Homebrew mahogany body, warmoth neck bass

[mgaut051]

Been building this one (beleive it or not) for 12 years.

One piece body, cut it freehand and sanded (I don't know why).
Pad / pau neck (wicked fretboard).

Neck fits like a gem (built a template out of sticks and bondo - it was crazyness)

tried my hand at rasping the profile - decided I would buy a router and a large large large roundover bit.

Have all the hardware and electronics under a pile of dust in my shed. Will not use it. (have active basslines - can't even tell you which...)

Thinking of Haeussels (two bassbars in neck and middle, or quarterpounder jazz pickups neck and middle) and a q-tuner for bridge. Anyone know if haeussel is still making?

Pics make it real:

 

[Malta]

Looks like a cool project. The body shape has a nice Warwick/Spector vibe going on. I like it.

 

[whyachi]

Holy fretboard, Batman! That sucker is ORANGE!  :headbang1:

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Sweet merciful [deity] on a stick - where did you get that body wood?  That's incredible!

built a template out of sticks and bondo - it was crazyness

Gee, I've never done anything like that.  Nope, strictly professional methods for everything, I've ever done, yessir....  :laughing7:

 

[tubby.twins]

Nice neck!

I sent Haeussel an e-mail several months ago, and never got a reply.

 

[mgaut051]

Neck and body color are *a little* (ever so slightly) exaggerated  by my camera - a little but not much - they ARE sweet looking. Can't wait to rout, and oil. But I've felt that way the last decade so...

1. Got the wood for the body from my uncle who's a cabinet maker. 30$ in the day.

2. Clamped 2 sicks to the neck, wrapped everything in cellophane, filled with bondo, used as a PERFECT routing template. Sounds crazy, but back then I didn't know about stewmac... worked, didn't it^

3. I also wrote haeussel and never got a reply - looking at giovannis.

4. Yes - loosely based on my brother's spector, and warwick, but from memory only - not traced - all freehand.

 

[TomPerverteau]

The neck pocket looks great. Nice job.

 

[mgaut051]

quick post to say I routed the pickup cavities and the body roundover today. It was soo much fun.
Learned a few things:

• MDF is the worst for adhoc templates
• You can rout more than 1/4 deep, as long as it's (much) less than 1/8 thick
• The 2nd pass with a 3/8 bit isn't really necessary for a HB
• That screw that prevents your router from going deeper - it's actually useful
• That screw that prevents your router from going deeper prevents you from having to make pickup rings
• Making pickup rings sucks
• Roundover is a fluid concept
• My uncle is a cowboy
• I like making my work pretty as I work
• That screw that prevents your router from going deeper should be tight

Poor quality pics will follow.

Martin

 

[NonsenseTele]

Cool!!

 

[kboman]

I sense a story behind those repeated mentions of the router screw :icon_biggrin:

 

[mgaut051]

and if by story you  mean grief - then yes.

 

[mgaut051]

So - I have two Artec Giovanni's (slim bubinga) I got used from tubby.twins (pleasure to deal with), and a q-tuner (BL4) I also got from t.t.

The bridge is an el-cheapo until I can afford the Ghost.

The neck rout went fine.

The middle rout - forgot to tighten that screw - and the plunge router did just that - plunge. Hence the target in the middle of the rout.

The bridge rout - um... well, I'm ashamed. Got greedy, routed too deep, bass wasn't clamped well, and, well, lets just pretend I always intended to put a pickup ring on the q-tuner to "balance" things out with the other 2 pickups. The look will not suffer. I swear.

And contour routing - my uncle had a 5hp router (that's huge) and the thing is a beast - never slows down for anything. And since the mahogany was WELL aged, there was 0 tearout - even though I just routed counterclockwise in (almost) 2 passes. Got lucky.

And I just noticed that my laptop's camera does funny things with pics - no, I'm not a lefty.

 

[LightMeDark]

Wow, I love the body shape.  Wish I had the balls and know-how to make my own body.

 

[mgaut051]

Thanks!

Balls? Sure - I have a daughter and my wife's pregnant - so I have at least one of those.
Know how - I didn't take any courses, or read any books - found all I needed online, and measured off my MexiJazz.
Design - well, that's art. You try and scribble and draw until you come up with something you say: man, that's hawt.
The worst part is tools - but all I used was a SMALL router for the pup routs, and a very large one for the contour.
Cut out the bass on a band saw and hand sanded it...
My advice: try it.
Worse comes to worst - you fail, and learn, and try again.

It's fun.

 

[LightMeDark]

Cool, thanks for the encouragement.  I'm sure I'll get there someday

 

[kboman]

You know that? That shape would look extremely cool reversed, like a Mosrite!

Good work on the contour routing at least

 

[abandon_blink]

Dayum! amazing job on that body!!!

 

[mgaut051]

The plan for the control cavity cover.
Most ppl won't like it.
Based on my tattoo.
The little circles are the control positions.

black plastic, with bloodwood inset, and fluorescent orange acrylic skeletton inlay.
It's going to be a lot of work.

QUICK photoshop mockup

It's going to be a long process.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Looking nice. A lot of good ideas!  :icon_thumright:

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Wow... don't know where to start really... so many good things to say...
When I have to explain why I love Pau Ferro for fingerboards I should show the photo of this neck. This is just amazing.
The body... on the first pictures the outline was ok, but with the profiling you have done it really shines. Really organic and smooth.
And the cover... you say most people won't like it but I definitely do. I just hope you will be able to carry it over from the mockup to the real thing, the skeleton inlay seems very ambitious. I'm mighty curious, could you post a picture of that tattoo?