weight gives it killer resonance - and I've only heard it unplugged so far!  The balance isn't so great, though.  It's just a tad neck heavy, and the neck strap button isn't far enough up.  I have an idea for how to fix that with an extension; will test it out tonight.

I've also decided to leave out the mute switch, just the pickup to the ToneStyler to the jack, mute switch on the floor. 

Now I just need to stop by a sporting goods store to grab a gun case for a gigbag.  Can't wait to take it through airport security.  :laughing7:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Way too long since I updated, and way too long since I had time to work on this thing... finally figured out how to adjust the balance point for the strap button, figured out a control cover & knob (couldn't use the purpleheart ones, had to use an old fender blackface knob instead), got all the last bits of finishing done, it's strung up.

Left to do:

- wiring!  Not quite sure how to wire the Tonestyler -> jack, but haven't really tried to figure that out yet, shouldn't take too long to figure it out & do it.

- setup/intonate/adjust truss rod.  I didn't spend much time fine tuning, just got the strings on & tuned to pitch. D-G-C-F-Bb (high 5, but down a step).  It buzzes in quite a few spots (not in the good way a fretless should), so that's a definite need.  That Hipshot headless system is quite amazing, btw.

- take pictures & show it off, of course.  :icon_biggrin:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Edit: picture embedding fail, apparently - pix here, here, & here.

Yep, it's purple.  The strap extension was the hardest part to figure out.  I REALLY wanted to use all purple heart, and used a hole saw to cut out two 2" thick sections from the body scraps.  I drilled a section out of the middle, glued & doweled them together, then drilled out a hole with a 7/8" forstner bit (by hand - that was SCARY; yes, I took it apart first).  It's in there about 1.5", made sure to put some purpleheart dust in with the wood glue to make sure it was plenty solid.  It balances perfectly now.  :toothy12:

[those averse to unorthodox DIY finishing methods will want to skip this next paragraph]

There was still a little bit of a gap, which I filled with plaster of paris, then painted over it with my daughter's sparkly nail polish (which is just hard lacquer) . To make it look more unicorn-ish, I also added a little spiral of different kinds of polish to the "horn".  The color palette is, after all, roughly based on Twilight Sparkle.  :icon_jokercolor:

Wiring & fine tuning/setup left to do, will get to that tonight after handling the kid's homework.

 

[Cagey]

Wow! That's really sharp! And you're right - it's purple!

Doesn't that forward strap mounting peg get in the way of your left hand thumb?

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Doesn't that forward strap mounting peg get in the way of your left hand thumb?

Nope - I actually tried different ways of moving my hand to see if it would get in the way, but there's no way it would ever get in the way when playing.  Remember it's a 5 string, so it gets WIDE down by the 14th/15th fret; ain't no wrappin' the thumb around that.

I think I have the wiring schematic worked out, but didn't have a chance to finish the work because the control "cavity" is just a hole into the main chamber of the body. I can't tell you how many times I dropped a screw or a copper shielding piece into the body, or had to fish the pickup leads or ground wire out of body to move out of the way.  :sad: :dontknow: :tard:

Next time, I'd just do a regular solid body with a normal control panel off the back, controls on the front.  But as much as I'd want to do this over again to learn from my mistakes, I think this might be the last time I ever design my own instrument.   

 

[sixstringsamurai]

Nutty...
I like it!
:guitaristgif:

 

[ZGOZZ]

no images.. :icon_scratch:

 

[stubhead]

Whoa. Now THAT is totally "it." In fact I think the "it"-ness meter just jumped a few notches. Have you started having terrible, fiendish urges to sneak it into wildly inappropriate places, whip it out and attack people with Chris Squierisms, or does that wait until the electronics? I'll bet you can talk to whales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=983fH0eMs3E

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Congrats!!  I'm still working on mine.  I had a couple medical setbacks which have slowed me down.  I'm hoping to work on it some next week and at least get my body outline routed.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Congrats!!  I'm still working on mine.  I had a couple medical setbacks which have slowed me down.  I'm hoping to work on it some next week and at least get my body outline routed.

That's a major bummer - I hope you feel better soon.  Your project is very neat; totally different direction than mine, and I hope you're able to finish soon.

no images.. :icon_scratch:

Yeah, I can't get them to embed - just click the links to my flickr page.

Whoa. Now THAT is totally "it." In fact I think the "it"-ness meter just jumped a few notches. Have you started having terrible, fiendish urges to sneak it into wildly inappropriate places, whip it out and attack people with Chris Squierisms, or does that wait until the electronics? I'll bet you can talk to whales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=983fH0eMs3E

Chris Squireisms - very much yes. Er... Affimative.  I've never been the hugest Yes fan, but I do love his tone.  With the sound on this one, I'm hoping for something between Michael Manring and James Jamerson.  I still haven't wired it up, though.  Every time I've had more than a few minutes to myself, I've been practicing guitar for my current band.  I'm still itching to get it done, even if I'll only be playing it alone in my living room for now.

And no whale-speake: it's a high 5 down a step (DGCFBb), so I'll be doing lots more upper/mid range harmonics, chords, & mwah-ish smoothness.  :guitaristgif: