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Comment by Brian Revels on July 16, 2015 at 7:51am

Sure Jay - This was my first time ever building a Cigar Box Bass, and working with Weed Wacker Line. Jay was willing to take a chance on me, and I am grateful for that.

Jay specified he wanted a scale lenth between 26" and 30". I felt like it would sound more like a Bass the longer the scale, so I went with 30". I actually started building two basses side by side. Once I made my mistakes on the first one I rushed to finish (strings too close together, action way too high (about 3/4" at the 12th fret), etc... I was good to go on finishing this one.

I did some research on the different size lines and used .115 for the low-E, .95 for the A, and .85 for the D (Jay originally said 2-3 strings was all he wanted). I imagine this woud still sound decent using .95 for the low-E, .85 for the A, and .65 for the D (should Jay ever want to go with more conventional line you can find at any hardware).

The bridge is something new I tried. I recently came into posession of a nice set of Forstner bits, and use them any chance I get now. I glued two pieces of cigar box bracing together (you know, the cheapy thin stuff most of us builders pull out and throw away). I them cut/drilled two spots to wire two piezo discs together in series. I wired that to a volume pot and guitar jack. I put a post from a pop rivet on top, and that is what the strings rest and vibrate on.

I saw a "Doodle Bass" on here that used an eye bolt for the string anchor. I knew I was already going to use eye bolts for tuners (since I was building this Bass on the cheap per Jay's "I just want a stick in a box I can toss around"), so that worked out well. The only downside to using the eye bolts for tuners is that with the high tension of these Bass strings (weed wacker line or otherwise) you have to use a small pair of pliers or vice-grips in order to turn the eyes when tuning. The bright side to using the eye bolts and wing nuts... once the strings stretch, your tuning is pretty much locked in (almost like a Floyd Rose system).

I used Red Oak for the neck. I lightly marked off the frets with pencil, and punched spots on the side of the neck for fret markers. I then applied several coats of vegetable oil as a finish. Compared to my actual first Bass build, I was able to lower the action by half at the 12th fret mark, and the overall playability increased as well (able to play between the fret markers instead of fretting on the lines because the action was too high).

Comment by Jay Corwin on July 15, 2015 at 12:05am

Brian - maybe you could give more details on the build than me for people.

Comment by Jay Corwin on July 15, 2015 at 12:05am

I'm almost exclusively an upright player. The string spacing and amplified tone just work better with a pick on this bass. I didn't mean that as a good or bad thing, just more nature of the beast so to speak. It's a cool a little instrument, and exactly what I was looking for. I'm already thinking about things to do different if we plan another down the road.

Comment by Brian Revels on July 14, 2015 at 2:50pm

Awesome Jay, I am glad it turned out as good as it did.  I think it's one of the best CBGs I have made to date.  By the way, "best played with a pick"? I thought you said you were used to playing upright. :-P  I guess that extra thick "E" string is pretty killer. Thanks for allowing me to use you as a guinea pig, trying something I hadn't done, but been meaning to try. I think we both made out good with this deal.

Looking forward to hearing some sound samples from someone who can actually play it, and not me who has to fake it. :-)  Take care.

Comment by Jay Corwin on July 14, 2015 at 1:45pm

Pics of my new CBB built by Brain Revels. It's a three stringer, 30" scale, fretless, with weedwacker strings. I told Brian I basically wanted a stick in a box I could slug around and not worry about. He did me a little better than that. It's fun to play, best played with a pick. Plugged into a bass amp it has a similar sound to the short scale U-basses out there.

Brian was super cool to work with. Can't say enough good things about his CS and communication. I'll get around to some recordings of it soon.