Author Topic: 5 string bass guitar  (Read 23995 times)

Offline Jere

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 24
    • Adventures in Watchmaking
Re: 5 string bass guitar
« Reply #25 on: November 27, 2009, 01:07:07 PM »
Very cool bass, instrument making is definitely art form.  Not only does it have to look good, but it has to sound good too, something I imagine isn't easy to do.  Your bass reminds me of another custom bass maker, Carl Thompson.  http://www.ctbasses.com/
Discovered him, as one of my favorite bassists (Les Claypool) is one of his best customers.

Unfortunately I have almost no musical ability,
Jere
"If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."  A. Einstein

Adventures in Watchmaking

Offline spuddevans

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1618
  • Country: 00
  • Portadown, Northern Ireland
    • My Photo website
Re: 5 string bass guitar
« Reply #26 on: November 27, 2009, 02:11:18 PM »
Thanks Bernd  :thumbup:

Very cool bass, instrument making is definitely art form.  Not only does it have to look good, but it has to sound good too, something I imagine isn't easy to do.  Your bass reminds me of another custom bass maker, Carl Thompson.  http://www.ctbasses.com/
Discovered him, as one of my favorite bassists (Les Claypool) is one of his best customers.

Unfortunately I have almost no musical ability,
Jere

Well I feel very flattered, thank you very much for the compliment :bow: I looked at some of Carl Thompson's work and his craftmanship is outstanding. It looks like he does a lot of carving which is way beyond my abilities.

To shape the body outline on mine I made a template out of 1/4" mdf, honed and sanded it into the shape I wanted, then traced the outline onto the body, rough cut on the bandsaw, then I attached the template and used a table-mounted router with a copy bit installed that has a ballbearing that follows the template.

I'm not that good at hand shaping, so I used jigs and templates wherever I could.


Tim
Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe  -  MI0TME

Offline spuddevans

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1618
  • Country: 00
  • Portadown, Northern Ireland
    • My Photo website
Re: 5 string bass guitar
« Reply #27 on: November 27, 2009, 02:21:38 PM »
Oh, I forgot to say when mentioning about Stewmac, they have pretty much every guitar making tool you could ever want. At first glance it might seem you need to spend a whole bundle on tooling to make a guitar, but look again. Many of those tools can be quite easily made, especially for those of us who have a lathe and mill. The only thing I would say that might be a bit hard to make would be the nut slotting files, these have to be a pretty precise fit for the strings.

Tim
Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe  -  MI0TME

Offline Brass_Machine

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5504
  • Country: us
Re: 5 string bass guitar
« Reply #28 on: December 06, 2009, 10:18:13 PM »
Thats pretty damn cool!

I have always wanted to build a musical instrument. Cant play anything. (though I used to DJ at a night club).... I was thinking a violin would be nice to do. OFC... then the OCD  :proj: steps in... Make it carbon fiber. Make it electric...

Eric
Science is fun.

We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.