Tech Guys

Ok! So IamMark is keen as Mustard to get his bass project under way but anyone else can join in. The project will get more expensive as we go along but we will be starting really cheap. First thing to buy is a roll of quality lining paper from your local decorating shop, a good quality Draughtsmans steel rule 1 metre long and get your local timber merchant to cut you some 10mm ply, 2 ft x 4 ft.
Every project needs a plan, by drawing it onto the lining paper until you are completely satisfied then you can transfer it to the ply to make your router templates. You need to draw a side profile and the body and neck face on, having a full roll of paper means trial and error will be cheap. Decide first what your scale length will be, for this first bass let's keep it 34“ for simplicity and a cheap 34” ready made neck will be easy to find. It is essential to know that the 12th fret is exactly half way between the nut and the bridge saddles so placement of the bridge on a 34“ is 17” away from the 12th fret at the saddles.
We will use one and three quarter inch timber for the body, draw two parallel lines one and three quarter inches apart, source the bridge that you will be using from the web and get it's dimensions most importantly the average height of the saddles from the face of the body. Mark this height on the top parallel line, now draw another parallel line from this Mark to represent the string, this will give you the depth of the neck socket. Ok that's enough to be getting on with for now, there's no putting it off, we will allow one month from start to finish which is plenty of time for this project, until next time, later dudes

Hang on, are you quoting specs for a neck saddle for a four string bass? Would it be possible to know what I need to do for a 5-string?

Thanks Marko!

I'm good on tools. I have pretty much everything one would need except for a planer. Always something I've wanted to buy, I just have no place to store one right now.

I'll look for the paper you suggested. I've never heard of it before, and don't really know what a decorating store is. Is that like an Arts & Crafts store, where one would buy frames, and sewing stuff?

Ok, Marko I've had some set backs. My chicken coop and run is taking longer to finish than I'd like. Then a storm knocked out my electrical panel on a rental property I own (ouch $3500), and then my house's water pressure pump just shit the bed (another $4000), so cash has been rather short as of late.

I will be buying the ply to make my template soon, as well as my body blank. But to show some progress I was able to buy a roll of that paper and come up with a design.

The horns/points look like a Warwick Corvette. I've drawn a dozen sketches, but I like this the best.

We need a neck now so we can make the socket match the heel, also, when we use the router to trim the body to size after roughing out, the router will have a circular guide that goes around the cutter, we need to know the distance from the outside edge of the guide to the widest part of the cutter and remove this measurement from the template or the finished body will be bigger by this measurement. The same applies for the neck socket template, this measurement needs to be taken into account. The cutter we use for the outside edge of the body is the same one that kitchen fitters use to cut worktops, they are long and we will get the cut in one pass. The cutter for the neck socket will need to be the same diameter as the curves at the corners of the neck heel. Top tip, never buy one of those boxes of router cutters that seem to be quite cheap, buy your cutters one at a time as and when you need them, Trend and Freud are some of the best on the market, skimping here will end in tears.