8-string Custom headless Bass (Serial 09B033)
Call 951-659-8616.

This is a special order bass for one of our East Coast customers. Primarily a tapping style instrument this instrument will be designed for a comfortable playing fit, and we are looking for a much more full-bodied and mellow tone than that usually associated with tapping-style instruments.

Most of the specifications still have to be established. We'll have more updates very soon. What we DO know is that the bass will be headless and will feature angled frets!

Cleaning up the joint faces for the body halves.	(7/10/11) Now that we have machined all the top features into the core of the bass, we have to get it ready for assembly with the two body halves. First step is to machine both sides of the body flat and square so that we have a perfect joint surface. Once that is done we'll add some more decorative veneers in that area and then move on to getting the two body halves cut and ready for assembly. We're close to starting the fingerboard too.
Core section is now being machined.	(7/10/11) The core of the instrument is being machined on the CNC. First we establish the joint face on the top of the neck where the fingerboard will be attached. Then we machine the perimeter of the core section and the headstock and body angles. Next we cut the slots for the truss rods (in this case two) and finally we cut the slots for the carbon fiber rods. After that we do sme trimming on the bandsaw to remove excess material.
Neck/core laminates are now glued up.	(7/5/11) Core laminates of this bass are now all bonded together. The net result is somewhat larger than the finished core will be because I have left extra material for subsequent machining. This composite piece is now ready to spend some time on our CNC machine where we will clean up some of the dimensions and joint faces. We also need to start building the various parts of the body so that when the CNC work is done we can do more assembly.
Gluing purpleheart to the neck.	(6/30/11) The gluing continues. here we are gluing one of the purpleheart laminates to the neck assembly. Although Wenge and Purpleheart are both relatively dense woods they have great tonal properties and will contribute a great deal to the sound of this bass. Since this bass will be headless we have slightly less weight issues since we have no headstock or the combined weight of 8 tuners to worry about.
First laminates are being glued together.	(6/24/11) All of the various neck/body laminates have now been veneered and we can start gluing the components together. I glue one laminate at a time so that I can make sure the positioning of the pieces is carefully monitored and i leave each joint to fully cure overnight to ensure the best possible bond between the laminates. In the photo we are gluing one of the maple laminates to the center Wenge laminate. More to follow!
Gluing maple veneer onto a purpleheart stringer in the vacuum press.	(6/15/11) We are now in the process of applying pinstriping veneers to both sides of each neck laminate. In this particular neck assembly there will be 12 separate veneers involved. We apply light veneer to the dark woods and dark veneer to the light woods. When the neck is finally assembled this creates a very impressive effect. Takes time and a lot of cleanup work but the end result is worth it. Purpleheart stringer shown in the photo.
Cutting the tapers on the ornamental mill.	(6/3/11) The various laminate pieces that will combine to create the neck/core of the body have to be machined to their respective tapers. This is done on an ornamental mill where I can cut the pieces to create any angle. I start with the center laminate (Wenge in this case) and when that piece is machined I move on to the pairs of maple and purpleheart laminates. As soon as they are off this machine the are ready for the application of pinstriping veneers.
All the neck laminates have been cut and sanded.	(5/25/11) We have now cut all the various pieces which will be used in the construction of the core sect5ion of this bass. We will have a center strip of Wenge, with two strips of curly maple, two strips of purpleheart and on the outside edges, two more strips of Wenge. between wach laminate we'll also use decorative veneer pinstriping. This should result in a spectacular neck construction. The woods will also combine to provie a great tone.
Some of the purpleheart we'll be using in the neck.	(5/18/11) Our customer specifically requested that we use some purpleheart in the construction of the neck core of this instrument. Purpleheart is a very good tonewood for basses but is also a very dense wood so we have to be careful not to add too much weight to the instrument. We'll be splitting this piece of Purpleheart into two so that we can make two stringers from it. We will also be using purpleheart in some of the body construction.
We have cut the wenge to the profile of the instrument	(4/30/11) We spent some time working on the geometry of this instrument to make sure we can accommodate some of the new electronic technology into this bass. Because of its unique nature we had to be quite careful on the planning side so that we start off with the right profile. We cut these blanks based on our calculations and scale drawings and they should work out very well. These will be the outer sides of the core of the bass.
Ready to cut neck laminates.	(11/28/10) Based on our scale drawings for this bass we have been able to create a cross-sectional template which we will be using to mark and cut out the various wood laminates for the center core of the instrument. We have already decided on the woods we will use for the laminated neck so the next step will be to rough cut all of these pieces on the bandsaw and drum sand them so that they are ready to be pinstriped with veneers.
Modifying a previous multi-scale instrument drawing for this 8-string monster.	(10/1/10) Time to make some calculations to see how our geometry works out on this bass. I am using a file for a previous fanned fret instrument to modify with the new dimensions of this 8-string instrument. My main goals here are to see how the two scale lengths interact assuming that the 7th fret will be square to the fingerboard (it doesn't have to be but handy for calulations). This will be a datum point from which other dimensions are distributed.
Body style has to provide for playing as a traditional and tapping instrument.	(9/20/10) We have been working on the design of this instrument for some time. many consideratiopns have to be made as we are incorporating native MIDI technology into this bass. We want to make sure it is designed correctly from the player's perspective, but at the same time we need to make sure we are allowing for some of the mechanical and electronic goals we are planning. We are working on the last few design details.
We also plan to use Wenge in this bass - it will help produce the tone we are looking for.	(2/27/10) Part of this revolutionary instrument will be constructed of Wenge. This is a well-recognized wood that produces excellent bass-tone. Furthermore, this piece of wenge we recently found has a much tighter and straighter grain structure than is typical for this wood. It has great potential for a neck wood and I am looking forward to incorporating this material into the neck/core of this bass. Our focus is definitely on the tone!!!
The top of this bass will have a large section of bookmatched Birdseye Maple.	(2/11/10) We went wood-shopping yesterday and were able to find this very nice plank of birdseye maple. This caught our eye because the grain and birds-eye figure is quite a bit larger than you usually find in this type of wood. It should make a spectacular top for this upcoming instrument. Our customer has a custom design for thetop of the instrument so we need to get hold of some more wood in the near future to make this happen