Short Scale Telecaster Bass

[Prosebass]

A Telecaster Bass with a Prosebass slant.
I have always been a fan of the stumpy Telecaster body so have decided to put my own influence into the design rather than an outright copy.

Specification for this first one is straightforward and simple.

30" scale, with the neck in Mahogany with a Wenge board. Standard headstock design.
10mm nut spacing 40mm nut width. 21 jumbo frets
Dual action rod adjusted at the heel
Body center is laminated 4 piece darker mahogany.
Comfort contoured and a little chunkier than Fenders offering.
It is quite slim at 35mm to keep the weight down which I hope will be around 7lb
Hardware in Chrome , elephant ear tuners , high mass 'Fender' style bridge 19mm spacing
Single pickup in bridge position, 7k / 7k humbucker soapbar.
Volume, tone, coil tap fitted on mahogany plate

I am also building an ash bodied model at 32" or 30" scale with a Black pearloid plate and maple neck with maple board.
Undecided on the scale as I want to see how this one turns out.

Finish will be an hand rubbed oil that has resins and is a professional hardwood floor finish as I like to try new products and techniques.

This will be a stock bass so if you are interested please contact me.

Paul

[Prosebass]

A few photos showing the fret slot cutting and general lining up procedures.

I do the final neck pocket cutting by hand to ensure an interference fit between the neck and body after the final squaring up. I personally don't think this adds anything sonically to a bass I just like things to fit together nicely.
In recent blind tests by an American builder it transpired that a bolt on neck gave better resonance and sustain than a through neck. Another of those issues we could debate till the proverbial #

Fret slots are cut with my little sliding circular saw and clamping system., an idea I had and have just put together. Much better than hand cutting and much quicker.
I am hoping to develop this system so it can be used with commercially available templates from Stewmac and the like.

[Prosebass]

[quote name='Johnston' post='847827' date='May 25 2010, 07:31 PM']Are they standard dremel attachments or something you have made up???

it certainly looks the ticket.[/quote]

Hi

to make things simple here is a message I sent to Wesfinn at Steed basses.

[quote]As regards the jig, it is a Wolfcraft PSD 250 designed for jigsaws. After removing the strengthening ribs (in the jigsaw base) I cut a hole the exact size of the base of a Dremel 670 mini saw , lined it up perfectly and epoxied it in place so that the base of the mini saw was exactly level with the bottom of the jigsaw base. I found this gives me a 3mm cut which is fine for me as I only do flat boards. The side of the base that runs in the alloy assembly needed packing with 3 strips of plastic (off the Dremel packet) which I super glued on , sanded slightly and applied a little oil.
For straight cuts I just line the up the marks on the fret board with the edge of the alloy and the cut is approx 2 -3 mm in front of it.
The alloy part can be rotated so will be excellent for fan frets.
I set the saw in front of the board and pull it towards me so it cuts better.

Problems,

as the clamping is to the left of cut you can run out of board to clamp.
This can be overcome by attaching the board to a piece of 3" x 1" with an off-cut of another board so the clamp has something to clamp to , and doing this it works fine.

Its a mark1 version of my idea and I am going to develop it further by incorporating a pin for registration with Stewmac templates and some way of adjusting the depth of cut , probably with a different runner / base. Its good for a start though. I have also thought about making a mini table for the saw with runners for the board which may be a better idea as the height could be altered easier.

Machine Mart sell the clamp for £28.00 and the Dremmel saw is about £27.00 most places . The saw blades are .6mm which is why I decided to use it .[/quote]

[attachment=50558:IMG_5178.JPG] [attachment=50559:IMG_5179.JPG] [attachment=50560:IMG_5184.JPG]

Paul

[Prosebass]

Neck Work,

After roughing out he neck and fitting the truss rod I shape the headstock and heel and then glue the board on leaving it clamped for a few days and then a few days more for it to 'settle'
First I shape either side at roughly 45 degrees then concentrate on the area around the volute at the top of the neck to give me an approximate profile. Then my favourite bit with the spokeshave and hand sanding.
I also use a plumbers cleaning strip which is designed for getting round the back of pipes before soldering which removes wood at a good rate and gives me the profile. It is then a case of more spokeshave / sanding blocks / strip until I am happy with how the neck feels or that it is how the customer wants it.
With builds like this I enjoy shaping the neck as I go along and in this case decided on a slightly asymmetrical profile with the top more rounded than the bottom for better access and more comfort as it is a 'chunky' neck due to the 10mm Wenge board.











Its now coming together and next job is to plane the heel to the correct depth, fit the insets , frets and markers, drill for the tuners, final sand everything then assembly.
I also decided to have a slight board overhang to enable a full 2 octave 24 frets.

[Prosebass]

[quote name='Johnston' post='848782' date='May 26 2010, 06:39 PM']I'm going to have to get a dremel, some very handy attachments. Shame they wouldn't fit on my copy!!

There is something about the telecaster shape that it suits a short scale bass. It's looking well.[/quote]

I agree , and to prove the point here are the results







Will be finished tomorrow. More photos and info on my [url="http://www.prosebass.com/apps/blog/show/next?from_id=3906442"]Blog[/url]

Paul

[paul h]

Another winner.

Nice work...again!

[Prosebass]

[quote name='paul h' post='854543' date='Jun 2 2010, 10:17 AM']Another winner.

Nice work...again![/quote]

Cheers Paul, its inexpensive too.....[topic="90402"]For Sale Here[/topic]

[EdwardHimself]

Nice laptop! The bass is pretty great too