6-string Fretless Acoustic Bass. (Serial 08B023)
This instrument is FOR SALE. Call 951 659-8616 or email us for details!

This bass is a new departure for Watson Guitars. We hope to create an acoustic bass, the likes of which has not been seen in the industry. In our opinion, every bass player should have a good quality acoustic bass in their arsenal, and we have set out to build not only one of the best, but one of the most unusual.

6-string acoustic basses, whether fretted or fretless, are very rare on the marketplace.

This is the wood combination for the back of the body.	(1/26/12) Our time on this project was interrupted by out presence at the Winter NAMM show but we are back now to get this body assembled. The photo shows the combination of woods for the back of the body. You can see how beautiful the figure in the various woods is, and that's before any finish is applied! This bass will be truly unique in many ways. We will be gluing these pieces together very soon and building the rest of the body.
Working on the joint between sides and neck.	(11/12/11) We're at the stage on this bass where we need to calculate how the geometry at the interface between the neck and the body will work. The wood section for the cutaway has to meet the neck section at just the right place and at just the right angle so that we have a clean joint that is not too bulky or inhibits playing the upper notes. These calculations have to be done at this stage so that everything fits down the line!
Beautiful Koa pieces for the back of the bass.	(10/19/11) After some time on the drum sander I was finally able to sand these two back plates down to the required thickness. It is important to keep them flat during this process. The color on this Koa is amazing and it is evident that when they become part of the assembled body it will be very pretty. Now that these are ready - we can start buiding the body structure and putting all out pieces together!
The tailpiece block which will look amazing when installed.	(10/12/11) This is a special block I fabricated for the tailpiece section. Once this opiece is machined to size it will serve as a solid endpiece which brings the back and sides of the body together. This will be more apparent as we start to assemble the various pieces of the body together. My objective is to create a functional but artistic blend between the back and the sides of the instrument. So far so goo - watch out for more photos as we begin assembling.
Attaching the reinforcement under the soundhole.	(9/15/11) Work continues on the back of the top plate. We added one more bracing strip down the centerline of the top below the bridge. This area will be under a lot of tension and we want to maintain as much strength as possible without compromising sound quality. Also - the re-inforcing ring has been glued into place below the soundhole. This piece of matching Cedar servs as a support and allows for shaping in that area.
Bridge support installed.	(9/5/11) The first set of bracing has been attached to the underside of the top plate. Next we had to mark the exact location of the bridge so that we can add some structural pieces in that area. We caut and shaped a piece of rosewood so that it fitted perfectly between the braces under the spot where the bridge will be. That piece was glued into place as can be seen in the photo. We still have some more bracing pieces to add.
Working on the bracing and reinforcement under the top plate.	(9/2/11) There is a fairly complex and well thought-out pattern of braces which have to be securely glued to the underside of the top of the bass. These we cut and shape ourselves from a very light and straight-grained wood. They are carefully glued onto the bottom surface to provide strength to certain parts of the instrument which will be under load and also to maintain flatness of the top plate over time. They also assist in the sound projection.
Top plate of the instrument has been cut out.	(8/28/11) We decided it would help our cause to sut out the top plate prior to trying to fit the bracing pieces. We carefully cut the top just outside of the finish countour line, allowing ourselves a little room for adjustment. We can now more accurately determine the length of the cross braces. I also have to decide what style of bridge I am going to make for this instrument. That decision depends partly on the type of transducer I'll be using.
We have marked out the contour of the body on the top plate.	(8/26/11) We are ready to start adding the bracing to the underside of the top plate. First step is to mark out the contour of the body shape so that we can determine the length of the individual bracing pieces we need to use. The first two will be close to the soundhole at right angles to the centerline of the instrument. Others will be placed closer to the bridge location to help the body structure support the tension of six bass strings!!
The five pieces that will combine to make the outer rim of the bass body.	(8/26/11) We have been busy working on the bracing structure of this instrument. This has requires that we manufacture many structural parts which are being glued to the back of the top plate. Pictures to follow. In the meantime, I had to assemble some of the body components to check the outer profile against our template. There are many pieces that will have to come together perfectly so work checking early!
Working on the solid block that creates the point undwer the lower cutaway.	(7/30/11) Because we opted in this case for a cutaway lower bout - I have to fabricate a piece of Koa to serve as a joint between the bent sections of wood making up the lower bout. The block of Koa in the photo will ultimately be a pointed triangular piece that allows the two bent sections of the sides to come together. I have tried to match the grain as closely as possible so that the insert will be virtually invisible.
Celtic Knot inlay complete - now needs sanding.	(7/16/11) Finally the Celtic Knot inlay has been completed. I calculated that there are 196 separate pieces in this assembly. All the pieces have now been glued in place and all that remains for the moment is to sand the inlay section carefully to establish a flat surface. We can then start thinking about cutting the top plate more or less to size and adding the vracing strips to the back side of the top plate. More pictures to follow.
Starting on the knot pattern.	(7/14/11) Work continues with the rosette inlay. I have started to glue the individual pieces into place on the top of the instrument. It's a little laborious because the parts are so small and they have to be positioned very accurately, but I think things are going well so far. I'll continue tomorrow and hopefullyget all the knot pieces in. I will then have to insert the darker wood in the gaps, but that should go more quickly.
Gluing the first few inlay pieces into the rosette.	(7/12/11) As expected, the inlay procedure is fairly detailed and time-consuming but hopefully the results will justify the effort. I started by cutting the inner and outer rings on the laser and gluing these in place. Once they had set, I cut the outer edges of the celtic knot pattern from a darker wood and glued those in. The pieces are very fragile and have to be handles very carefully. I am now ready to inlay the knot pattern.
Soundhole and recess for rosette have been machined.	(7/10/11) I have secured the Cedar top on the CNC and plotted the exact position of the soundhole. I then cut through the cedar to establish the finished soundhole diameter. After that, I cut a shallow recess into which I will inlay the rosette pattern of celtic knots. The recess is just deeper than the thickness of the veneer I will be using to create the inlay pattern. I am now ready to cut some inlay pieces and start creating the design.
Laying out plans for the soundhole and rosette.	(7/4/11) The next task in the project is to design and build the custom rosette which will enhance the soundhole on the bass. The first thing to do was create the design in a vector art program. I then convert that to other files which the CNC or the Laser can read. On the photo to the left, you can see the outline of the top of the instrument with a printout of the rosette in place. The plan is to create a distinctive Celtic Knot pattern around the hole.
The bent piece for the cutaway area.	(6/26/11) Our sides for the body have all been bent. One of these pieces is the reverse bent cutaway area for the lower bout. This piece needed to be bent to a much smaller radius and it took quite a lot of focused and dedicated bending to achieve that. I am currently holding it in a constrained condition until we are ready to use it incase the wood decides to spring back a little bit. I now have to manufacture a koa piece for the point on the lower bout.
creating an end block to match the center-piece of the back.	(6/8/11) In order to complete the multi-laminate effect it is necessary to build and end block for the back of the instrument which will match the stripes which will run along the back of the bass. When complete, this block will provide stability at the lower end of the bass and give us a solid block on which we will fasten the sides. This will combine to make a very impressive combination of woods, can't wait to see this when it's done!
Dave working on bending the Koa for the cutaway.	(5/20/11) We are working on the sides of the acoustic bass, which requires us to bend the Koa material for both pieces of the sides of the body to conform to our template. The larger pieces have already been bent but today we had to face the challenge of bending the short section which will become the cutaway area on the lower half of the body. This piece requires a much tighter radius and proved quite time consuming. Dave did a great job!
Working on shaping the neck.	(2/15/11) Now that we have all the basic dimensions for the neck established it's time to work on refining the shape. I started carving the back of the neck so that I could get a better feel for how I should shape the heel. Some of the final shaping will be done closer to the assembly stage but it helps to remove as much of the extra material as possible at this stage. I'll proceed to shaping the headstock and we'll start on the fingerboard soon.
Machining the neck blank.	(1/6/11) One of the engineering issues we are working on at this time is the method we will be suing to anchor the neck to the body. We have a number of choices based on methods typically used in the industry. One factor is that the body of this bass will have a lower bout cutaway to allow the player maximum access to the upper end of the fingerboard. This affects the structure of the neck/body joint area. More about this later.
Some of the support braces for the top.	(12/21/10) We have a number of revolutionary ideas about the internal structure of this instrument. We are committed to maintaining a lot of strength within the body structure but also want to build the body in such a way that the low end frequency response is as god as it can be. This involves determining which surfaces should be supported and which should be free to resonate. All interesting stuff.
cedar top has been glued together.	(11/17/10) We cleaned up the joint edges of the cedar top material and glued the two halves together using a special fixture to hole down the material. Once the joint was set the full panel had to be carefully machined to a specified thincknedd. Following that we scraped the material to remove any high spots so that we ended up with one solid piece with a very consistent thickness. This control of the material thickness is important for sound qualities.
This is the Cedar top we are planning to use on this bass.	(9/30/10) This is the Cedar material we decided we would use for the top of the bass. It is a very consistent and tight-grained set of book-matched material whic we feel will work very well with the frequencies of a six-string acoustic bass. The cedar will provide plenty of strength and will also come out to be a very complimentary color for the Koa back and sides we will be using. We are excited to see this project move along again!
Working on the neck - establishing joint face for fingerboard and headstock angle.	(9/28/10) Our goal here is to get the neck section cleaned up and machine in the slots for what we decided would be two truss rods. Based on the length and geometry of the neck it seemed to be a good decision to incorporate two truss rods of guitar (rgather than bass ) length. This gives us more dual ction adjustment over the effective area, since the body and neck will join somewhere around the 14th fret. We'll make the neck as slim as possible.
we now have two sides bent to match the profile of our bass.	(2/6/10) We have spent some time carefully bending the Koa to the final shape of the instrument body. We are now happy with the outcome and ready to move on to the next step of the building process. Some decisions have to be made based on how we want the body and the neck to join. This is a fairly complex decision involving quite a bit of background geometry. We have decided that we will probably set the neck vesrus bolting it on.
Bending the Koa sides of the body.	(1/19/10) The Koa sides present more than the usual amount of work to bend. We have to be careful not to have the material fail when the figure is particularly curly. Basically it means working more slowly and keeping the material exposed to steam and just the right amout of heat. Also, sonce this is a larger body for a bass, the material is slightly thicker than that of a standars acoustic guitar. Slow and steady wind the race.
This is the material for the Koa sides - it has been resawn into thin pieces which we will now sand down to make them even thinner!.	(10/13/09) The material we are working with for the sides started off as a 36" long by 5.5" wide board of Koa. We have now successfully sawn the material into two slices which are currently around 3/16" thick. We are going to let this material stabilize under weights for a couple of days before we run the material through our drum sander with the objective of reducing the thickness to well below 1/8". We have to do this carefully in order to keep the wood flat.
This board of Koa will give us the material for the sides of the instrument.	(9/30/09) We have reached a point where we are able to restart the production of this bass. We put it on hold for a while in order to research the construction of the acoustic body. Now we are ready to finish up this instrument. We'd like to have it on display at the 2010 Winter NAMM show - we'll see. In the photo to the left you can see the Koa wood which we are going to use for the sides of the bass. We also have some nicely figured curly Koa for the back.
This photo gives us a rough idea of how all the parts will come together on the finished bass.	(11/5/08) The photo on the left shows the various parts of the neck and body together. Obviously at this stage all the components are somewhat oversize and unfinished, but this gives us a rough idea of the way the parts will come together in the final product. Van is busy assembling the various internal parts of the acoustic body, while we will be working on the finishing touches to the neck and the joint that connects it to the body.
Here we see the flamed Maple sides of the body shortly after we bent them close to their final shape..	(11/5/08) The sides of the acoustic body have been bent close to the final shape. The material for the sides and back of this instrument is a figured maple which we are planning to stain in a beautiful honey-tobacco tint. We have our back and top plates rough cut and bracing ready to go. We have to do some engineering work to make sure we have the best formula for maintaining strength within the acoustic body without compromising sound.
The tapered neck laminates have now been glued together. Things are taking shape.	(10/29/08) Here you can see that we have completed the gluing of the neck section of the instrument. The neck consists of 7 pieces of East Indian Rosewood and Flamed Maple. Next I will glue the extra material onto the headstock and at that point we will be ready to cut the truss rod and carbon fiber slots and start shaping the neck and the heel section. The fingerboard for this bass will be Gabon Ebony and it looks like it will be fretless.
Here we see two of the neck laminates inside the vacuum press where we are gluing veneer to the sides.	(10/20/08) Back to the neck assembly - in this photo you can see two of the tapered rosewood laminates for the center of the neck assembly. We are in the process of gluing veneer to these two as part of the pinstriping on the finished product. We do this in the vacuum press. Once we apply light and dark veneer to the appropriate laminates and clean them up, we will be ready to start gluing the neck blank together.
All the pieces for the center plate on the back of the body have been glued together. Looks pretty good so far.	(10/17/08) The assembly pictured in the photo to the left will be the center panel in the back of our acoustic body. We planned the laminates in the neck to match the laminates in the back of the body so that when the two are matched together we will get a beautiful continuous neck-through effect. This will become more obvious as we progress with this bass. We're busy working on the neck section right now - more pictures soon!
This photo shows the rough-cut blanks for the 7-piece laminated neck and heel. Maple and East Indian Rosewood.	(10/15/08) Today was also significant in that we planned and cut a template for the blanks that are used for the neck section. We then used the template to cut out all the necessary laminates of Maple and East Indian Rosewood required to build the neck. These will be tapered and double-veneered before we start gluing the laminates together. The large piece at the far end of the neck is material that will become the heel of the neck which will be set into the acoustic body.
Here we are gluing the tapered and veneered strips together to create the center back-plate for the acoustic body.	(10/15/08) Since the last photo was posted we have tapered each of the five center laminates for the back plate of the guitar body on the ornamental mill. They will combine to continue the neck laminates pattern right through the back of the acoustic body. This will not only provide structural strength but will be a very appealing aesthetic feature on the instrument. In the photo to the left you can see that we have started to glue these tapered strips together.
These are pieces of Maple and Rosewood which will combine to become the center panel on the back of the acoustic bass..	(10/7/08) Work has started on two fronts on this instrument. In the photo to the left you can see the alternating strips of Maple and East Indian Rosewood which we will sand, machine and glue together to create a beautiful tapered center panel for the back of the instrument. The intention is to carry over the laminated woods in the neck through the entire length of the instrument. While this is going on our partner on this project, Van, is busy bending the Maple sides.
This is the form which we created to facilitate the assembly of the parts for this acoustic bass..	(10/6/08) In order to start an acoustic project like this we had to sirst constrcu a form in which we can constrain the material for the sides of the instrument after they are bent to the desired shape. We planned our body shape and finalized it on a vector drawing software, then output the path to our CNC and cut these 4 very accurate forms which are now assembled in one stack. Work has already started on the top, back sides and neck of this instrument.