Jump to content
Why become a member? ×
  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt

5 day shuker course


Tait
 Share

Recommended Posts

[i][/i]this monday-friday im going on a five day course with jon shuker, where he takes you through building a bass guitar and you get to keep what youve built at the end of it. there are two courses available, the five person one where you get a choice between building a precision or jazz (which jono has been on), but im going on the one-to-one course where you build a bass more to your specifications. i thought id put up a five day build diary for everyone to see my progress through the week. I'll try and post everyday, but i might be staying in a hotel for one night, in which case ill text simon1964 so he can tell you what ive been up to.

so heres my basic spec that im going with:
-precision width neck
-seymour duncan quarter pounder p pickup
-seymour duncan ceramic musicman pickup
-ash body
-wenge neck/wenge fretboard
-seymour duncan 2 band eq
-controls are volume/treble/bass with a mini toggle switch for pickup select
-natural with black pickguard

the shape's going to be like this
[attachment=6664:teledeluxe.png]

what do you think?

Edited by lwtait
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool - be really interested in your experience and looking forward to seeing your creation...

I spoke with Jon at Bass Day last year with a veiw to doing eaxctly this - I've been so busy lately that I not even had chance to get a spec over to Jon for his feedback but it is something I'd really like to do...

Have a great time :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just got back from day 1 of the course. we began by talking about the shape - you cant get a 34 inch scale bass on a standard telecaster guitar shape. i took the lower horn and neck socket area from a precision template, and used the tele template along with the precision template to make a bass sized telecaster. we then used this sketch to transfer onto a wooden template.
[attachment=6812:shuker__3_.JPG]
we then found a nice looking piece of swamp ash and copied the template onto it, in two pieces. we roughly cut out the two pieces out, glued them together and left them to dry.
[attachment=6813:shuker__2_.JPG]
next we moved onto the neck. i changed my mind about the wenge, i didnt think it would look right with a swamp ash body and decided to go with a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. the headstock shape was the first thing we talked about - i wanted it to be a telecaster kind of shape, without it being a direct copy of the telecaster headstock. i decided on this:
[attachment=6814:shuker__1_.JPG]
we cut the neck out with that shaped headstock. i put in the truss rod and two sticks of carbon fibre, and covered the truss rod with some wood. i moved onto the fretboard, where i made my first mistake. first try i cut the fretboard too small so it wasnt covering the neck properly, but i did it again and it came out fine. i cut the slots for the frets, but didnt have time to do any more.
[attachment=6821:shuker__4_.JPG]
the red on the fretboard is just tape - it wont be there when i've glued the fretboard on.

thats about all i did today, tommorow i think jon said that we're going to glue the fretboard on and then work on the body.

d-basser, i booked it a while ago, but its only been this long because i had to go in the school holidays and jon was away for christmas. jon could have done it pretty much anytime, he doesnt have set times for the one-to-one courses. if you wanted the five person course i think the next ones in july.

Edited by lwtait
Link to comment
Share on other sites

just got back from day 2 of the course. today we mostly did work on the body. i cut out the body, with a 1.5 inch radius around the edge. i also routed the precision pickup and the control cavity but we didnt route the music man pickup because it wasnt important today. i spent most of the day sanding the body.
[attachment=6847:shuker_day_2__1_.JPG]
the reason we routed the precision pickup and control cavity was so that we could cut the pickguard and mke sure it covered what it needed to, the musicman pickup isnt going to be in the pickguard, so that's why it wasnt important. we cut the outline of the pickguard but need to cut the gap for the precision pickup, the gap for the neck socket and the holes for the controls.
[attachment=6848:shuker_day_2__2_.JPG]
the only other thing we did today was to glue the fretboard to the neck
[attachment=6849:shuker_day_2__3_.JPG]

homework - sand the body some more, so that its ready for spraying tommorow.

jwbassman, i could have had any finish i wanted to, and i decided to go for a natural finish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coming along nicely - really liking the body shape you've got going on there and of course the natural with the black pickguard is a classic combination, great stuff...

Can you stay at the workshop to do your homework or do you have to get everything done in a set time during the day?, I know what I'm like and if possible i'd be putting in as many extra hours as I could to try and make as good a job of it as I could. That said I guess Jon has it all worked out and if you follow his instruction there won't be any issues and he probably quite likes going home too :huh:

Looking forward to tomorrow's installment, great thread you've got going here and thanks for info on the finish :)

Edited by jwbassman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='OldGit' post='163295' date='Mar 25 2008, 06:14 PM']Wow, You're a lot faster than Jon :)

Looks like a good project and for that money you get to do it under the watchful eye and guidance of Jon so you will end up with a good bass whatever happens - and in a week![/quote]

me and jon were talking about that. its not that im a lot faster than jon, its that im only building one bass. jon says with each bass he does, in the 3-5 months hes building he'll only do about 7-9 days worth of work, but he evenly shares out his time between all his basses.

[quote name='paul, the' post='163300' date='Mar 25 2008, 06:35 PM']It's looking fantastic. It really is. It sounds like a great experience and like it's going to be a great bass.

What woods are/were available to you? How does the pricing work?[/quote]

any wood in jons woodshop's available to me. the pricing (i think this is what it was, anyway) is £950 for the course, including all the woods, tools, etc. but then you have to pay extra for pickups, your own choice of hardware, etc.

[quote name='jwbassman' post='163313' date='Mar 25 2008, 07:06 PM']Coming along nicely - really liking the body shape you've got going on there and of course the natural with the black pickguard is a classic combination, great stuff...

Can you stay at the workshop to do your homework or do you have to get everything done in a set time during the day?, I know what I'm like and if possible i'd be putting in as many extra hours as I could to try and make as good a job of it as I could. That said I guess Jon has it all worked out and if you follow his instruction there won't be any issues and he probably quite likes going home too ;)

Looking forward to tomorrow's installment, great thread you've got going here and thanks for info on the finish :huh:[/quote]

no i cant stay at the workshop. i dont even HAVE to do the homework. its just that we're lacquering it tommorow, and the smoother the body is, the better it looks. i've done a lot of sanding today at jons workshop, and he just lent me some sandpaper and let me take the body home so that i cn sand it more if i like. as to a set time, its roughly 9am-5pm, but its not strict. jon doesnt mind if i turn up late, and we stop when we cant fit any more in. today was good because i just spent the time till my mum picked me up sanding, but yesterday we stopped about half four and i had to stand around for half a hour in jon's workshop (not that i'm complaining!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...