This is a continuation from part 2. Below: A look at the contour cut before cutting begins. Note the pronounced edges; these will be rounded off. Below: Filing is about to begin. Below: The cut after filing (approximately under a minute of filing was required to get this shape). Below: View of upper horn. Note … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here The feature bass this week is a hollow body with beveled top (cool!) Builder David Smith from Christopher Bass Guitar writes: I’ve been a bass player for 35 years and full time luthier for about 18 years. For the first ten years the main part of … Read more
In a few articles from our how to build a bass guitar series, you’ve seen this thing in use. This is called a rasp. Generally speaking, there are two versions of this available, coarse and fine. Which should you get? Preferably both. What makes a rasp so useful? There are three main reasons why this … Read more
This build step is a continuation from part 1 where more finalizing of the body shape is done. Below: The body is clamped to table using scrap blocks Below: A look at how sharp this corner is presently. We will be blending this so that everything appears round(er) when finished. Below: The rasp is used … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here The feature bass this week proves that if at first you don’t succeed, try again. This builder did and the second time was a charm. Bass builder Roger Blake writes: I call this instrument The V2 Bass because it is the second version. The neck of … Read more
In this first part of this build step, we shape some more using a combination of both hand and power sanding with the goal of finalizing the overall shape. (Note: Since this step is split into parts, the tools shown will be shown over a series of articles.) Below: The body with rasp sitting on … Read more
What you see above is a photo of Tom Ambrose, owner of what looks like an ordinary Jazz Bass from a quick glance. But it’s anything but ordinary. Now before we get into the instrument you see above, there are a lot of Jazz Bass owners who love the idea of stuffing a preamp into … Read more
See the business listing for this bass builder here The feature bass this week features exotic woods and some great hardware. Builder Ademir Coelho de Souza writes: The name of the bass model is a tribute to my three year old daughter “Barbara Maria”. Body: Brazilian Cedar Top: Sandwich of amapá/purple heart/amapá with Imbuia root … Read more
You may have noticed in our bass build series of articles that when drawing is required, a mechanical pencil is used. But why? Why bother spending extra money on mechanical pencils when regular wood pencils are cheap and readily available? There are actually a few good reasons why the mechanical pencil is a requirement. 1. … Read more
For this step, there are basically two ways of getting it done. The first way is by hand, and the second way is using what’s known as a roundover bit. What will be shown here is how it’s done using the latter. Below: This is where we left off last time. All the body edges … Read more
