Basvarken

This is my second twelve string build. It took me quite a while to get this one done. Totally underestimated the lacquer process of the intended Mazda colour Soul Red Chrystal. But I'm quite happy that this red monster is finally ready to rock. - Mahogany body - Nine ply laminated Mahogany set neck. Glued in - Soul Red Chrystal 46k finish - Ebony fretboard - Red position dots - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - ETS twelve string brass bridge set - Two spoke-wheel double action truss-rods - Carbon reinforcement strip in the neck - Lace Alumitone Bass Bar in the neck position - Double Lace Alumitone Bass Bar in the bridge position - Two separate outputs. - Series parallel switch on the back - Gotoh GB 350 lightweight bass tuners - Gotoh Stealth ST 31 guitar tuners - d'Addario EXL 170 - 12 strings - Weight: 5.2 kg Electronics circuit by Bas Becu. Pics of the build process can be found here: https://www.enkoo.nl/brooks-exb-12-3p.html

Thank you. It's a Brooks Telebird. https://www.enkoo.nl/brooks-telebird.html

The basses that I built in the past three years

Wow! The Brooks Grabbird is Bass of the Week at NoTreble! https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2020/03/09/bass-of-the-week-brooks-grabbird/

Well that would be difficult. The flame is an international warning sign. It doesn't belong to anyone really. I've been using it as a logo since I was a teenager, because I used to be a highly flammable little upstart. 😂 I'm more mellow now, but the flame stuck 😉

Thank you. The pickup is a "Thunderbird Bass Pickup Vintage Style for Gibson" by EY guitar Music. I'm a huge fan of those pickups.

Here's a video to give you an impression of the sounds of the Brooks Grabbird

The Grabbird has a 16'" radius

No I haven't , but I did modify my JCS a bit. Inspired by the first generation of the Les Paul Signature bass

No problem Andy. Send me the specs and I'll make you a quote.

4.5 kg

Made a template for the controls cover And I though of a solution for securing the pickup frame without ruining the clean look. I drilled holes for tiny magnets in each corner. In the back side of the frame. And I would place screws or carpet nails in the middle section of the body for the magnets to snap onto. Cut the slot for the top nut Prior to staining the body I used pore filler because the mahogany has very open grain. When the grain filler was sanded flush I stained the bass with a waterbased bright red colour by Clou. After the first layers of clear coat acrylic it looked like this I applied the water slide decals After many layers of acrylic and lots of sanding in between A friend of mine has a laser cutter. I sent him the design for the pickguard and the logo. He cut it out and engraved the flame logo for me!

Drilled the holes for the bridge studs Drilled the holes for the tuners Center piece almost ready for glueing the wings I had a nice slab of curly mahogany for the wings. First I glued the lower wing. Then the upper wing. No pics of routing the control cavity in the lower (sorry) Cut the rough body shape to get ready for the router to cut along the template. I have no pics of the planing of the wings to make them taper (just like the Thunderbird wings do) But here's a (not so clear) pic of the taper in one of the wings. You can see I had to fill up the gaps between the wings and the template because of the taper. Routed the body shape

I bought a piece of ebony and sanded it to a thickness of about mm. Sawed it in the shape for the headstock overlay. I drilled small holes for tiny nails that prevent the faceplate from sliding while glued and clamped. Printed out a paper template of the design to check the definite shape. Did a few tests for the sliding mechanism. I used scrap wood that I had lying around When I knew the sliding mechanism worked according to plan, I glued the fretboard onto the neck. I always use strips of bicycle tubes tied together by mean of clamping. You get a nice and even pressure on the entire fretboard. And it doesn't slide because its wrapped all around. I cut the parts for the sliding mechanism from the same nine ply center piece. I just used the part that was under the neck. I had to remove a lot of wood there anyway. And I routed some slots for the pickup screws and the pickup wiring I sawed a hole for the pickup in the part that was going to be the frame. Plus I routed the back side, so the plate with the pickup would fit in nicely.

I started out with a big mahogany neck blank. I went to a friend who has a saw table and cut it into four long pieces. Plus I bought some maple veneer to put in between those pieces. I had another piece of slightly darker mahogany lying around, which I used for the middle. It was a bit of a puzzle because there were two tiny) knots in the blank that I would rather avoid in the new laminated blank. I made sure they were in the outer ends of the blank. Next I routed the truss rod channel. And chiseled out the part where the spoke wheel goes. Sawed the neck blank into a rough shape for the neck, headstock paddle and the middle part of the body. Bought a nice piece of rosewood. And drilled holes for the position dots. Glued them in and sanded them flush with the fretboard in tjhe correct radius of 16".

I have just finished my latest bass build. It's the Brooks Grabbird. This bass combines the 1964 Gibson Thunderbird II with the 1973 Gibson Grabber. It features a nine ply neck through construction just like the Thunderbird. But with strips of maple veneer in between the mahogany, instead of walnut. The nickel covered humbucker resembles the pickup of the sixties Thunderbird. But the sliding mechanism in the raised middle section refers to the Grabber of course. The shape of the headstock echoes the Grabber headstock, but the ebony veneer on top is a nod to the Thunderbird headstock. The shorter headstock and the Ultra-lite tuners make sure it doesn't suffer any neckdive! Specs: - Neck through with figured mahogany body wings - Nine ply mahogany/maple neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Cherry gloss transparent acrylic finish - Rosewood fretboard - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Handcut bone nut - Three ply white-black-white pickguard - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop - Spokewheel trussrod - Sliding Thunderbird pickup nickel. 9.2 K Ohm - Hipshot ultralite nickel plated tuners - Volume pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Tone pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Kemet capacitor 47 nF paper insulation - D'Addario Nickel plated Roundwound 45-105

Not exactly a Fenderbird like Peter Cook made them. It's my take on the theme of a hybrid between a classic Gibson and a classic 7ender I call it Telebird:

Here's another one. Also named Gibson Les Paul Bass. The body shape is slightly different. It's a prototype. And another one. Epi Jack Casady signature (which is actually a Les Paul Signature Bass reissue. I mounted a Gibson Les Paul Bass pickup, because I wasn't impressed with the Electar.

They sound rather different. The Gibson Les Paul Bass has the unsurpassed low impedance stacked humbuckers. Dead quiet, very even across the tonal spectrum. From crystal clear highs to super tight and deep lows. They work very well together creating a sort of a subtle and natural compression. The Entwistle pickups are good but quite different. They sound more generic and less well defined in the higher frequencies. They do sound deep but just with less definition. When ran together the pickups do not create the subtle compression of the Gibson lo-z humbuckers. But all in all it's a well built bass. Haven't played it much yet though...

I love Les Paul Bass guitars. My all time favorite is my 1969 Gibson Les Paul Bass. Short scale with Lo-z pickups. I love it so much that I built another one myself, but I used Lo-z Gibson Les Paul guitar pickups and controls. The real Gibson is the lower bass in the pic. The upper bass is the one built. The first Brooks that I built is also inspired on my favorite bass. same shape and scale length. But with different pickups and a maple top. The Gibson Triumph (aka Les Paul Bass) is long gone. I had to sell it when I was in between jobs seven years ago. The Allen Woody Signature aka Rumblekat was a lovely bass. But didn't feel as substantial as the Gibson Les Paul Bass (to me). Sold it. The Magic is an old Dutch bass (1963), built in the town near to where I was born. Bought it for sentimental reasons. But it was practically unplayable. Sold it. This Japanese CBS bass was built for the Australian market in the 1970's. Found it on Ebay. As rare as hen's teeth. Kept it for about ten years. Sold it three years ago, because I didn't really use it much and i wanted to make room for new bass builds. Gibson GFB bass. Long scale monster! Also pretty rare. Sold it to make room for new bass builds Revelation RLB. Clever clone of the Gibson Les Paul Bass. But with different wiring. Great quality for not too much money. Couldn't resist buying it when it popped up at a second hand website.

Wow! never seen one before.

I made a new video. I wasn't very happy with the recording quality of the first one. It has too much distortion in the low end. I didn't have any proper recording equipment to go into the iMac. Now at least the the sound quality has improved a bit. 😂

Thank you. I use acrylic lacquer from spray cans that I buy at Action, which is a super cheap supermarket. Per can only € 2. But I use a lot of them per instrument. I build up a few layers, then I sand it, spray again, sand it, ad nauseum. The final step is sanding it with finer paper 500 > 1000 > 1500 grit. Then polish it with polishing compound and a foam pad on my Makita accu-drill. Last step is a very soft cloth with some carnauba wax. With figured maple you don't need to do any grain filling. The grain is so tight, the paint won't keep sinkin' in, like it does with mahogany.