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Took me 6 months, but the customer was plenty patient. He played it at his band practice the other night, and said it's the best sounding 4 string he's ever played with a band, so I'm assuming he's pretty happy with it, too!

Zebrawood with a Wenge/Zebra/Wenge neck. Macassar ebony fb, zebra binding. The rough outline was my design, and he choose the "hooks" that are on the horns and lower bout. There's a wenge wedge under the bridge pieces as a sort of organic looking base plate.

Oil varnish finish finished matte.

The pickups are wired in parallel directly to the output-no controls whatsoever. Makes for a real nice clean look.

Enjoy!

Very nice!
So you could say the volume is set to 11

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I dig it, Kyle. Nice work.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Cool! I've been thinking of doing my first with no controls, since I use a volume pedal a lot. But I'm not quite there yet.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Looks great!

Is it a pretty hefty bass with all that wenge?

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Oddly, it's one of the lightest basses I've ever hefted. The client says it's his lightest bass. The body is a little thin (1.5 in thick), and it's only 11.5 inches at the lower bout. It's long and skinny, but he thinks it's a good looking design and it's comfortable on him, so I guess that's what matters most.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Mr. Snider, I'm looking forward to meeting you at the Mr. Benedetto shindig in a couple of weeks! I've been lurking for some time, and really like your stuff a LOT. I'm based in Northglenn, and am trying to meet as many of the local (ish) builders around here as I can; this event will be a great opportunity to talk to you and Mr. O'brien as well.

Cool looking axe. I built my first bass about 6 months ago and am just finishing up my second now. I like the headstock. What is the nut made of? And is that a zero fret?

edit: ok I see it is a zero fret, keeps the action down nice and low.

The nut was cut off of the end of the fretboard. I bound it with zebrawood to match the fretboard, and put a riser under it to shim it up a bit. I think it looks really nice, since the fretboard grain just continues straight up. I bound the back of it as well, so the binding completely encloses the board.

Zero nuts are nice for the action, but I like them more for the fact that it makes for a more consistent sound from fretted to open strings.

Nice, interesting design and great looking wood.

What a cool bass.

Got a shot of the laminations of the neck?

I've built two 5 string Necks to fit a Wal, but no bodies yet.

Congratulations on such a fine looking instrument. You should be proud.

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Great design, nice wood, congratulations...

Jojo

Bruce, here's a shot of the back for you. The little slot is truss rod access. It uses a spoke nut, and the customer didn't want a hole in the headstock, and didn't want to mess with the fingerboard extra at the end, so we went this way. He also didn't want a cover made for it; said it was just one more thing he could lose. So I cut a hole, oblong so you can adjust the spoke nut, and smoothed everything over.

Kyle that is a really nice bass.

It's just as impressive from the rear.

The truss rod adjustment is a one of a kind.

I saw another OLFer who did an end of the peghead adjuster on an archtop, equally as innovative. It used a ball-end allen T-shaped tool for adjusting.

You guys are amazing.

Kyle, I even noticed you worked out the intonation by angling the feed through ferrules. The things are all about the same on the face of each adjuster.

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