Acoustic bass guerilla build

[Thoragaverung]

My sander is my friend... lots yet to do.

I want to get the surface finish close to done even though applying shellac and lacquer is weeks away, so the purplewood has time to oxidize and get more purple-ey. As I'm sure you folks all know, it changes color pretty dramatically as long as it's exposed to air but once you seal it, the process slows way down.

[Thoragaverung]

In light of the new rules posted this morning... See my signature below.

[NotALuthier]

I'm pretty much a n00b as an acoustic luthier; I have a few dozen slab bodied basses under my belt and a 1958 Martin rebuild that had a drunken/hungover player with the Martin in his loving arms and the trench water he was sleeping it off in - was running over him and into the soundhole of the guitar and out the bottom seam.

It was a mess. It took me just over a year to get it clamped, back together, bound and refinished.

Anyway - I'm in a crazy build of a standup acoustic bass for myself. I'm using an auditorium style Martin acoustic guitar for shape --- and I just enlarged the dimensions by about 30%.

Here's my concern - I believe that a lot of the acoustic volume is produced by all of the body, not just the top and the bottom.

I think it's important to keep the sidewalls a lot thinner than your picket fence repair for the unfortunate router accident it suffered.

I concede that you've got very little leeway here as the damage is pretty bad.

I'm open to comments about my thoughts if they are accurate or not - concerning the sidewall thickness in this situation: as in it killing a lot of the volume and tone. (?)

Not so?

About the Fender neck - great idea I think, as that's exactly what I'm using - although I built the 30% larger neck myself out of black walnut, and the top and back of the box are made from - well, let me go into a small story about THAT wood, if you will.........

I fellow calls me and asks me if I'd build him a Fender-style telecaster slab body 6-string guitar with some wood he's got - calling it Louisianan Swamp Ash. He'd supply the neck.

"OK I said", not knowing what to expect. He said I could have all the leftover wood. Gack! What do I want with pieces and splinters!?!

He took me to a 40 foot flatbed trailer and on it are stacks of very long boxes - which happened to be pipe organ pipes - made from wood.

Some were over 20 feet long and they had notes stamped/assigned to them and some sort of tuning devices in the top of each tube/box.

I found some dates on them: 1848 brass tags and a few had 1866 wood-burned into the others. These had been in a house that he got paid to clean out for the next tenant. The previous renter was a pipe organ builder and these were left behind.

Long story shortened ---- I had to put the chickens in a new coop and use the old coop for storage of these pipes. The old coop is thirty feet long on one side.

Confession time: I've also been cutting them up and using them as guitar bodies.

Now --- I know --- I'll fry on a rotisserie for re-purposing them - but it's still going the right way. They are still instruments! Right?

These have the longest, straightest and clearest grain that I've ever seen. These have to be very old growth dating back to The Deluge I think.

I think they are some sort of cedar - they smell really nice on the table saw, and they drill easily, don't seem to splinter badly and a sharp wood chisel has it's way with this wood in ways I've only seen in cold butter and very stiff pudding.

The stand-up that I'm building has both the top and the bottom of the box in this material - bookended - and it's very pretty, if not very ornate.

The grain is just - er, simple. No spectacular swirls or knots or deviation from the straight and narrow grain.

The short view: this wood - pipes really - were (some of them) over 20 feet long, as 4 single straight boards that are 3 inches thick x 34 x 34 inches square.

I cannot imagine the height of the trees from which these came.

Anyway - I 'saved' 22 of these pipes for my own use, 4 are cut up lengthwise, and the planks are now residents of several basses I've built in the past two years or so.

There was some of this 'cedar' that I cut up and planed-out to the correct thinness that I wanted and these are the top and bottom of the boxes of this crazy URB I'm building.

I'll try to post some of the build of this bass - sorry for not taking any pixs of the Martin repair - THAT one I was particularly proud of in the end!

I could kick myself for not taking some before-and-after shots!









'

[Thoragaverung]

I don't think the ribs (sides) are meant to vibrate that much. I think thicker/denser might be better. But we'll see.

[Truckjohn]

One thing I wonder about. Most electric bass players technique is now tapping strings or touching with a very light touch. I once watched a fellow play an electric guitar with one hand and an electric bass with the other hand. It was pretty impressive and he didn't miss a beat. He also played bass alone - and his technique was very technical and very light... The amp took care of the loud part....

But acoustics don't work like that.... You have to put power in to get power out..... And that takes some pretty aggressive playing. Especially when you have to double the power out for every octave down you go so people's ears hear the sound at the same apparent loudness....

Playing hard may take some getting used to unless he is an upright bass player. Especially considering the action required to get acoustic volume with those big fat strings wobbling about....

Anyway.... This sounds like a really fun build.

[Thoragaverung]

I got the neck mounted today. Now I can figure where the bridge is going to be, lay out the top, and design my bracing around that.



Progress!