There's only one of THESE in the world - short-scale Warmoth 5!

stubhead

Master Member
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30.5" scale, swamp ash, maple/ebony neck, Schaller bridge and tuners, "High-C" tenor tuning - E A D G C. I thought I might have to tune up a whole step to F# B E A D because of the scale, but it's working fine as is with D'Addario Chromes. I guess you might get away with lower action with tighter strings... I inset the top strap button with a 1/2" brad point drill bit. After seeing enough of those on custom guitars and PRS's  the ordinary, Strat-type strap attachment with the sides of the button hanging off into space started looking barbaric, cheap and under-engineered:

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Hey! Where are the side position dots?!? Oh crap - HERE are the side position dots:

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(3/32" nickel/silver rod)
Hey! Where are the front position marker dots? OH CRAP! Here they are:

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(3/16" nickel silver rod - I also have some 1/4" red acrylic rod on the way, I'm not sure which way the dots will go...)

Hey! These body shapes sure look similar!

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Hey! These string retainers sure look similar!

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The maple/ebony, swamp ash, Schaller bridge & tuners brothers:

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The short-scale brothers:

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I have some cool little brass gears I was gonna use as knobs, but the more I look at it the more I think such a simple, classy babe needs just some basic amber Les Paul bell knobs.

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(also pictured is the Delrin AF sheet I cut the nut from, and some 1/8" brass stock I'm gonna use to make it a real brass nut when I recover from the build burn... might upgrade the string guide too.)

This thing is an absolute gas to play, but of course the intonation requires absolute attention - it's got 28 "frets" so the highest note is an E5, equivalent to the E note at the 12th fret of the high E string on a guitar. I have to do some organized intonation drilling, at least an hour a day till February or March I figure, then I'll decide whether to put in a preamp or not. I had Warmoth rout the hole for a double battery box, but I'm already getting the midrangey, 600Mhz - 2K Les Paulish tone I wanted, so maybe I'll just have to use the 18-volt battery hole as a condom dispenser or something.  :icon_biggrin:
 
cool bass.

the first thing that came to mind was, how does that B string sound on a short scale bass...
but then i read that you have it tuned up EADGC

is that a guitar pick for the string retainer?



 
looks cool but I dont get it. I thought short scale was for an easyer playing bass with a shorter neck....you've just moved the bridge up. :icon_scratch:

Brian
 
The short scale is all about chords and intervals and being able to reach them - especially on a fretless. I already have a long scale bass to play low thumpy bass parts on, this one is for playing melodies and songs.  :guitaristgif: There's a reason Stanley Clarke and Jonas Hellborg both commissioned short-scale basses when they got signature models, Clarke's Alembics are 30.75" scale and Hellborg's Warwick is 32" scale. The wider neck is also, counter-intuitively, better for playing chords - you don't play barre chords on a fretless, you have to finger each note. Check out Robertino Pagliari with OHM or Gary Willis with Tribal Tech or Percy Jones with Brand X and Tunnels, or Steve Bailey, or Tony Franklin to see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZMhSQm0q-0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKXn-1v75Gg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxT6S13rbsQ&feature=related&resnum=12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCBrSAcrm0M&feature=related&resnum=0
 
Dude, nostalgia is cool and all, but go to home depot and look in the tool section and get one of these...
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It's the 21st century now, the only people that use these are Omish...And live in the mountains of PA...
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I've got a few of those :p Don't use them, though. Actually, a lot of them. And a lot of bits for them.
 
DangerousR6 said:
Dude, nostalgia is cool and all, but go to home depot and look in the tool section and get one of these...
0724-24.jpg


It's the 21st century now, the only people that use these are Omish...And live in the mountains of PA...
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alot of people prefer those old fashioned hand drills because you cant screw anything up with them...
if your not careful, you could easily drill right thru the neck with the electric, but a hand powered drill goes nice and slow and controlled.
 
I agree with using the hand crank drill. I used one for my tuner screw holes and the truners installed with 0 problems.

Brian
 
line6man said:
DangerousR6 said:
Dude, nostalgia is cool and all, but go to home depot and look in the tool section and get one of these...
0724-24.jpg


It's the 21st century now, the only people that use these are Omish...And live in the mountains of PA...
S6300096.jpg

alot of people prefer those old fashioned hand drills because you cant screw anything up with them...
if your not careful, you could easily drill right thru the neck with the electric, but a hand powered drill goes nice and slow and controlled.
No you just have to be adept at using power tools.....But then again, I use power tools everyday so I'm used to it....
 
No you just have to be adept at using power tools.....But then again, I use power tools everyday so I'm used to it....

The side dot inlays are 3/32" deep, the face dot inlays will be half that.... good luck with that Milwaukee. Do you know anything about inlaying? :dontknow:
 
stubhead said:
No you just have to be adept at using power tools.....But then again, I use power tools everyday so I'm used to it....

The side dot inlays are 3/32" deep, the face dot inlays will be half that.... good luck with that Milwaukee. Do you know anything about inlaying? :dontknow:
I'm a machinist, I can do anything...... :icon_thumright:
 
I read up on a bunch of guitar making books - Maryland has a kickass interlibrary loan program, so I can read 'em for free. A lot of inlayers use either Dremels with a router base or the Foredom machines with the flex shaft, but they use a lot of hand tools too. There's actually a side-binding jig that fits on the Dremel base that Stew-Mac sells that would do a pretty good job on side dots but it'd be about $90 for the base and it, and I only need 13 tiny, shallow holes. If I were going to be inlaying side dots every day, I'd sure figure up something. I'd rather be playing guitars than dicking with them, that's for sure - I only do it because manufacturers won't build what I want. (and I can't quite afford my own luthier, not this week anyway)

Warmoth probably has a CNC program to do face dots and some kind of locked-on, slidey jig for the side dots - (?) - a few thousand dollars worth of machine for sure. The single hardest part doing it by hand isn't drilling the holes, it's making sure the center locating "punch" is perfect - drilling is easy. But, even a few thousandths of an inch off on any one of the dots, and I'll be staring at it every day for the rest of my life. :eek: Grrrr, sniff, etc. I can use a sewing needle in a pin drill to do the initial mark, then if I have to, "push" it around a little with a wire drill bit in a pin drill handle. It's a lot easier to finish building a new guitar than it is to demolish one that's sort-of working to make it better - it's a mental problem, I guess. :icon_tongue:
 
stubhead said:
I'd rather be playing guitars than dicking with them, that's for sure - I only do it because manufacturers won't build what I want.

They won't take a long scale bass neck and body and shove the bridge forward and call it short-scale?  That's strange.
 
When I started to read this thread, I thought, "this bass is stupid.  why would anybody want that?"  But after reading on and understanding the tuning vs. scale advantage of making a 5 string, but without a B string, and a C string instead...  Mind boggling!  I want to play it!  This bass would be soooo sweet under one of my trip hop studio concoctions...  Great work!  :hello2:
 
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