New build: 5 String Multiscale

[benh]

Well - after a rather lengthy hiatus due to work/family/mental health and all that jazz, had the wood kicking around for this for ages so decided it needs doing. Decided to go full DIY (sans hardware) - winding my own pickups and making a preamp! Doing this as more of a "proof of concept" than anything else, as I've never built a multiscale bass before, or indeed put a preamp together.

Bit late posting as most of the process is done now, but hopefully is of interest to someone! First of all, as always I spent a good few evenings designing in Inkscape, here were the results:

[benh]

Woods chosen were a big slab of flamed ash for the body, flamed maple and ovangkol for the neck (7 piece laminate) and wenge for the fretboard. Usual glue up pics!

[SpondonBassed]

5 minutes ago, benh said:

hopefully is of interest to someone

 

Me, for one.

 

I have been collecting timber and hardware for one of these myself.  I'm wondering what strings you will use.  33-35.5in scale length suggests a standard set might fit with the possible exception of the low B.

[benh]

48 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

Me, for one.

 

I have been collecting timber and hardware for one of these myself.  I'm wondering what strings you will use.  33-35.5in scale length suggests a standard set might fit with the possible exception of the low B.

I just got a Dingwall nickel set for ease - reasonably priced and they fit well

[benh]

Marked out the fretboard for cutting slots - basically made a small mark for each fret using both scale lengths, from the parallel fret (in this case I settled on the 9th). Then joined those marks up very carefully using a 0.5mm pencil. Used a planed offcut of the body clamped to the top as a guide for each slot as a precaution, which worked really well!

[benh]

Fretboard "binding" was done by layering 1.5mm ash veneer with the offcuts of the wenge planed down to 0.5mm. Also routed the channels for the truss rod and the carbon rods, the latter of which I epoxied in place

[benh]

Rough cut body shape, glued fretboard onto neck - plus obligatory mockup