SpondonBassed

Seriously. I often wondered about using blockboard with a combination of Purple Heart and a suitably contrasting other timber. You can buy large chopping boards made that way that would take some of the labour out of it but without the full Battenberg effect. If you are a joiner with access to the full workshop, I shouldn't have to tempt you much. I'd imagine care would be needed to use a combination of timbers with similar shrink rates and seasoning times. Wotcha reckon?

Your next build could then be the Battenberg Bass complete with raspberry knobs.

No need to raise the saddles to compensate if there is enough body to take the neck pocket and pickup cavities the same amount deeper. It makes the forearm rest look a bit uncomfortable though.

I'll take civil engineering over ASBO engineering any day. It amazes me when I see the lengths that some people go to to install subs in their home. Heeheehee

Modest too.

If I ever get this ingrown big toenail removed I'm curing it like a conker* with the intention of using it as a plec. *How to cure a conker

Your English is fine. We have so-called native English speakers who could learn a lot from you. Heeheehee The images are good too. The body shape now makes sense. So it's the Multiscalpentorzedless Bass. Cool. It needs a loooooooong name just so the name plate doesn't get lost somewhere in that vast expanse of timber and fretwork (It's not going to be fretless as well is it?). As the owner of two paddle basses I got used to the lack of a forearm resting zone. I found a way of anchoring my wrist just where the palm of my hand starts on the edge of the paddle shaped body. Often the pick-up bezel served as a thumb rest but only for short periods. There has been a fair bit said and done about lightening of bass bodies elsewhere in the Build Diaries. I am sure you're aware. With a pioneering spirit such as yours I have every confidence that you will work out the wrinkles in your plan.

Ah. The man behind the spider exercise. Cruel but character forming.

That second point is one I would not have realised until I get into pedals. They tell me it's inevitable even though I'm not into them yet. I reckon that belongs in the top tips/hacks thread.

The only thing that I can add is that it was great to meet up with fellow BC members again. I've been to three Bashes so far. One of them was a double bass bash. I've enjoyed them all.

Well said. I'm in complete agreement.

I'm with you on that. It's about the most ambitious build I've seen here. We were talking about it briefly at the fifth Midlands Bash Bash yesterday. Three BC members who build regularly gave presentations on their methods and the tools that they use. When your "ergonobass" was mentioned the question of playing position came up. I kind of assumed that you'd have to play this like an upright instrument unless you were seven feet tall. Having seen you do the double cut body, I am thinking again... If played horizontally by a right hander, am I right in thinking that you would have to have the bridge a lot further to your right in order to reach first position? PS: The links to your earlier photos are broken. Have you still got those images please?

It's @owen's fault. Heeheehee Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

34" I sometimes think I'd like a go on a longer scale but it remains a notion of fancy. I don't want to change scale as I have a better choice of strings at 34". Although 34" scale, both of my headless basses require double ball end strings. It's sometimes hard to get the ones I want in DBE though. I wouldn't want to add another layer of complication by going extended scale on my conventional bodied stuff. I find that five stringers are a mixed bag when it comes to the low B. Some B strings feel quite different to the E A D and G. My Steiny for example took a bit of getting used to as I'd tend to push the string over the fret ends until I refined my fretting. I managed to get a set of SS flatwounds for it off a fellow BC member and it improved the feel of the low B against the frets. My Ibby on the other hand feels consistent across all five strings. Some say the answer is to go to a longer scale. I couldn't say because I've never had the pleasure of trying one long term. I'm none too bothered. You can't miss what you've never had. Piano tone can be achieved on standard scale basses by using superwound strings. These aren't as common as in the eighties but I'd recommend you try them if you like a lively zing and that well defined tone characteristic of piano strings. The key is in the detail below. Only the core of the string sits on the saddle. The string windings start on the neck side of the saddle where they don't add stiffness at the bridge contact points.

No. You don't.

Bless you.

That is a great shame.

It's looking good for today. My ex-weight-lifting lorry-driver (retired) housemate Jack has baked a couple of batches of chocolate chip and walnut cookies. His biggest worry is sitting around for too long with his arthritis so I hope to hang out for the presentations but I'm prepared to cut loose if he's getting uncomfortable. Come and say hello. He's into home built ukuleles but we can forgive him that.

I'm thinking that some of those music videos and a few live performances where you see a wall of Marshall combos would be an example of your work. If any of those combo amps in the wall were connected to anything, I'd be very surprised. I'd even guess that the cabinets were empty. I never believed the popular image of Marty McFly stood in front of the giant speaker poised to strike the power chord that sends him flying across the room. It's such a powerful image though.

That's a good 'un. Bookmarked in recognition of your effort. Cheers.

I assumed that was what was meant. I have about forty songs that I regularly practice on random play. I have others that I tickle at from time to time. Until I have a role in a band, I am reluctant to learn many more. What a band would want from me is something I can't predict. I'd happily be guided by the overall choice made by the band or band leader, if there is one. The forty songs are a broad mix of tunes that I relate to. One day I will have to play tunes outside of my personal taste but I have no way of knowing what they'd be on my own. I don't find endless 12 bars engaging enough and the local jam is quite stale so I don't bother any more. Too many snags. I'll probably quit altogether soon.

"...but Jack made it look so easy!" Dang

That sounds a bit like the band Disaster Area... see below. No. There is still scope for silliness. This IS Basschat after all. Buried deep in concrete bunkers beneath the city of speakers lay the instruments that the musicians would control from their ship, the massive photon-ajuitar, the bass detonator and the Megabang drum complex. It was going to be a noisy show. Aboard the giant control ship, all was activity and bustle. Hotblack Desiato's limoship, a mere tadpole beside it, had arrived and docked, and the lamented gentleman was being transported down to the high vaulted corridors to meet the medium who was going to interpret his psychic impulses on to the ajuitar keyboard. A doctor, a logician and a marine biologist had also just arrived, flown in at a phenomenal expense from Maximegalon to try to reason with the lead singer who had locked himself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills and was refusing to come out till it could be proved conclusively to him that he wasn't a fish. The bass player was busy machine-gunning his bedroom and the drummer was nowhere on board. Frantic inquiries led to the discovery that he was standing on a beach on Santraginus V over a hundred light years away where, he claimed, he had been happy for half an hour now and had found a small stone that would be his friend. The band's manager was profoundly relieved. It meant that for the seventeenth time on this tour the drums would be played by a robot and that therefore the timing of the cymballistics would be right. From Chapter 21 of H2GT2G Douglas Adams

A little light relief - All this talk about cutters put me in mind of Monty Python's Architect sketch. Not sure why. "Mr. Wiggin: Good morning, gentlemen. Clients: Good morning. Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these..." The Architect Sketch

Thanks for merging my post into the discussion. I heard in the radio interview that Gibson had bought Philips audio products and were releasing them under different brand names. If the mechanical quality of these devices was anything like I remember from my poor experience with Philips' stuff it can't have helped the comany's reputation.