1st build, a 4 string shortscale bass

This is the final product all in all i'm quite happy with it, Its certainly not a perfect build but its perfectly playable and looks allright aswell. As a big Primus fan I felt the need to have something a little similar to the instruments that Les Claypool plays.

I only had access to basic hand tools for this build. it took me about 4 weekends from start to finish. 10 days give or take.

Here are some specs

30in scale lenght
emg 35dc pickup
emg bqs active eq
hipshot kickass bridge

the body is made of Ash
the pickguard is Jatoba
Headstock veneer is Red Nyatoh

finally I used a simple oil and beeswax finish.

I took inspiration from this Carl Thompson Bass i saw on the Talkbass classifieds. Ive always been a fan of that scroll shape and upper horn.

I started out with this sacrificial bass, a PGB-200 travel bass by Pignose. A really cool little instrument that fit me perfectly.

I used the Neck and followed the dimensions of the lower half of the body y aswell.

I feel somewhat sad about destroying it, The built in speaker made it very unique.

Here's A picture of the Ash Body Blank and slice of Jatoba that would become the bass.

The bass above was my previous project Bass, it used to be a cheap Aria pro II PJ bass. Its pretty much unrecognizable now though.

I used the shape of my other basses to get a rough shape that I would later alter into something that i would like.

A closeup of the woods, they are both quite beautiful in their own right.

Ive drawn the rough shape onto the body blank. The lines assist in measuring distances and making sure everything was in line.

Cutting Through this relatively thick block of wood with just a jigsaw was a tough job.

I managed to cut it out without messing up too badly.

Here's all the leftover wood, maybe ill find a use for it later.

Ive drawn the shape of the control plate on the left, I also had intended on using the rest of the wood on the headstock but i realized it was too thick to be used as veneer.

This was the original plan for the pickup placement.

Figuring out the correct neck pocket placement.

I messed up pretty badly while routing out the wood here, turns out cheap chinese hand routers are quite unstable tools.

I tried my best to stitch up the holes with combination of toothpicks and wood glue, heres where i also decided to cut a groove under the neck for better access to the higher frets.

Because i couldn't use the remaining Jatoba as a headstock veneer, i got my hands on some thin Red Nyatoh instead.

Sanded the headstock to prepare for the veneer.

I messed up again, The Veneer cracked off on the side, i just superglued it back.

I found an additional use for the leftover jatoba, I put in a slice to level the ravaged neck pocket. It worked very well.

Better then before.

Cutting Jatoba turned out to be an absolute nightmare, It cracked and splintered like glass,
This was my second attempt at making the controll plate cover, the first ended in disaster.

From then on I decided to no longer use a jigsaw to cut it , instead i drilled holes along the outline and 'popped' it out.

Fit pretty well actually.

I messed up again on getting the bolt on neck screw placement. More toothpicks and woodglue to the rescue.

I covered the inside of the control plate with aluminum foil to provide some shielding for the electronics.

Carving The Control cavity provided its own challenges, holes that went too deep, were filled with epoxy and left to dry.

The electronics are deceptively simple, especially with Emg's solderless system.

Made sure everything would fit.

The holes weren't drilled evenly either, oh well at least everything fit.

I oiled the body a couple of times.

I also decided to angle the pickups , 50% of the reason was for the look 50% because the pickups are too tall and would hit the control cavity. I also measured the pickup to be in roughly the same area as a 90's EB Stingray, maybe it will channel some of that tone into it aswell.

Headstock and controll plate aswell.

I decided to reuse these screw covers from the original bass , it looked better then bare screws.

I couldn't route the wood perfectly by hand either, a common theme in this build.

Mounted everything to the controll plate.

Strung it up, it looks great from far away.

A couple of fuck ups along the way but nothing major. Proud owner of this truly one of a kind Bass.