The BotW for this week is what happens when a luthier has some time on his hands but no fretting tools to work with at the location he’s working in, so… he goes fretless!
This bass guitar technically has no official model name to it (none was mentioned); “Tasmanian Blackwood” is in fact what the body is made out of – although I have to admit that if a builder decided to use Tasmanian Blackwood as his company name, that would be pretty darned cool regardless of what the instruments were made out of.
Here’s the rest of the story from the builder, Mike:
What do you do when you don’t have your fretting tools handy? Go Fretless!
After a hiatus from making musical instruments due to moving from one side of Australia to the other (a short 4000km journey) I quickly got the urge to build again once settled into my new home.I needed a project and the only solution was a fretless bass. Problem was that my tools were on one side of the country and I was on the other, so I joined a Woodworking club in order to gain access to basic tools and machinery.
I thought it was also a good opportunity to tackle an eccentric design and have a bit of fun. I wanted an unusually long neck, a short, wide body, beautiful natural timber finish and an acoustic-style bridge.
The body is Tasmanian Blackwood; the top is “Yaka” – a beautiful piece of timber I stumbled across and knew very little about. I knew, however, that a guitar was itching to be carved from it; Wenge fingerboard; Wenge and Sheoak bridge; and a maple neck with Karri laminates.
The build was relatively straightforward, the top, neck and fingerboard were hand carved, and the abalone and beech inlays were hand cut to an original design that guides the player to relative fret positions.
In all it was a 6 month part time build. The bass is finished with oil and wax and a Bartolini humbucker with series/ parallel/ single coil switching.
Here are some more photos of the instrument:
A job well done, Mike!
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This is definitely one of the best looking bass guitars I’ve seen. I would play that bass like there’s no tomorrow.
Very nice!! Love the inlays. Reminds me of MK Dragonfly but I like this a LOT better than the Dragonfly. Beautiful!!
Avhei um instrumento poderoso, lindo muito bem acabado, as madeiras devem ser de primeira, ainda mais com Ébano na escala achei sensacional se eu pudesse comprá-lo até que compraria mas brasileiro não tem condições.Parabens tens m,ãos de DEUS.
Yesss! I would put her to the forefront and boast of it’s nature. Such a beauty!!! A true work of art.