Fretless Acoustic Bass

[Basvarken]

I'm finally done building my fretless acoustic bass. I've worked on this bass for two years. Didn't work non stop of course, but one evening in every two weeks. And the occasional lost hours at home. To be honest the whole project took much longer than I had planned. I made it way too complicated for myself. Guess I was a bit hard headed in doing things my way instead of the usual way it's done  

But hey; the thing is here now

Fretless
Shortscale (30 inch)
Maple sides
Contoured spruce top
Contoured bookmatched flamed maple back
The neck is made of two parts maple and one part mahogany in the middle
The nut, bridge and tailpiece are ebony
De fretless fingerboard is ebony with mahogany fetlines
Gotoh res-o-lite tuners
Pyramid flatwounds

The bass has two soundports at the front side. These are not only holes but actual ports. The sound has to travel a bit further than it would with just the usual hole.
At the side -for the player on the top side- there's another soundhole. This projects the sound towards the player (=me) while playing. I built it for msylef to noodle at the couch and learn how to play fretless. The soundhole can be closed by sliding a bent piece of mahogany.
The soundhole also functions as a sort of "inspection shutter" so I can (re-)place the soundpost. The bass features a soundpost (or staple?) and a bass bar. Just like a violin, cello and double bass.

My goal was to build a bass that would be as loud as possible without amplification. I did not succeed. The bass sounds just as loud (or soft) and any other acoustic bass. But it does have the character of a sort of mini double bass. I think I kinda like that.

I has been a fruitful experience.
Onwards to the next project!  

[Granny Gremlin]

That's beautiful, man.

[dadagoboi]

WOW!!!

[godofthunder]

 Beautiful! Seriously cool!

[Highlander]

Good grief...!

How dare you hide this beautiful lady from us for two years without even an inkling of her existence...

You have put all our work to shame... stunned into silence...

(well... at least until the next post...)

[Basvarken]

Whaahaaa!
I seriously considered tossing the whole thing into the fire place more than once.
Every move I made in this building process seemed to be heading for disaster. I loathed the damn thing.

I'll dig up some pics of the bass in various stages of the building process. But I don't have any trainwreck pics 

[Highlander]

I seriously considered tossing the whole thing into the fire place more than once.

... Somewhat like Neil Young "heading for the ditch" circa Time Fades Away...?

You know the rules...

[Basvarken]

This is pretty much at the beginning.

I started with cutting the template shape out of a big piece of MDF.
In the upper right corner of the pic you can see I had to make the upper horn a little smaller than I had planned. So I glued in a new piece of MDF there. That's because the wood that I had for the top wasn't big enough.
Mind you, the body is still huge.






As you can see I kept the sides wrapped in kitchen plastic foil to keep it moist while I clamped it into the template. Otherwise they wouldn't hold their shape well enough.





Here's the other half of the sides, already done





Here's a big leap forward. You can see I had already glued the top onto the sides. Getting it to fit was a major pain in the ....
You can also see the construction of the soundport.





Here's a first total shot. I was working on the neck joint here. Trying to make it fit.
You can clearly see the bass bar glued onto the inside of the top.





And for the other side it looked like this.
I had yet to do all the bindings etc





Here's the neck being glued onto the body.
It may look like I ended up with a huge block inside the body. But they were just helps to get the clamps over and under each other.






I'll post more pics when I can find them.

[Highlander]

No rush, Rob... never rush a good thing... keeps 'em coming back for more...

[nofi]

easily the prettiest abg i have ever seen! simply amazing   if you want any unplugged volume at all i'm afraid you will have to use phosphor bronze strings or some other light gauge round wounds.

[Denis]

That's really pretty! Well done!

[Dave W]

Stunning work, Rob. 

It's too bad that the acoustics didn't work out as you planned, but that's what prototypes are for.

[patman]

That is amazing

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I'll venture that your bass is at least on par with volume to the hideously overpriced Taylor ABG and probably sounds better to boot. When you're fighting vibrational physics and resonating wood, the necessary size of an orchestral bass comes sharply into focus. Still, your ABG is gorgeous!

[Nocturnal]

That is very pretty!!!