This is a continuation from part 4. Below: Body has been clamped into upright position. Below: The tool we’ll be using here is a handheld pneumatic drum sander (otherwise known as bladder sander) with 2.5-inch cylinder, connected to a cordless drill. Below: Using the handheld pneumatic drum sander. The advantage of using this tool is … Read more
The feature bass this week is a fretless beauty. Owner Rob Paschall writes: Wenge neck and body with ebony fretless board. 17mm string spacing, 1.75 nut width Nordstrand MM5.4, each with 3 way switch for series, “single”, parallel. Active/passive push pull on master volume Blend 3 band Delano preamp I wanted a versatile tone machine, … Read more
If you work with wood (and you probably do), every now and then you come across scraps that can’t be used for bass building… …but they can be used for other things. One of the more simpler things that can be built from scrap and/or reclaimed wood is a pedalboard. Here is a video, start-to-finish, … Read more
This is a continuation from part 3. Below: The body is clamped to table to show current state of the build before work continues. Below: View of the upper horn. A flat spot still exists on the side that needs to be taken care of and blended into the curve. Below: The rasp file is … Read more
We’ve no idea who this guy is, but what we do know is that he wears a bunny outfit, plays bass, busks and is located somewhere in Melbourne Australia. He has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/funkybunny If you happen to see the funky bunny in Melbourne, tell him Best Bass Gear sent you! 🙂
For a hobbyist builder, Steve does some darned fine work. Steve from Doner Designs writes: Doner Designs is a fancy name for my son and I who build as a hobby and also donate some of our works to charity. We don’t do any build-for-sale work but do flip our personal gear sometimes to make … Read more
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
