Custom 6-string Neck-Thru Bass - 30" scale! (Serial 09B036)
Call 951-659-8616.

This is a very exciting project. Our customer requires a very short scale bass which will also be a 6-string. This is the ultimate challenge for achieving a strong and well-defined low B string response. We have some creative plans to maximize the B string response. It will feature our single-cut style with enhanced access to the upper frets.

We will be using mostly lightweight materials throught the construction of this bass. The Butternut back will certainly be nice and light. We have a center laminate of gaboon Ebony by our customer's request. This will add some weight as it is a very dense wood, but we hope to be able to trade that for the extra sustain it may yield on the finished bass. Weight and a good physical fit for our customer are the two big goals. Good tone and playability being of course a given!

Decorative veneers are being glued to the Butternut body halves.	(6/18/10) in an effort to get this instrument glued together into one shape that resembles a bass guitar I am working on some of the routine gluing jobs to get there. In the photo to the left you can see that we are gluing the Butternut body halves to decorative Maple veneers. We also have some veneer work to do to the center core of the instrument, but once that is done we'll be able to attach these body halves and have an infant bass guitar!
Zebrawood top plates have been resawn and bookmatched.	(6/12/10) The Zebrawood has now been successfully resawn down the center of the blank creating two nicely bookmatched pieces just over 3/8" thick. I also cut the top and bottom shapes closer to their finished sizes. Currently they are between 1/8" and 3/16" oversize all round until we are done with shaping and gluing. The material looks very nice. It finishes to a strong golden brown and we're planning a Tiger-Eye sunburst to set it off too!!
The rough shape of the instrument has been cut from our billet of Zebrawood.	(6/4/10) This material is the Zebrawood we are going to use for the top plate. I rough-cut the shape of the bass from the board I had in stock and next I will drum sand both sides so that we have a nice smooth and flat piece to work with. This zebrawood has a very consistent and evenly spaced grain so it should look very nice on the finished instrument. Next challenge is to resaw the wood down the center so that we create a bookmatched set.
This is the Butternut material for the back of the body.	(5/30/10) The back of this bass is going to be a unique wood called Butternut. Similar to mahogany in many ways, Butternut has a very attractive grain and is also remarkably light. For this project it is the perfect wood for the application. It will look nice against the Zebrawood top and will not add much to the weight of the instrument. The photo to the left shows the upper and lower halves of the back of the bass.
Here we are gluing the carbon fiber rods into the neck.	(5/21/10) We have moved the neck core piece a little further on by doing some secondary machining operations on it to prepare the sides for the body parts which we plan to attach soon. In the meantime, we glued the carbon fiber rods into their respective slots in the neck using high-grade epoxy which we will leave to fully cure overnight. In the morning we will clean up any squeezed out adhesive and start looking at the body halves.
CNC Machining is complete and we're ready to start working on the body.	(5/4/10) All the CNC machining operations have been completed. The joint faces have all been established and we have slots cut for the two carbon fiber slots and the truss rod. The body angle to the neck has been established so that we can now locate on that surface in order to clean up the back of the core section. We will then start cutting up the materials for the body halves and the bookmatched Zebrawood top.
The neck/body core is now being machined on the CNC.	(4/29/10) All the laminates have now been glued together and the assembly can now be mounted on one of our CNC machines. This will allow us to do several operations at one time while the core section is constrained in the fixture. First we will clean up the joint face where the fingerboard will be attached, then cut the headstock and body angles. Then we cut the tapered profile of the neck/body section and finally CF and Truss rod slots.
Now we are gluing the seven neck/body core laminates together. Looks really good so far.	(4/8/10) We have been busy over the last 2-3 days gluing the various laminates of the neck/core section together. We started by gluing contrasting veneers onto the individual laminates. Once the 12 or so veneers were applies we started gluing the tapered laminates together starting with the ebony center strip and working outwards from there. In the photo we are gluing on the sixth of seven indiviual veneered pieces together.
Cutting tapers is done - now we have to apply veneers.	(3/29/10) All the center laminates in the neck have been cut to the correct tapers. The next task is to apply contrasting veneers to each of the laminates. This will be done in the vaccum press over the next couple of days. As soon as the veneers are on I can start gluing the parts of the neck/body core together. This is a relatively slow process for multi-laminate necks because to get the best results I only glue one laminate at a time.
Machining the center laminate to a taper.	(3/28/10) We have now cut the center ebony strip from our raw material and sanded it to thickness. Now it's up on the ornamental mill so that we can machine it to a pre-defined taper along its length. We will then move on to doing the same machining operation to the two East Indian Rosewood strips and the two Curly Maple strips. This will give us a total of five tapered center strips for our neck, which should combine to make a very rigid assembly.
Most of the blanks have now been cut - just the ebony now!	(3/26/10) I have now split the East Indian Rosewood and Maple blanks to make six out of the required seven body core laminates. The last one will be a little bit of work to cut as I have to resaw a larger piece of very hard Gaboon Ebony. The bass is starting to take shape and we'll be sanding these pieces and getting them on the ornamental mill very soon to cut them to the correct tapers. So far so good.
Some of the rough cut neck blanks plus the body outline for the bass.	(3/25/10) The cutting of the core pieces on this bass continues. In this particular case we have a lot of wood to resaw in order to get all the components ready. We are splitting the East Indian Rosewood section and one of the Maple sections each into two pieces. Also - we need to prep and saw up a piece of Gaboon Ebony which will run as a continuous laminate right through the center of the instrument. Lots of sawing to be done!
We've started cutting blanks for the core of the bass.	(3/23/10) I am in the process of cutting up the various woods which will go together to make up the core section of this 6-string bass. In the photo to the left you can see the curly maple which will make up most of the neck, the Gaboon Ebony which we plan to use for a strip down the center of the instrument, and the East Indian Rosewood which we will split to create two laminates running through the instrument.
Foam mockup of the bass for a test fit with our customer!	(3/11/10) Because this project is very much focused on our customer's specific requirements we chose to make a mockup of the overall shape of the instrument. This will be sent to our customer so that we can establish some critical measurements before we commit to shaping the body of the actual instrument. In the photo the headstock is separate - we need to attach that and do some carving before it goes out.
This Curly Maple will play a big part in the construction and sound of the bass.	(2/14/10) We're off to a flying start with this very unusual bass guitar. First order of business is to cut up some of our Curly Maple stock for the core section of the instrument. The photo on the left shows part of the board we will be cutting the maple components from. It has a nice curly figure which will show up nicely on the finished product. I have established scale drawings and plans for this bass so we're in a good position to get started!