The Eclectic Electric Basses

 

  The next is a fretted four string with a hipshot whammy bar, the fretboard is

Ooline, the sides Silky Oak and it has a Wilkinson humbucking bridge pickup and

the neck one is a Bartolini soapbar.

   I am glad I made it really light because the bridge weighs heaps and it has

turned out really comfortable as it has the concave body shape at the back

and is balanced really well. The tuners are Gotoh and the veneer on the

headstock was blackwood but I ended up taking it off. The first photo shows

the carbon fibre rods I put in next to the trussrod which makes it really stiff

so I make stainless trussrods so as to be able to crank it in case it needs to

move one day. It has really amazing sustain which I didn't expect from the

trem and feels, sounds and plays beautifully.

   It just finished being fretted and lovingly hand buffed and a switch put in to

simplify the electrics and I hung it in the shop after playing it once and it sold

immediately; no wonder, the idiots in the shop put a $375 dollar price tag on

it! That is about what I spent on the trem and machine heads alone!

aaaaaaargh!!?

   Mr Benjamin Blackman from New Zealand is very happy with the deal and

loves the bass but hasn't felt any urge to cover the cost of parts for me, which

I thought to be a very fair offer. At least it is out there and being gigged I

guess. I can't help feeling pretty discouraged having got next to nothing for

two basses now and haven't worked on anything for a while but I slog on.

Send us a sound sample Ben! It goes here;

 

As you can see it has double carbon fiber rods and a stinless truss rod to

bend it at all.There were mudwasps in it at one stage as you can see in

the next photo pre-profiling and fret job.

 

                                 

   The electrics got a bit changed and my friend steve did a great job doing the fret sand and buff too.

We were very proud of the results. I still have the whammy bar...

 

   The third will be another 5 string fretless and has a much chunkier neck

which has the Moody Gum between two rosewood laminates instead. It 

has beautiful Red Forest Oak sides and a fretboard of Cooktown Ironwood

which will be bright as it is so incredibly hard and silicous wood. I have tried

to glue it down three times but never got a good enough result so I am

going with the ooline for the replacment fretboard. Gerard did warn me it

was hard to get glue to stick to and when you feel how glassy it is you

understand why. The piece I used on the six string stuck fine but was from

a different tree... It was a shame because I had cut fretslots, profiled and

sanded and polished it, these are the trials one faces budding experimental

luthiers, be forewarned!

   It needs a fretboerd, a new neck shape, final sanding, painting, assembly,

setup and some nice fat jazz Bartolini CB pickups have been waiting to jump

right in.

   I kind of wanted a six string but I couldn't find a six string bridge with close

enough spacing and so now I am contemplating making it tuned F#, B, E, A

and D as a contra-bass five string bass. I want to see if it could work well at

those frequencies way down there sort of like a drop tuned bass, and not

get too floppy sounding (a lot of 5/6-strings suffer from this on the 

botttom B to my taste, I think because they're not solid enough necks, built

trying to get a not too cumbersome feeling neck with the slick modern c

profile doesn't make for much solidness in the sound. I played an SRV strat

which has a chunky neck and Stevie used thick strings and a, to modern

standards high action, but did he get the tone! This one is an experiment in

that concept; very solid and thick in the neck so I will get to see how much the 

tone will differ due to this factor and see if I am right.

   I think it has a good chance of hacking the extra strain of the super heavy

strings and sounding solid trying to hold the nut still at the same time, It is all

about those minute oscillations at the nodes at the nut and bridge and the

interplay of the neck and the strings, more experimentation required...

                            

   They last three are all made with laminated through necks using Moody

Gum (the bright yellow stuff) and NSW rosewood (red) which my good

friend Gummy gave me. He had salvaged it from the wreckage caused by

the year 2000 cyclone that hit his place up in Cape Tribulation. The Rose-

wood was a giant 3800+ year old which fell on the moody gum and took it

out too, so these trees were side by side for probably six centuries and

hopefully will be for quite a few more in these bass necks. The sides are silky

oak in the first two, family (Grevillea,) but the last one has the wood of a

more tropical native variety which is harder and redder and has even more

amazing grain and larger medullary rays and polishes up a treat;  red forest

oak, also from north Queensland.

   Ooline is a very rare wood and is also known as solidwood for good

reason. It is a single species remnant of a genus of trees which once

covered the earth in dinosaur times and is now rare and endangered.

   A local wood harvester found a big old dead one some thirty years ago

and milled it into 4x4 inch chunks and left it in the weather in his timber

yard. He recommended it to me and when i asked what it is used for he

said nobody has heard of it, but wood collectors sometimes buy it as a

sample piece. As it has been unheard of I took it as a certainty that if he

recommended it it would work and he proceeded to show me how it cut

across the grain, I was convinced. No fluff and a sharp edge like I had

never seen. If you can't mark it with your fingernail it is hard enough for

a fretboard is a good guide, said Gerard to me when I asked him and it

passed that test.

   When I took some home I took about 5mm off the outside and it was

pristine and hadn't checked out at the ends more that 7mm either,

remarkable for such a dense, hard timber which usually would rip itself

to bits in these conditions from internal tension as it dried. 

   Cooktown Ironwood is the hardest wood I have ever seen and is very

stiff and beautiful but I am disinclined to use it too much as it is a bit hard

to glue and even better, the sawdust gives me nosebleeds, good to avoid

anything toxic like blackbean and red sirus and I guess there must be

others and various people have various intolerances build up, not much is

known about sawdust really but it is worth it to spend the money on a

good dust mask that works.

   These are all Australian timbers and are all sustainably harvested and

rarely to be found used in instruments although they are very stable and

well suited.

   Thanks Stan, Gummy and Andrew for these lovely pieces of wood.