Bob has always had a custom made bass. His Thunderbird derivative bass was made
for him in the seventies by XXXX but was getting a bit tired and he wanted a tighter
sounding lightweight bass to play some classic rock.
After some discussion we came up with an interesting instrument - a 5 string bass with a
dual coil EMG active pickup in the P-Bass sweet spot with a swamp ash body , a
birdseye maple neck with wenge fingerboard with 24 frets and Schaller hardware in
chrome - all based round a Thunderbird style body shape. We made some detailed CAD
drawings which Bob approved and we were off and sawing!
Swamp ash is a lightweight choice for the body and has a great tone and beautiful grain
but is quite soft and considerable care
has to be taken during construction.
The body blank was jointed and glued together and
then carefully marked out with the body shape and
band-sawed and routed. The neck blank was routed for
the truss rod and the fingerboard prepared, tapered and
slotted for the frets for a standard 34” scale. After
slotting the fingerboard was glued to the neck blank
(check out the clamps!) and then band sawed and
routed to dimension and the machine head holes
carefully positioned. The neck was also fitted with the
screwed brass inserts which will bolt it to the body on
assembly.
Next the neck pocket was routed into the body using the
elaborate jig shown at right. This jig ensures a tight fit for the
custom neck joint. At the same time the pickup and control
cavities were routed together with the output socket hole and
the internal wiring passages. The neck was then rounded and
profiled using files, rasps and abrasives and the ‘beer belly’
cut out in the upper part of the body made (Bob came
into the shop for the fitting - not that he has much of a
belly!)
Now is the time for the fretting to be done. We elected to
press and glue in the frets for maximum tone transfer -
Jim Dunlop 6230. After ensuring the neck was perfectly
straight the frets were stoned and re-crowned and
polished to a mirror shine.
On to finishing! Every square millimetre of the guitar was
sanded smooth to 1000 grit and the body was stained
cherry red and the lacquer finish applied. The neck was
oil finished silky smooth. Now we wait for it to dry
thoroughly before polishing to a lustre and we’re onto
assembly, set up and finally the strings are fitted and we hear her
voice - always a special moment.
The EMG-40TW dual coil sounds great with Bob’s selection of
D’Addario Chrome flat would strings switching from humbucker to
single coil with a pull of the volume knob.
Bob is too modest to let me show you a picture of him in
performance with his ‘Red Devil’ but that low B string is now part
of his armoury and used to lethal effect in some classic rock songs
through his mighty MarkBass rig!
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