I have a cousin who plays the electric Bass Guitar. When he saw the bass I built myself a few years ago and instantly asked if I could build him one and we started talking details. He told me which electric parts to order, then I started showing him all the different types of woods I had easily accessible.
We fairly quickly settled on using Purple Heart with some thin maple strips for the back of the bass, then having a thin layer of maple separating the front and back parts. The front took a bit more time to iron out. At first, my cousin wanted some crazy epoxy chaos thing going down the center with either Bocote or Wenge on either side. I did a few test pieces, first with just epoxy and dyes, then with some colored plywood which I carved crazy patterns into before casting them in epoxy. Neither of us really loved the outcome and thankfully agreed to forgo the epoxy or colored plywood.
I then proposed the idea of making a rainbow or gradient out of different woods as the central piece. This was an instant hit and was set in stone once I made a simple test piece. From there we went with the rainbow starting dark, going to light in the center before going back to dark. We also decided that Bocote would work well on both sides of the rainbow, but he wanted some super curly Bocote. I went to my wood store at least 3 times over 2 months and ruffled through their entire Bocote pile every time. I found so many good pieces, picking out the best 1 or 2 pieces each trip. We only really used 1 of the larger pieces I got so now I have enough Bocote for a few projects.
In order to narrow down which pieces of Bocote to use I set up and took many pictures of different permutations of arrangements for the pieces, to see how the grain would look. To help I cut out the body shape my cousin wanted out of cardboard, that way we could easily see exactly how it would look like. I could also mark the outline for those that stood out as our finalists. I was also able to use this cutout to mark out the back of the body made of purple heart and maple that I built while we were debating which bocote pieces to use. With a few registration holes this cutout also was super handy for copying the shape on both sides of each half of the body.
Having the outlines was necessary since we wanted to carve out some voids inside the body to help reduce the final weight of the bass. I had to make sure all of these holes I would carve would stay hidden inside the body, even after all of the final shaping and other necessary holes have been taken care of. I also wanted to make sure none of these internal voids would interfere with any locations where screws would have to go later in the build.
I also used this time where the front half of the body was separate from the back half to prepare the electrics cave, as I called it. I made sure it was big enough to hold all of the knobs (which I also made) and the battery that was needed for the bass system my cousin chose. I made a template for this hole as well, but this time it was so I could consistently route out the hole in multiple depth passes.
I then had to route out the hole for the pickup. Having done it freehand for my bass and my friend’s guitar I did not want to freehand it again so this time around I just bought a template for the pickup that we chose. It made it super easy to get a clean hole that was basically the perfect size for our pickup. I also made another template stick to make sure I positioned the pickup, the neck, and the bridge all at correct distances from the others. I used the fact the 2 halves were still separate to route out some pathways for the internal wires that will have to travel to the different parts of the bass.
The only remaining hole to carve was the neck, but I needed the body fully glued up before I attempted the carve. I called upon nearly all of my clamps to get that massive body glued up. While the glue was drying I made another template, this time to carve the hole for the neck. Once the glue was dry I went ahead and roughly cut out the shape of the bass out of the massive slab that I just glued together. This allowed me to route out the neck hole and get that fitment nice and tight, as well as properly lined up to the body and pickup.
It was finally time for one of the most fun steps, but also butt puckering due to the internal voids, power carving the final shape! Normally this is pretty fun due to how much wood my power carving tool can remove, but I had to always keep in mind where those internal voids were. I was super afraid of taking another light pass with the carver only to reveal a small cave. Thankfully that never happened!
The electronics cave needed a cover. Since my cousin originally wanted some wenge but we didnt use much I decided to make the cover out of Wenge. I resawed a very grainy piece into a thinner piece, just big enough for our uses. I did my best to make it a tight fit but still added screws for safety. I also created 2 little thumb wrests for my cousin to choose from.
I could finally add some finish to everything. I went with Rubio Monocoat because it is simple to apply, adds a little shine without being too much and doesnt take away from the natural wood feeling and look. Once the finish finished drying I lined the electronics cave with aluminum tape to turn it into a small Faraday cage, shielding the noisy electronics from the sensitive ones.
With everything completed I finally put it all together. I wired the bridge and pickup into the electronics cave, as well as the aux cable. I then proceeded to bundle up and package the body as well as possible, preparing it for its trip in my checked suitcase for my trip to France. That’s right, this custom bass got hand delivery. I didn’t bring the neck over as it was too big to fit in any suitcase, and it was just as cheap for my cousin to buy himself the same neck I did on ebay than it was to try and ship the neck I got to France. Together we did the final assembly before he had to rush to catch his train home.
