| Project by alanealane | posted 706 days ago | 1954 views | 2 times favorited | 19 comments |  |
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I finally got some pictures of the custom bass I made for myself. The body is locally harvested (Michigan) White Ash. The neck is Mahogany with a tiny bit of Cherry in the headstock, and the fingerboard is Striped Ebony. The rear coverplate is quartersawn Cherry. It is quite heavy because of the ash, but sounds GREAT! It sounds very much like a double (upright) bass. I love the strings—they are called “tape-wound”strings, and won’t corrode—I use GHS brand strings exclusively because they are excellent quality and are made in Battle Creek, MI—that’s pretty close to home. The pickups are dual-coil humbucker Jazz Bass pickups. I have a volume control for each pickup, and one tone control shared between both.
HEAR A SAMPLE OF IT HERE.
The headstock was possibly the hardest part of the instrument as far as design goes. I wanted it to be as small as possible, look good, and still fit my tuners and the cover plate for the truss rod. I carved the neck with wood rasps and spokeshaves. The neck was finished with pre-cat lacquer and the fingerboard was finished with—you won’t believe it…......OLIVE OIL rubbed in by hand. The body of the bass has four coats of 100% tung oil (imagine how long that took to dry!!) and four coats of clear gloss Polyurethane.
I am a true believer in showing the natural beauty of the wood that God gave us to enjoy. I rarely stain wood. Here are some Pictures of this gorgeous instrument…the Ash is really nicely figured.
Notice that the guitar body is made from ONE board of Ash. I planed and sanded the boards to thickness, cut the pieces to length, and glued two pairs of boards face-to-face to get the thickness, and then I edge glued each ‘half’ to get the width I needed (I made sure on the front of the bass, that the sapwood came together on the centerline of the guitar to give a nice blend from one side to the other, with no visible glue line). The end grain on the bottom of the bass has a cool Herringbone pattern from the rift-sawed part of the boards.
I will post a clip of one of my studio recordings with this bass later. The recording was made with standard stainless round-wound strings, but they were cutting into the Ebony fingerboard, so I changed them to tape-wounds.
Keep an eye out for my instruments to appear on Ebay. I’d like to try to get a market for these fine instruments going online. I’ll keep ya posted. Thanks for looking!!
-- Lane Custom Guitars and Basses
19 comments so far
CharlieM1958
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7466 posts in 1097 days
posted 706 days ago
Really sweet-looking bass!
-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"
rikkor
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11338 posts in 753 days
posted 706 days ago
Very nice!
mot
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4901 posts in 915 days
posted 706 days ago
You did a very nice job on the bass. Thanks for the construction detail. I feel the details really add to the project.
-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)
itsme_timd
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675 posts in 709 days
posted 706 days ago
That looks great, awesome pics as well.
-- Tim D. - Woodstock, GA
YorkshireStewart
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779 posts in 780 days
posted 706 days ago
Lovely body shape – your design? That headstock is a delight too – the small size really works well. And the fretless fingerboard looks, well, just cool!
-- Res severa verum gaudium - True pleasure is a serious business. http://www.folksy.com/shops/TreeGems
Napaman
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3416 posts in 955 days
posted 705 days ago
amazing!!!! i love all the photos…turned out great!
-- Matt, Napa, CA...fun is beautiful...just trying to have some fun...
alanealane
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174 posts in 769 days
posted 705 days ago
Thanks for the kind words everyone! Yorkshire, I ‘eyeballed’ the basic body shape by looking at a Carvin catalog. Check them out! www.carvin.com
I made sure I didn’t steal their design by just freehand sketching the shape on my wood blank and then cutting and sanding until it pleased my eye. I should have first made a plywood template, because now I have to sketch a new design (unless I take my finished bass back in the shop, and trace around it).
CHECK OUT MY FORUM TOPIC—hear me play my bass: http://lumberjocks.com/topics/1566
-- Lane Custom Guitars and Basses
Dick, & Barb Cain
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6991 posts in 1178 days
posted 705 days ago
Nice grain matching on the glue up, it looks like a solid piece.
Nice pictures, I think taking decent pictures of a guitar is very difficult.
-- -** You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream ****************** Dick, & Barb Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1
DAN
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6396 posts in 861 days
posted 701 days ago
nice ash. well done.
-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever
Bren
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33 posts in 753 days
posted 656 days ago
Beautiful Bass.
Sounds great!
Where in Michigan are you?
-- Bren Hartman, Battle Creek, Michigan
rikkor
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11338 posts in 753 days
posted 656 days ago
Good looking workmanship. Great sound.
eViolinist
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18 posts in 589 days
posted 589 days ago
Looks great!
Texasgaloot
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467 posts in 579 days
posted 566 days ago
Very sweet! I’m a big fan of two things you’ve done here: 1. Fretless. Now, that’s a REAL bass. 2. Clean. No pickguards, no funky graphics or racing strips. Excellent job—and I hope you get a great business going!
-- There's no tool like an old tool...
jeanmarc
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1750 posts in 595 days
posted 468 days ago
You did a very nice job on the bass.
-- jeanmarc manosque france
alanealane
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174 posts in 769 days
posted 468 days ago
Thanks!! I’m actually sitting here browsing the LJ site with the bass in my lap !! It’s my baby…
-- Lane Custom Guitars and Basses
Obi
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2191 posts in 1115 days
posted 444 days ago
I understand “Baby”. You can check out mine here. Since the original I’ve made a neck-thru purple heart/maple/brazilian cherry/cherry P B & J. which i sold and im making a alder/walnut sith a set neck.
And Fretless…wow. I didn’t know how to play the Bass when I made it and it took me 30 days to learn how to play it and now I play it at church every week.
-- http://ye-olde-cabinet-shoppe.com/
scottb
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3391 posts in 1205 days
posted 414 days ago
really nice! thanks for sharing all those pix I feel like I could actually tackle one of those in a reasonable amount of time… learning to play, might take a little longer.
-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/
Hersh
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59 posts in 593 days
posted 393 days ago
Beautiful work. I’m not a bass player yet. I’m playing around with the idea of making an upright acoustic bass. Great job and keep up the good work.
-- Hersh from Port Angeles, WA - Gotta Complete That Project!
dbhost
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563 posts in 110 days
posted 74 days ago
I’ve been itching to build a bass for a while now, but am not sure how to deal with the neck / torsion rod layout. I am assuming the cap between the tuning machines on the head stock is where the rod access is…
Having played a fretless on a couple of occasions, I love the sound they give. Your project definately gives plenty of inspiration!
-- Trying to follow the example of the master.