I always get a little wired on a show night so I might as well blog. Over the summer I bought an acoustic which I modified and named Brenda. Unfortunately Brenda is a little feedback machine at the volumes I play at, so I set about building Electric Brenda. I cut out Brenda's silohuette on a grocery bag, bought some wood and got to work—not my usual planning process.
The raw materials are heat treated ash, which smells like a campfire when you work with it, poplar and sitka spruce:
I worked pretty quickly on this build. The ash made the back of the body and the poplar made the sides and I used all my clamps.
Then I spent a lot of time sanding out the inside facing side of the ash…
Then I made some beefy brace bars for the sound board.
I glued together the body, got to work on the bridge and tailpiece. Here you can see the pencil marks for the pyrostriping…
I embedded the piezo pickup in this bridge with epoxy which turned out to be a mistake. Thanks to some guidance from Rob Allen, builder of beautiful bass guitars, I know where I'm going now, but it does mean building a new bridge.
I jumped ahead in the timeline just a bit.
Before discovering my electrics didn't work I strung her up to make sure she played. I did the final touches (filing the bridge and nut) while camping at Mammoth Cave National Park. I wonder if building a bass in the woods is like eating a cheeseburger in front of a cow…
I have to say this is a beautiful playing and (acoustically) amazingly voice-like sounding bass. I'm really happy with myself. So, I've dismantled her and have started finishing touches—more to follow.
My template became a bit of a sketchbook during the build process—check a look. And now it's 3am and I'm pooped.
The raw materials are heat treated ash, which smells like a campfire when you work with it, poplar and sitka spruce:
I worked pretty quickly on this build. The ash made the back of the body and the poplar made the sides and I used all my clamps.
Then I spent a lot of time sanding out the inside facing side of the ash…
For measuring purposes I put the 2 Brendas side by side and made my marks for the bridge placement.
Then I made some beefy brace bars for the sound board.
I glued together the body, got to work on the bridge and tailpiece. Here you can see the pencil marks for the pyrostriping…
I embedded the piezo pickup in this bridge with epoxy which turned out to be a mistake. Thanks to some guidance from Rob Allen, builder of beautiful bass guitars, I know where I'm going now, but it does mean building a new bridge.
I jumped ahead in the timeline just a bit.
Before discovering my electrics didn't work I strung her up to make sure she played. I did the final touches (filing the bridge and nut) while camping at Mammoth Cave National Park. I wonder if building a bass in the woods is like eating a cheeseburger in front of a cow…
I have to say this is a beautiful playing and (acoustically) amazingly voice-like sounding bass. I'm really happy with myself. So, I've dismantled her and have started finishing touches—more to follow.
My template became a bit of a sketchbook during the build process—check a look. And now it's 3am and I'm pooped.
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