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Completed: a body for a fretless Status neck


HazBeen
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I will be building a body for a fretless Status neck I have. It will take a while given the current viral climate, but the least I could do is do some sketching on what it will look like.

Swamp ash, single pickup is what I will be doing.

I like designing my own body shapes, generally going something more modern than classic. But since the neck is a Status (S2 shape) I am going for something that is a little Status but with a twist.

What do you think of this shape? I am liking it.B265315E-4383-4D40-836D-6A1D3F5EA202.thumb.jpeg.1674cb1cca6dc48aaaff9356685c392b.jpeg

Edited by HazBeen
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So a little progress to report.

1. Sorted a bridge off this parish

2. Tweaked the body shape

3. Bought 2 pieces of Ash (swamp ash was sold out) 

4. Found the Barts I knew I had somewhere

5. Started mocking up the layout

6. Bought an oscillating drum sanding machine as I am lazy :)

It will be slow progress, but will provide updates when relevant.

Have some design decisions to make..... suggestions welcome.

The bass will be passive, as I prefer that on fretless. But pickups I am not 100% sure on.

Adding some options below, I have 2 Bart soapbars and 2 Bart Jazz pickups. For some reason I am drawn towards 2 soapbars side by side .... crazy or not?

Still like the shape I came up with, next job is to create some templates .....

And decide what I am doing pickup wise....

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  • 2 weeks later...

As mentioned progress will be relatively slow, but felt an update was in order,

- Created some routing templates

- Created router table (by adapting an old workmate type thing into)

- Used the template to outline the bass on the ash block

Next steps will involve cutting some ash ;)

Pics below.

 

 

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Enough fun. 🤐

One pickup is way more than enough for a fretless and no controls at all. That's the way you'll save useless weight, as it's the purpose of this build. A chambered body with an "eaten by the fungi" top will save a lot of weight too.

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Mounting them in that picture on the right is a bit of a gamble.  If the magnets are the full width of the pickup cases,  i guess it would work, but if they're not, then a couple of the strings or more will miss the magnets

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Cut and routed the body today. Pretty happy with it, although my router did take a little chunk out of the wood (nothing I cannot fix with Wood dust/glue though). I both love and hate routers....

Still, most scary part turned out okay.

Next steps: sanding, roundovers and contour carving (my Shinto is ready for some action :))

 

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Only a brief update.

I rounded the body, looks perfect, and I was very happy for 5 minutes. Until I weighed it......... 2.4kg.

Whilst I still will lose a few hundred grams with arm/ belly contour, cavity and neck pocket, I will end up with a 4.4-4.5kg-ish bass. Not what I am looking for.

So, the plan is to hollow out part of the body and lose roughly 5mm in overall thickness (am at 4.7cm now).

So off to order some top wood and build a jig so I can route the current body to desired thickness.

Added a few pics of the rounded body, just because I can.

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18 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

4.7cm is quite thick?  Taking it down to 4cm (seems to be what all mine are) you’d get the weight down to around 2kg.  What is the target body weight?

Not really, although it certainly is not a slim body. 4.4cm is standard Fender thickness, which is what I would end up with after sanding and would be okay with if the weight was around 1.7/1.8. Now I would end up at 2.1/2.2.

My target total weight is 4 kg, so whilst the original plan was to keep it super simpel. I will happily put in the extra effort to get it “perfect”.

I can indeed take some thickness off and if I add some “hollows” in the body all will be just as I want it.

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