Brooks SparkleBird

[Basvarken]

Drrrrrrum rolll!
 

Here's the Brooks SparkleBird
 

- Body: Korina. Chambered. Thunderbird shape
- Neck: Korina three piece. Glued in.
- Two spokewheel truss rods. One carbon stiffening rod
- Fretboard: Rosewood. Checkerboard inlay on 12th
- Luminlay side markers (blue)
- Frets: Jumbo size. Sintoms. Nickel-silver
- Scale: 34”
- Top Nut: Buffalo horn
- Bridge: ETS twelve string bridge set. Gold
- Pickup: Gemini Dominator TB Pickup. Gold
- Output: PureTone 1/4 inch Jack. Gold plated
- Controls: Volume . Kill switch
- Pickguard: Pearloid with blue led light
- Binding: Pearloid
- Bass string tuners: Gotoh Res-o-lite GB350. Gold
- Octave tuners: Schaller Grand tune Gold. Pearloid buttons
- Strings: d’Addario. 170-12
- Strapnuts: Large, Gold
- Finish top: Cobalt Blue Candy
- Finish back and sides: Stained. Finish clear transparent.
- Weight: 4.6 KG
 

 

Led light ON

 

 

Led Light OFF

 

 

I'll post pics of the build process in separate posts below

[Basvarken]

Bought a nice two-piece slab of White Limba (aka Korina)
And routed the tone chambers

 

 

Routed the controls cavity. And later realised it had the wrong shape for the lay-out of the controls that I had in mind for this bass...

 

 

Sawed the f-hole in the matching two-piece top (White Limba/Korina)

 

And then glued it on. You can never have enough clamps 😉

 

 

[Basvarken]

Switched to the neck next

Routed the channel for the carbon reinforcement strip in the middle

 

 

The routed the channel for the two truss rods. I let them taper to follow the taper of the neck itself

 

Sawed the head stock angle. And planed it smooth.

 

And sawed the back side of the headstock in the desired angle.
Still needed to plane/sand that side to the right thickness too.

 

 

[Basvarken]

The switched back to the body again.

Routed the outline along a template (sorry no pics)

 

 

And then I realised I had routed the controls cavity wrong. So I made a new template and routed the corrected shape.

 

 

Didn't even look half bad 😉

Rounded off the edges on the back.

 

 

Routed the profile for the binding

 

Glued in the pearloid binding.
Used acetone instead of glue, because I knew I was going to stain the sides and back. (Stain does not work on glue remains)

 

 

Glueing the binding always requires extra attention on the corners.
I use strips of inner bicycle tubes to clamp them till they're dry

 

 

 

Looking good so far

 

 

[Basvarken]

Customer plays in a Cheap Trick tribute band. And as you may know those guys have something with the checkerboard pattern.
He asked me to make a checkerboard inlay on the 12-position.

So I made a drawing of 5 x 5 mm blocks. And laser cut a white piece of acrylic and a black piece of acrylic.

 

 

Then made a lay-out of the black and white blocks combined on a piece of sticky tape to keep them from flying away 😉

 

 

But realised that was not going to work to keep them tight against each other.
So I made a little template with a rectangle that would keep them tight against each other.

 

Cut out a "swimming pool" in the fretboard. With a knife and some chisels.

 

Then glued them in. Using super glue onthe fretboard.
And a piece of high tack (aluminium) tape to keep them together.

 

 

 

When the glue had hardened I sanded it to flush to the fretboard in the desired radius (16")

 

Pretty happy with the result

 

[Basvarken]

After the special inlay was done, it was time to put the frets in

 

Made the truss rod access slot plus cover

 

 

Then prepared the neck to glue the fretboard on.
Tacked in a staple. And cut it off 1 mm proud of the neck to leave two sharp pins.
These help to prevent the fretboard from sliding in the wet glue.

 

Then glued the fretboard on. Using the strips of inner bicycle tubes for clamping.

 

[Basvarken]

Then shaped the neck profile. 
And headstock shape

 

Drilled the tuner holes

 

 

 

[Basvarken]

Filled the gaps underneath the fret tangs with a mix of rosewood saw dust and wood glue

 

And drilled the holes for the side position markers.

 

Glued them in

 

Et voila!
Luminlay glow in the dark dots.

 

Switched back to the body, to route the neck pocket.

 

[Basvarken]

Shaped the heel of the neck to fit the pocket

 

Checked the neck joint angle

 

Routed the pickup cavity

 

Drilled the holes for the volume pot, kill switch and jack output

 

Glued the neck in the pocket

 

[Basvarken]

Then I came up with a crazy idea.
I had the big tone chamber on the lower horn.
And I had the extra large controls cavity with some spare room for a little extra feature.
Why not put a led light in the lower wing?

I did a little test with a discarded pickguard...

Let there be light. 
And there was light

 

[Basvarken]

Did some pore filling. And stained the back and sides a mix of yellow and oak. To give it an aged Korina look.

 

After lots of spraying and sanding layers of clear, I could apply the decals.

 

The top was quite a bit of a challenge.
Customer wanted a teal blue sparkle finish.

The only proper way is to make it a candy finish.
First a layer of coarse metallic flake silver.
Then a layer of transparent mixed with silver particles.
Then the cobalt blue transparant layer to achieve the teal/turquoise look

And sealing it off with several layers of transparant.

 

 

The matching headstock got the name decal

 

Laser cut the pearloid pickguard

 

Modified the Schaller Grand Tune octave tuners to save some room

 

[Basvarken]

And made a  demo video of course.
 

 

[SpondonBassed]

Beautifully built, documented and demonstrated.  As always.

 

Cheers Brooksie.