5 string jazz bass build

Dave Black · Jan 26, 2015

I decided october 9th 2014 that I should build myself a new bass, so I bought some pickups from eBay which lead to buying tuning machines, then an onboard preamp and bridge and strap locks and all the rest. So november 15th I started making some saw dust. These pics are in rough order of how things went together. This build made me realize that my 14" walker turner wasn't up to resawing 6" so I did make a small field trip to grizzly for a G0513x2. I was going to get the anniversary edition but I talked myself into the x2 because of the blade guides and cast iron wheels etc. etc. but thats another thread.

The whole bass is maple with walnut strips, The top is book matched heartwood curly maple, all the maple came from my wifes aunts farm, and the walnut came from the woods by my house. The neck is a 5 piece neck or 9 piece if you count the thin walnut strips. The fingerboard is wenge, this was the first guitar that I made the fingerboard from scratch, the others I bought pre radiused and slotted fingerboards. I made a miter box for the slotting saw which luckily was on sale at woodcraft when I needed it.

Dave Black · Jan 26, 2015

I did something a little different than on most guitars, I bound the neck with 2 plys of wood, maple on the inside and wenge on the outside.
View attachment 88781 View attachment 88786 View attachment 88785 View attachment 88784 View attachment 88783 View attachment 88782 View attachment 88778 View attachment 88780 View attachment 88779 View attachment 88787I think it turned out nice and is subtle.

why do these pics show up as attachments?

Dave Black · Jan 26, 2015

More pics, I messed with finishing the fingerboard with ca glue, I like the idea but will do it different next time as the way I applied it this time gave me unevenness which I had to sand back. I put a few drops in the board then wiped it around, so in the spots where I dropped the ca on it was thicker and you can see the difference in the shine.

Ted Calver · Jan 26, 2015

It's gonna be another beauty, Dave. Wenge is splintery stuff, but your fret slots look perfect. Would love to see some close ups of your slotting fixture/miter box. It looks like you built it from Corian? Does it have some sort of indexing pin to position the fret template? I want to build some cigar box guitars/ukes and don't want to spend a lot of money at stew mac just to cut a few finger boards.

Jason Beam · Jan 26, 2015

Oooooooooo - so cool! :lurk:

You're gonna love that 513x2 -- i love mine. Keep yer 14" though... if you haven't gotten rid of it already and can find room. It's very handy to have both setup

Dave Black · Jan 27, 2015

Yes I'm keeping the 14" saw.
Ill try to get some pics of the slotting jig tonight

Brent Dowell · Jan 27, 2015

Looking very cool Dave! Lovethat fretboard.

Vaughn McMillan · Jan 27, 2015

That looks sweet, Dave!

Dave Black · Jan 27, 2015

Here is the slotting jig, its made from some corian sink cut-outs I got from a counter guy. Its really simple, the sides are nice and square and can slide for blade kerf adjustment. I just clamped a piece of corian to the saw for a depth stop as well as stiffen the blade. There is an index pin to use with a stew-mac slotting template, the fingerboard gets double sided taped to the template and the the template indexes to the pin. I added a carriage bolt as a hold down clamp to make sure it stays in place while sawing.

Dave Black · Jan 27, 2015

Heres some more

Ted Calver · Jan 27, 2015

Dave Black said:
Here is the slotting jig, its made from some corian sink cut-outs I got from a counter guy. Its really simple, the sides are nice and square and can slide for blade kerf adjustment. I just clamped a piece of corian to the saw for a depth stop as well as stiffen the blade. There is an index pin to use with a stew-mac slotting template, the fingerboard gets double sided taped to the template and the the template indexes to the pin. I added a carriage bolt as a hold down clamp to make sure it stays in place while sawing.

Thanks for taking the time to show us your slotting jig, Dave. It looks like it gets the job done and won't be too hard to assemble. I'm really impressed with this bass build. Thanks again for taking us along. :thumb:

Dave Black · Jan 27, 2015

Heres some more, the bass is actually finished but it seems that while Im working on these type of builds I'm always too preoccupied to sit and upload pics.

Dave Black · Jan 27, 2015

Close to done at this point. I made my own knobs, I'm not sure what species they are exactly, I got the blank out of a miscellaneous bin at the wood store. I have found out that its not the easiest thing to turn a bunch of things and have them come out the same way. The knobs ended up being too tall so they all went back on the lathe and got shortened and in that process with more accurate measuring they came out much more the same. While waiting for the target em6000 to cure I built a custom case, I tried a variation to the foam process that I used in the past. The first 2 cases I built I used styrofoam sheets and cut out the shape but with the price of styrofoam sheets and the amount of waste I wasn't happy with that. The 3rd case I used great stuff foam but with out the "supports" which didn't work all that well, the foam fell in towards the middle and had large bubbles, with the supports the foam is confined and fills better, I think that it also works better doing a few layers rather than 1 deep layer.

Vaughn McMillan · Jan 28, 2015

I really like the sculpting at the neck/body joint, as well as at the butt of the body. :clap:

What are the five knobs? Volume, volume, tone, tone, master volume?

Dave Black · Jan 28, 2015

Volume, pickup blend, bass, mid with push pull switch to select freqency, treble and a toggle to bypass the preamp which is a Aguilar obp3, which I highly recommend.

Dave Black · Jan 28, 2015

Heres the finished product.

Brent Dowell · Jan 28, 2015

Did you do another thread on a case like that before? Love the bass, the case really makes a nice protective environment.

Dave Black · Jan 28, 2015

all my guitars have custom cases in that shape

Ted Calver · Jan 28, 2015

I really appreciate the chance to watch your progress. Love the wood combo and the sculpting on this one :thumb:

Vaughn McMillan · Jan 29, 2015

Beautiful end result, Dave! :clap:

5 string jazz bass build

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