Another project started; bass guitar build

MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

Well-known member
I decided to start a guitar build project this weekend. This one is going to be a "rebuild" instead of a scratch build. I already have most of what I need in my part boxes. The only thing I had to buy was a MN blend knob.

For this one I'm taking a guitar body and turning it into a bass. The body is made of ash I think and is a copy of a Phiga Iceman-ish style. The neck is coming from an Ibanez bass though I'm not sure exactly which model. I'm undecided on the bridge. I have a generic one off an Ibanez TMB100 or a set of individual saddles I can use, but I'm not sure if I'm really feeling those. I may end up getting something better quality. Tuners are a set of Gotoh GB707's.

The pickups are double J style from a Kramer bass. I believe they are made by Schaller and are rather unique. They're 4 coils each with it's own set of leads. So they can be wired up in a number of configurations. I'm thinking I'll wire the bridge pickup as bridge & neck side single J and full double J. The neck pickup I'll wire as split P, reverse P and full. I'll use some mini toggles for that. The rest of the wiring will be master volume/tone and blend knobs.

The last part of this is adding a top to cover the woodwork from having to plug bridge holes and pickup routes. I have a couple of options here depending on what works best. Top choice is to use some leftover tiger stripe bamboo flooring. I really like the pattern. Other choices is some ash that have a nice grain pattern or douglas fir.

I didn't get too far as I had to take a day to make a thickness planer sled for my router. My regular planer isn't wide enough to fit a whole guitar body through. So far I've filled the pickup routes and plugged bridge mount holes.

I forgot to take a pic before I started working on the body. Here it is a s it stands now and a quick mockup to get the idea of layout..

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This is the flooring I'm thinking of using as a figured top.
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Lastly a pic of the thickness planer sled.
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Got a little more work done today and also wasted a bunch of time and effort. I did plane down the top an back. Also scraped & sanded the paint off the sides. Here is the body as it stands now.

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The part where I wasted a bunch of time & effort was trying to work those left over flooring boards into a top. It's engineered flooring where the top is only about 3 mm thick. The rest is plywood/MDF backing. I fucked it all up trying to get the backing off. Nothing I tried worked out right and I kept going trough the top.
So I scrapped that Idea and started on plan B. I had a couple of 1/4" thick ash board that are just big enough to cover the body. It has a nice looking grain pattern and will look good as a semi-figured top. Right now it's edge glued and clamped up. Hopefully the glue up comes out well and tomorrow I be able to glue it on the body. I will need to plane the body down a little more to accommodate the extra thickness of this top.
I'm optimistic this will work fine, but if not plan C is to use some walnut veneer.

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Now it's starting to look more like something. This past weekend I planed the body down more to compensate for the top's thickness, glued the top on and got it all cut/sanded to shape. I forgot to take a pic of the top being clamped on. Just imagine the 2 pictured from my previous posts and a butt ton of clamps.

I'm on pause for the moment. I forgot I had broken my template bit and never got another one. I also decided to go with a different bridge. I want to use a Gotoh 201B instead of the basic Ibanez bridge I originally planned. So I'll hold off on doing any more work until I have those things in hand.

Here where I'm at now.

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Had a little time to work on this project and got some more done. Neck pocket and pickup routes are done.
I also decided to use a different bridge. I wanted to try one of the Gotoh 201B bridges. It came in a few days ago. It looks really nice and has a good heft to it.

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NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
Turning out nice! Are you going with a clear natural finish?
Click to expand...

I'm going to do a teal or turquoise stain using India Ink. I've used it before and really like it. They have a few colors in that range, I just have to test on scrap to decide exactly which one I want to use. I'll do the stain black and sand back technique to make the grain pattern pop. I'm also thinking about cutting a 22 degree chamfer (that's the bit I have) on the top for a faux binding. Again, I'll have to test it out on scrap to see if I like it or not.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I'm going to do a teal or turquoise stain using India Ink. I've used it before and really like it. They have a few colors in that range, I just have to test on scrap to decide exactly which one I want to use. I'll do the stain black and sand back technique to make the grain pattern pop. I'm also thinking about cutting a 22 degree chamfer (that's the bit I have) on the top for a faux binding. Again, I'll have to test it out on scrap to see if I like it or not.
Click to expand...

That would stress me out. I would be too worried about tearing a chunk out of the top, but I'm also not a woodworker.
Godspeed! Looking great so far! Are you doing anything special with the neck or headstock?
 
NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
That would stress me out. I would be too worried about tearing a chunk out of the top, but I'm also not a woodworker.
Godspeed! Looking great so far! Are you doing anything special with the neck or headstock?
Click to expand...

A sharp router bit minimizes the risk of tear out. And there's ways of splicing things in if you have to. A good portion of woodworking is fixing unintended mistakes. I've gotten really proficient at that over the years LOL.

I'm not going to do anything too special with the neck. I'm using an 34" scale Ibanez bass neck that already has an Iceman style headstock shape. Unfortunately I didn't have enough ash to make a matching headstock plate. So I'll just refine the shape a little more and match the body color.
Even though it's a bolt on neck, I also want to add a heel contour to blend into the body for a smoother transition. The heel is rather large and there's enough space to glue a block on and carve the contour. I'm optimistic, but not sure if it'll work out the way I'm thinking. My biggest concern is that the heel block won't mate to the body properly.
 
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