{"id":4066,"date":"2013-05-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/?p=4066"},"modified":"2013-05-21T06:32:22","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T11:32:22","slug":"thinking-of-building-a-body-out-of-acrylic-tread-carefully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/ideas\/thinking-of-building-a-body-out-of-acrylic-tread-carefully.html","title":{"rendered":"Thinking of building a body out of acrylic? Tread carefully…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the dawn of the modern electric guitar (which obviously includes the electric bass guitar), there have been more than a fair share of builders who have put together some pretty wacky builds. Some of the more-wacky include bodies made out of stone or concrete, and the modern variant is 3D printed guitar bodies of plastic<\/a> (and trust me, you’re going to see more of those as 3D printers become more common).<\/p>\n

A body material that’s been around for a very long time is acrylic. Or at least that’s what it’s commonly called now.<\/p>\n

A quick explanation of what acrylic actually is<\/h3>\n

The technical description for acrylic is a transparent thermoplastic<\/em>, meaning a transparent polymer that when heated up enough can be molded into whatever shape you want, then when cooled retains that shape.<\/p>\n

Acrylic’s technical name<\/a> is polymethyl or polymethacrylate. This material has been sold under several different names including Lucite, Plexiglas and Acrylite, but regardless of what you call it, when seen on a guitar body, builders will simply call it acrylic.<\/p>\n

The most well-known earliest guitar made from this material was the 1961 Stratocaster made out of Lucite<\/a>. Construction started on it in ’57 but it wasn’t completed until ’61.<\/p>\n

Basically speaking, “see-through” guitars have been around for over 50 years, so it’s nothing new.<\/p>\n

Are acrylic-bodied guitars still made today?<\/h3>\n

Yes, and frequently. While it’s rare you’ll see an acrylic-bodied guitar in the guitar store, you can easily find them on eBay, and custom builders typically will build at least one acrylic-bodied guitar “just because”. <\/p>\n

Should you<\/em> build a bass guitar using an acrylic body?<\/h3>\n

Not unless you’re very skilled at weight reduction design. More on that in a moment.<\/p>\n

The Strat made of Lucite mentioned above is – get ready for this – 18 pounds (that’s 8.16 kilograms for you metric types); a ridiculously heavy guitar.<\/p>\n

To put this in perspective, a heavy bowling ball weight is 16 pounds. Imagine wearing that strapped around your body + 2 pounds more. Not fun. Easy way to wreck your back and probably your guitar strap as well.<\/p>\n

To put this into even further perspective, a Fender Jazz Bass is anywhere from 8 to 11 pounds, depending on when it was made. In the 1970s specifically is when Fender J’s put on the most weight, but to the best of my knowledge they never went over 11 pounds – although I could be wrong. If anyone out there has a 70s Fender J with original hardware that’s over 11 pounds in weight, feel free to correct me on that one.<\/p>\n

Weight is your #1 enemy when using acrylic. Always. In your mind, you see the clear body and may think, “Well.. it looks<\/em> light, right?” No, it’s not. That solid piece of thermoplastic is seriously heavy.<\/p>\n

Methods of acrylic weight reduction for a guitar body<\/h3>\n

You basically have 3 options.<\/p>\n

1. Chambering (or outright holes)
2. Smaller body
3. Thinner body<\/p>\n

With chambering you keep the body thickness but strategically place chambers throughout the body in such a way that you think will look good to your eye. Alternatively, you can just have holes go all the way through the body in specific areas. Or you can use a combination of chambers and holes.<\/p>\n

Smaller body sounds exactly like what it is. Make the body smaller.<\/p>\n

Thinner body means the overall body shape retains its size but you thin the body by 20% or “as much as you can get away with” before the electronics would poke out.<\/p>\n

All of this should<\/em> (operative word there) be done in the body design stage before the body is made.<\/p>\n

Why would anyone want an acrylic body?<\/h3>\n

Mainly because you can make it light up easily, which admittedly looks pretty cool. Good for a cheap stage trick. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Watch this video of an acrylic-bodied bass with LEDs in it, and you can see how people in an audience would be wowed by this thing:<\/p>\n