Yellowheart and Wenge 8 String in Progress

I've been steadily working on an 8 string bass for myself in between other projects. The through-neck has presented some unique difficulties paired with how I've been laminating all the pieces. I've approached the process fairly intuitively because of this. The geometric pattern top has to be attached separately from the through neck and the ash wings that are being glued on in these pictures.

The cutaway arm has a wenge and yellowheart piece laminated on to extend the patten of the top into the rest of the body. I chose that particular part of the guitar because of its visual and physical prominence. The headstock as pictured will have a cap put on it that matches the body's top.

Geometric Top

I've recently embarked on an exciting new self initiated project. Basically, I've been dying to make something using wenge and yellowheart exclusively. The idea is that this is going to be a top and headstock plate for an 8 string bass that will be mine.

You can see the process photos below of different pattern arrangements, but this first one here is the pattern I'm going to go with.

Its going to be a neck through, this laminated arrow design will most likely not be seen very much, but I think it will be a nice snappy detail that you'll catch in glimpses of.

Double Neck Bass

I've just recently begun work on a Double Neck bass. It is going to be a 30" short scale bass on the top with an active circuit, and a 34" scale fretless bass for the bottom with a passive circuit. The body is Honduran mohagany, the neck will be maple with ebony and rosewood fretboards. At the request of Jost (the musician this is for) I have routed in a series of shadow boxes and we've selected small objects and memorabilia to place in them.

Short Scale Bass for Nick Pagano

I have I've been slowly plugging away at a new short scale bass for Nick Pagano of Fairhaven. This Glider is a 30" scale bass with a wenge top and matching headplate with an alder body and a 3 piece maple and wenge neck. It has one Seymour Duncan Ceramic Musicman Style Pickup by the bridge for a very detailed sound.

This bass was a lot of fun to build for a number of reasons. For one, Nick Pagano is an exceptional bass player. It was very exciting to make an instrument for a musician who can really bring an instrument to life. It was great to make something that was straight foward and less complex than what I normally produce, but it was also a challenge to preserve the quality of the Glider's shape & scale as the body on this bass is guitar sized.

Fairhaven Live

Nick approached me about building him a custom after I built him a replacement neck for his P-bass.

The 1st neck

The first neck I built was damaged in a loading accident, so I built him a Re-replacement. In the process of building neck #2, we sat down and modified some details for the new neck like a new headstock shape and a U profile instead of a C.

The New Neck

As you can see, the headstock has changed from an old P-bass shape to more of a Telecaster shape drawn by Mr. Pagano himself. We didn't include the outer wenge stripes as they don't photograph well (evidenced by the first picture). He was so thrilled by how this neck turned out, he broke down and put in an order for a complete custom.

New HOWL Video

Congratulations to the guys from HOWL on their new Music Video for their song "Heavenless". Keep your eyes peeled for Rob Icaza's sweet custom amid the gore!

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/music/1643

Brian Gibson Custom

My rate of production has slowed down a little, but my most recent project to leave the shop has been one of the most exciting yet. While it may look plain, it's anything but.

This is a 34" scale 5 string for Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt. This bass is made entirely out of maple (at least wherever wood can be used.) Brian had discussed with me that he was looking to get a similar aggressive sound like Cliff Burton of Metallica. Cliff started with a Rickenbacker 4001 which was made mostly out of maple. Taking this into account, I tried to play up as many of the qualities of a R4001 as possible to re-create the sound Brian had in mind. Brian wanted something that was visually toned down, so I used maple for the fret board, neck and body and nut. It's outfitted with a Seymour Duncan SRB-1B. I made a custom bridge out of a piece of angle iron so that I could achieve 1/2" string spacing. The neck on this bass is only as wide as a 4 string bass, but I've squeezed 5 strings into the same amount of space to give Brian strings that are close enough together to allow him to play the fastest he can.

Wheres Brian?

8 String Bass

The newest project in the shop is an 8 string for Ryan Magoni. Ryan found a 4 String Schecter Stilleto body online and asked me to make him a replacement neck for the body. Since it was a 4 string body to begin with, I had to widen out the neck pocket to accomodate for a neck that is closer to a heel width of a 5 string.

The Schecter body is basswood with a Cherry finish over a maple burl veneer.

The neck and fret board are Bloodwood, Maple and Wenge. The neck is 5 pieces, the fretboard is 20.