A 5-String Multiscale ‘Headless’ DIY Bass

[Dave Higham]

Yeah, I'm just an old softy.

At this point the body was just about ready for finishing, so back to the neck. I like to use threaded inserts and machine screws to attach the neck. I know that woodscrews will hold a neck perfectly well, but I seem to be screwing and unscrewing quite a lot before finally getting the instrument finished, which isn’t really a good idea with woodscrews.

I install the inserts using a piece of threaded rod and two nuts in the drill press, turning the chuck by hand, and I always do a trial run in an off-cut of the same wood.

When the insert is all the way in I release the threaded rod from the chuck, unlock the nuts and unscrew the threaded rod. I then wick a few drops of thin CA between the insert and the wood and they’re never going to budge.

I installed some pearl dots in the edge of the fingerboard. A simple drill guide helps to get them all the same distance from the edge.

Fitted the frets. No ‘in progress’ photos but here they are installed with the tools I used to do it. By the way, they’re banjo frets. I thought that if Leland Sklar and Sheldon Dingwall like them combined with fanned frets, I might too. We shall see.
The zero fret is a jumbo one which automatically gives me a small amount of string clearance at the first fret.

The tool on the right is a home-made tang nipper. It’s a modified sheet metal nibbler you can get for about $10 on Ebay.
http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/sheet-m ... bblers.php
You have to grind a slot in the top plate to accommodate the fret’s crown. You do this using a Dremel cut-off disc, like so.

Here it is in operation. It works perfectly, and although I have nothing against Stewmac (their service is exemplary), you can have five of these for the price of one from Stewmac.

[Mark Swanson]

Wow, banjo frets on a bass? Well if you don't try it you'll never know...but i know that I like the jumbo frets on my electric guitars. And there is no need to put a taller fret on the zero fret...if the neck is straight a fret like all the others works fine. Still your work is great and I'm sure it'll be a sweet bass!

[Dave Higham]

Thanks Mark.
For anyone who's never heard of Leland Sklar, he's one of the most sought-after session bass players. He started out with James Taylor and as well as playing on most of JT's albums has played on over 2000 others! Funnily enough, there was a short clip on French television this evening promoting Eddy Mitchell' latest album, (he's an ageing French rock star that very few people have heard of outside France) and there was Lee Sklar in a corner of the studio. You can't mistake him for anyone else.
Check out his selected discography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Sklar

Oh, and check out Dingwall basses too.
http://www.dingwallguitars.com/

[Mark Swanson]

He is great! Check out the ending of James Taylor's "Hey Mister, that's me upon the juke box"...that is so tasty. That's one of my favorite Sklar moments.

[Dave Higham]

I think we have similar musical tastes Mark. From JT to JT. I'm sure you know who I mean by the second JT.
Another of my favourites is also a JT. June Tabor, do you know of her?
Here's a nice sample with long time collaborator Martin Simpson. I think you'll know the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVFpMLE6WIo

[Mark Swanson]

Dave, thank you! I sure do know all the JT's.....and I am eagerly awaiting the new album from Ian Anderson! I have not listened much to June Tabor, but wow she is great, and that song is great too! thanks for the link. I could listen to music with you all day long!

[David King]

Well Justin Timberlake's bass player is pretty rad too.
Edger Meyer plays with James Taylor from time to time. That would also be a treat. I got to meet Edgar before i knew who he was. Funny story...

[Dave Higham]

Wow. How come I'd never heard of Edgar Meyer?

Back to more mundane things...

Now to shape the neck, starting with the curve of the volute on the makeshift spindle sander.

Here’s the result.

On to shaping the neck proper. I do this by drawing a couple of cross sections with facets at 45° and transferring the facet dimensions to the neck. You can just make out the pencil lines drawn on the neck in this photo. I bought a couple of micro-plane rasps and I really like them. You just have to stroke the wood with them and they cut beautifully. Here I’ve cut a facet between the two pencil lines.

Then I cut one at the other end.

Then join them up.

[Dave Higham]

I carry on like this, cutting smaller facets and finish up blending them together with sanding boards and abrasive strip in the ‘shoe-shine’ fashion. Then I blend the neck profile into the volute and here’s the result.

Here’s the heel finished.

That nice crisp edge was formed by fitting the neck to the body and blending the two together.

[John Sonksen]

I carry on like this, cutting smaller facets and finish up blending them together with sanding boards and abrasive strip in the ‘shoe-shine’ fashion. Then I blend the neck profile into the volute and here’s the result.

HFN MIMF 066.JPG

Here’s the heel finished.

HFN MIMF 067.JPG

That nice crisp edge was formed by fitting the neck to the body and blending the two together.

HFN MIMF 068.JPG

Wow Dave, you are really putting on a clinic here. I love how you are conveying this information so simply, it is really making all of this look easy. I'm currently enrolled in a CAD/CAM program at a local school and watching you bring this machinists level of precision to the work is really getting me stoked for my program and my building. Can't wait to see this thing finished!

[Dave Higham]

Thanks John. Before I retired I was a draughtsman using 3D CAD (Pro Engineer) every day . I sometimes wish I still had it. I now use one of the 2D AutoCAD clones for my drawings.

One of the last things to do on the body was to drill the hole for the jack socket and it’s a big scary hole drilled in an awkward place. What’s more, I couldn’t find a Forstner bit of the right diameter so I had to use spade bits. The way I did it was to build a fixture using the routing templates that I won’t need again (waste not, want not) that I could clamp to the drill press table like so.

I also shaped a caul to clamp inside the cavity to avoid break out as much as possible. Lowering that whopping spade bit was what I believe is called sphincter-clenching moment but it turned out OK.

[Dave Higham]

I now had to make a few odds and ends to finish off. First the ferrules for anchoring the strings up at the sharp end. I started out with some pieces of 5mm brass rod and cut off some short pieces of 12mm rod, 6mm long with a 5mm hole through them. I also made some similar ebony pieces. Here they all are.

I then slid the pieces with the holes in onto the 5mm rods and super-glued them all together! Not really engineering but this way was much easier than turning a solid brass core and the ebony pieces would still have been glued on.

I put them in the lathe and bored a 2.5mm hole through and then parted them off and chamfered each end of the hole.

I drilled and tapped a hole for a grub-screw in each one using a little wooden fixture as before.

Here they are all finished.

[Jason Rodgers]

Ok, dude, you're killing me here: post the next pictures!!! These little jobbies are nifty, but for the life of me I can't figure out how you stick em on the headstock and what they do.

[Dave Higham]

OK, OK we’re getting to the end now.
The next things I made on the lathe were these little ebony ‘grommets’ (don’t know what else to call them). They are glued in the holes in the headstock where the Allen key is inserted to lock the strings. I just think it looks nicer than bare holes in the headstock and may avoid the edge of the hole being chewed up when changing strings.

I also made some ebony and maple control knobs. I didn’t take step-by-step photos of the process; it was almost all done on the lathe.

I couldn’t cut the flutes on the lathe however, but I saw some similar knobs somewhere (perhaps here?) that David (King) had made, where he said he cut the flutes on the milling machine using a dividing head. I don’t have a dividing head. So I made a little gadget instead and here it is. The spacing of the flutes doesn’t need to be accurate to a thousandth of a gnat’s whatnot so this does the job. Release the woodscrew, turn by one increment, tighten the screw and mill another flute.

So that’s about it, apart from finishing which I decided to do with Tru-Oil.
However, I got to thinking it might be nice if the tuning knobs matched the control knobs and they’d also be much lighter than those brass ones so I made some more, but I didn’t put the maple inlay in these.

Oh, and I also made myself a finishing fixture. Here it is.

[Dave Higham]

Here it is in action, with a bit of broom handle screwed to the neck.

[Chuck Tweedy]

You can get Tru-Oil in France!?!

And - yes - that is all I can think of to say right now.

[Dave Higham]

You can get Tru-Oil in France!?!

Well, no I haven't been able to find it in France, but I can get it from the UK via Ebay.

[Jim Ashby]

Inspiring and incredibly clearly written (and photographed). I wish some of the luthiery books I've bought had been so well done

[Dave Higham]

Thank you Jim, that's very kind.

So I kept putting coats of Tru-Oil on until I’d used the bottle up but I don’t think I put the coats on thin enough. So after dozens of coats using kitchen paper it had the equivalent of brush marks in the surface. I decided to rub it down with 800 grit wet-and-dry and went straight through it! !! I’d already rubbed the Tru-Oil on the neck down with 0000 wire wool and wax polish which gave a nice sheen, so the rest of the bass got the same treatment. It’s really quite nice. The only slight regret is that you don’t get the same figure popping effect with a satin finish as you do with gloss but I can put up with that.

So I finally got all the bits together and it didn't work! It was just a minor wiring problem that Aaron quickly sorted out for me. The combination of Aaron Armstrong's custom pickups and the Glockenklang onboard tone controls give it a huge range of possible tones from velvety smooth to out and out twanging. But don't ask me for sound clips. I wouldn't know how and you wouldn't want to hear me playing it.

So here at the end of the marathon are the glamour shots. Hope you think it was worth it, and (if you have been) thanks for looking.

Full frontal.

Closer up.

[Dave Higham]

One or two more photos.

That's all folks!