Hey all,
I responded to a contest over on TB, where the idea is to build a bass using whatever spare parts you have lying around.
I decided to set aside my woodworking shortcomings and give it a try. Shortcomings is an exaggeration - I'm much worse than that.
Here's my rough plan:
- 2-piece Alder billet - I'll cut/shape it to look like a Telecaster guitar
- Nutless, tunerless maple/rosewood/blocked neck (I got it from Rondo for like $29 bucks a couple years ago)
- Fender Telebass Neck pickup
- Gibson EB-3 Bridge pickup
- Telecaster control plate w/ 3-way switch
- an old pickguard from a Jazz bass - will trim it to cover the neck pickup rout and part of the control plate.
- chrome tuners, bridge, neck plate, buttons, etc.
- Tusq nut
Cutting the slot for the Nut is what scares me the most.
I started it this weekend. Got the billet cut using a jigsaw and shaped it using a drum sander. Cut the neck pocket yesterday (In hindsight, I should have cut the neck pocket before I cut the billet)...more surface area to clamp router templates to.
Routing out the neck pickup cavity tonight.
Still unsure about whether or not to drill wiring holes or rout a wiring path (I'd rather drill, but it's a scary venture).
I wanted to make this shortscale (to limit neck dive, but I didn't plan it well enough and screwed up the neck pocket - the only choice I had was to re-rout the pocket to fit a Jazz neck.
If this goes well, I hope this will spawn new projects where I make the neck.
Here's a link to theproject pics, if anyone's interested:
http://s814.photobucket.com/albums/zz62/ack1961/Telecaster%20Bass%20build/Steve