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Building my own bass

So after over 30 CBG's I have decided to try building my own bass, to use as a backup to my early 1980's Fender P when playing out. And for the fun of it, of course.

Early on I dedided the body would be a thunderbird, but with a Fender neck because they are widely available in the aftermarket and I am already comfortable with my p-bass. Ended up missing the last neck that CBGitty had by a matter of hours, so I went to eBay and bought a Jazz neck with rosewood fretboard instead. It should be here in a couple of weeks.

So then I got started on the body. I decided to laminate a variety of woods that were gifted to me by friends and family, laid up in individual strips of Ash, Cherry, Birds-Eye Maple, and Oak.

So far I am really stoked with this project. Next week I hope to find someone with a 14" planer to level out the front and back surfaces, then have to wait for the neck to arrive before I can do the routing on it for the electronics and neck pocket.

Doing research on the project I discovered that John Entwhistle of The Who created a few "FenderBird" basses back in the early 70's... That instantly told me I was headed in the right direction.

The first pic is the prototyping work I did on my computer to get an idea of how it would look, the second pic is the laminated block for the body. So far, so good!!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:44pm

Test fitting the pieces. Very excited at this point.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:45pm

Minwax natural stain, then about 8 coats of varathane.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Potts on April 7, 2015 at 3:52pm

There is still LOTS to be done, but at this point in the build I was able to plug in and test drive it, which felt REALLY good. The neck needs a string tree on the D and G strings, my daughter is working on headstock art, the frets need a bit more dressing and then it gets lacquered. I've also got to finish up the cover for the electronics pocket and figure out where the strap nuts should go.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on February 20, 2015 at 10:45am

Totally cool. Nice job fixing the neck pocket. Looking forward to hearing this build when it's done.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Craig on September 6, 2015 at 10:34am

I think this will look great when your done. Can't wait to see the finished product. What overall weight are you shooting for? I built a JBass awhile back and was surprised at how heavy the neck was. Luckily the smaller body I used didn't cause neck dive.

When I wrote this, not all of the content had loaded and I didn't see that you had finished it. Look's great, enjoy.