Cigar Box Bass, Neck Questions

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Permalink Reply by Jason W. on June 22, 2011 at 9:41pm

I'm a fan of maple. It sands nice and smooth, looks good without staining, easy to finish and it's stiff.

 

I've got little experience with bass guitars. I do know they're a bit longer than your standard guitar scale and have much chunkier strings. I've never tested to see what a maple neck can handle before bowing or warping, but I feel you might need some internal support for your neck. If it doesn't bend off the bat, it probably will eventually. If you're willing to spend some cash, you could put a few carbon rods in the neck. If you wanna Macgyver it, a square steel rod from a hardware store would probably suffice.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Taylor on June 22, 2011 at 11:23pm

thanks for the reply, but i have no idea how i would even begin to install like a truss rod. i was just gonna use a flat piece of wood and make it a fretless i made a 3 string cb guitar and i used poplar but i knew that wouldnt be tuff enough for a bass.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on June 25, 2011 at 11:24am

There is a photo of a cbg bass that I built on my page -cbg12- the neck is mahogany laminated with maple.The scale length is34" or 864mm which is easier to use if your going to add frets.The neck is 42mm wide and measures 647mm from the nut to the cigar box.  There's also a photo showing a neck stiffened by epoxy glueing a 14x5 steel flat into a groove routed into the sycamore neck on a six stringer cbg No.11. Hope this is of some help

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