Basvarken

Here are the two bass guitars together, side by side like they should be...

While the lacquer cured, I started to prepare the tuners for installment. Like I mentioned in the thread of the other bass that I built for Tom Petersson I modified the Schaller tuners a little bit. Two reasons: Save weight. And to make them shorter in order to keep the headstock as small as possible (without sacrificing strength of the wood). After I had wet sanded and polished the bass, I installed al the hardware and electronics. Initially the bass was designed with a pearloid pickguard (which matches the pearloid buttons of the octave tuners) But when I saw the beautiful quilted maple top I got second thoughts. And suggested we'd leave the pickguard off. Tom agreed to leave it off. But I did make some pics with the pickguard that I already had cut out. I used cut off head of phillips crews to make it look as if it was really mounted. So no holes were drilled in that quilted maple top. I put the pickguard inside the case. So if Tom should change his mind he can always decide to mount it after all.

After the neck was glued in I stained the bass in the desired color. Tom asked for a dark Lemon Burst. Which was a first for me. But it turned out great. After a few coats of clear lacquer Applied the decals

Routed the profiel for the controls cover on the back of the body Routed the neck pocket Shaped the heel of the neck to fot the neck pocket Then routed the pickup cavities

Routed the channel for the first step of the checkerboard binding. Glued in the strips of checkerboard binding. On the sharp corners it's actually done block by block. The routed away the black fiber strip in the outside. And glued in the real outer binding. I use a hairdryer to soften the binding where it has to make a sharp corner. When everything was in place I used the strips of inner bicycle tubes to keep it all clamped, while it dried and hardened. The two bodies were ready at the same time

Drilled holes for weight relief in the body blank and routed the cavities and channels for the wiring Bought a beautiful bookmatched Quilted Maple top set at my wood supplier (Masave in Zwolle The Netherlands) Glued the top op. You can never have enough clamps 😉 Let it sit for a couple of hours And then routed the body outline.

After I glued on the fretted fretboard I shape the neck profile (sorry, no pics) And I drilled the tuner holes Shaped the headstock outline Then cleaned up the front and back of the headstock. Drilled the little holes in the side of the fretboard, for the side position markers. Glued them in. And sanded them flush Filled the gaps underneath the frets with a mix of ebony saw dust and Titebond Original

As with the black twelve string bass it started with the body blank and neck blank. I had my wood supplier make them to my exact specs. A nine-ply khaya (mahogany) neck with walnut strips in between. And a two piece body blank of the same Khaya. Routed the channel for the carbon strip in the middle As well as the tapering slots for the two truss rods. Then prepared the fretboard. Drilled the holes for the inlays. Glued in the position dots. And aluminum ring for the twelfth position. Sanded it flush with the 16" radius block. Prepared the frets by cutting off the tang on the edges Hammered them in and used the arbor press to have them seated perfectly

Here's the video demo that I made

That black twelve-string bass that I built for Tom Petersson is only half the story. I built another twelve-string bass for Tom. And they were finished simultaneously. Both basses were sent off to Tom's address on June 29th. The black one was delivered four days later. But the other one (with quilted maple top) still has not been delivered. UPS has lost the package... I filed a claim for investigation on July 16. But still no sign of the bass to this day! I am gutted. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that it will show up in the UPS warehouse after all. But if you should ever see this bass for sale, please do contact me. Here are the pics that I took before I sent it off to the USA Specifications: - Mahogany body - Quilted Maple top, bookmatched - Nine ply laminated Mahogany set neck. Glued in - Lemon Burst finish. Naturel Mahogany back and sides - Checkerboard binding - Ebony fretboard - Abalone position dots. Aluminium ring in 12th position - Jumbo frets - 30 1/2" scale - Buffalo horn nut - ETS Custom made twelve string bridge set. Nickel - Two spokewheel double action trussrods - Carbon reinforcement strip in the neck - Gemini Dominator in the neck position. Nickel - Gemini Devastator in the middle position. Nickel - Pure Tone output. Nickel - 3-way pickup selector toggle switch - Hipshot Ultralite Mini clover bass tuners. Nickel - Schaller GrandTune guitar tuners. Nickel, Pearloid button - d'Addario custom strings - Weight: 4.7 kg I'll post pics of the build process below.

Sent the bass to the USA three weeks ago. And lo and behold, two days ago it showed up on stage in Toronto

Finished the bass solid black. And applied the water slide decals. After lots of wet sanding I polished the bass For the pickup rings I made some black spacers. I laser cut them at the FabLab. So I'm thinking about making more of those for future use. Mounted the Gemini Thunderbird pickups (spacers underneath the nickel rings)

Routed the profile for the controls cover And cavities for the pickups And the neck pocket Shaped the neck heel (sorry no pics). And glued the neck in. Then it started to look like a bass

Tom Petersson specifically asked me to make them not too heavy. You can imagine that the Explorer body with all that hardware can be quite heavy. So I drilled some holes for weight relief. In hindsight I could have drilled even more maybe, because the bass is still almost 5 kg... When all the holes and channels were done I glued the White Lima top on. Then routed the body shape. When the body outline was ready I routed the first profile for the binding. Then glued the strips of checkerboard binding in After that first stage of the binding process was done, I route the profile for the outer binding. And glued the black binding in Binding ready

Forgot to show you a step 😉 Before I drilled the holes in the headstock I made a test headstock out of cheap MDF Because for this bass I had to used a new type of tuner for the octave strings. I had always used ultra light weight Gotoh Stealth tuners for the octave tuners. But Gotoh no longer makes them. Gotoh does make carbon plate tuners that are very light weight as well. But they are quite expensive and have to be made to order so it can take months to have them. Then I found that Schaller has a light weight tuner too in their arsenal. The GrandTune machine heads. I decided to modify them a bit by cutting off one lug. This would not only make the tuners even a bit lighter. But also would make the headstock shorter, which is a big factor in the battle against neck dive! So when I was happy with that result I drilled the holes in the real headstock (as seen in the post above).