Watson Guitars
Idyllwild
California, USA
BASS #5 (Serial 06B005) This instrument has been sold. Meet the new owner.

4 String neck-through active bass.
Materials: Body: Tulipwood, maple and Pau Ferro. Neck: Pau Ferro and Bloodwood. Koa and Sycamore veneers.
Fingerboard: Select Birdseye Maple
Pickups: Carey Nordstrand Big Singles
Electronics: Aguilar OPB-3 5-Band with Mid-Range selector.
Bridge: Hipshot
Hardware: Gold
Tuners: Gotoh 35-Gram extra-lights
Scale: 34 inches
Finish: High Gloss Polyester Resin by All Wood Finishing

The tulipwood has a beautiful grain and matches well with the bloodwood neck laminates. The body core is an extremely unusual laminate combination of 1/4" thick Maple and Pau Ferro separated by Hawaiian Koa veneer. The neck consists of Pau Ferro with Bloodwood stringers separated by Hawaiian Koa veneer. There will only be one of these on the planet, at least with this particular recipe! As nice as Pau Ferro looks and sounds, it's quite a problematic wood for finishing. It was worth all the effort though and we really like how this bass has turned out.

It is fitted with a Hipshot bridge, Carey Nordstrand Big Singles pickups and Aguilar OBP-3 Electronic Preamp with a 400/800mhz mid-range selector..

This bass is a very slick and punchy instrument. Having just strung it up I am very impressed with the response. It seems to be very acoustically 'alive'. It has a full range tone, deep well defined lows and a great high end. The Aguilar preamp has an impressive impact on the range of tones you can get from the pickups. This body design allows for great access to the higher frets (27 on this instrument) and is comfortable to play and looks great.

We decided to add a biedseye maple fingerboard to this already unusual bass. We got a super piece of highly figured birdseye from Gallery Hardwoods which looks awesome on the instrument. It also has unusual bloodwood fret markers which wrap around the top edge of the fingerboard.

If there's a bass player out there looking for a truly unusual and unique intrument this is it!

Wanna make an impression on stage? Your solution is right here!!

Left: Here's the headstock (also bookmatched) minus the truss rod cover. Nut is from Graph Tech, you can also see the beautiful bird's eye maple fingerboard and one of the 27 gold frets.

Below: Another detail shot showing the core laminates in the body. The tulipwood is a beautiful color, we will use this wood again!

Left: a back view of the guitar showing the Pau Ferro and Bloodwood neck, the tulip wood back and the custom Pau Ferro/Maple core of the body. Control cavity is ready for copper shielding and the electronics package.

Below: Here you can see the effect of the belly relief on the unique center section of the bass. The maple has a nice figure and the pau ferro has a beautiful golden glow. You can also see the double veneers separating the bookmatched tulipwood top and back.

Above: detail of the pau ferro and bloodwood neck.
Left: Nice shot of the back of the bass including the matching control cavity cover.

The photo above shows the bookmatched tulipwood on the head and the very nice figure in the birds eye maple

Here's a close up of the birds eye maple neck and the unusual bloodwood fret markers along the side of the neck. We used gold frets to match the gold hardware that will be added to this unusual instrument.

Note that this is a 27 fret bass. The body design allows much more access to the higher frets. This bass will be coated with a high gloss urethane finish. This will bring out the color in the maple and tulipwood. We'll post photos as soon as we get the instrument back from Rene Rodriguez, our finishing expert.

The photo on the bottom left shows the cool curves created by the Pau Ferro and Maple core of the instrument.

Here's a photo of the bass showing the unusual pau ferro and maple center section. On the right, a photo of the recently completed Birds Eye Maple fingerboard blank.
 
Last update 01/30/2007