Dlog

Please continue to learn about this project here—>
I am pretty far along on this one already. And I am getting excited, so here is the post. (Stacy Dehart called this a “bumjo.” (bas+drum+banjo) I think I will go with that.)

The chamber of this bass is a 13″ tom drum, free from the sidewalk outside Trade Up music on Division St. in Portland, Or. Which is where I picked up the two massive bass tuners on the cheap. (Thanks Lisa.) Anyway, the bass will have only two strings. (Which is really how I learned to play bass - on the Barrel Bass that Barry begat. Though I do not yet know how I might tune this one. Probably E and D like the barrel…)

I used Salim’s rotary tool to cut out 2 pieces of quarter-inch plywood into a shape resembling a classic bass head stock. They will be held apart by a round plug of wood that is the same thickness as the neck. I am considering attaching more, and smaller round plugs on the outside of the head as a design feature. It is lot of space to work with.

The saddle is a mechanism of picture-hanging wire and a piece of Ipe’, a hard, reddish Brazillian? wood. Not sure about the bridge yet. Dave has given me a used drum head that is still in way better condition than the one shown here. (It is a beautiful off-white mottled color. It ups the pressure to make the bass as beautiful as possible.)

I cut a hole into the drum so that I cut get the strength of a “kneck-through” structure. The clamp that would hold the drum on its intended stand in a kit now has a chunk of metal rod I found on the ground near the house. It is a perfect foot for the bass, probably the heaviest part, so it is a good anchor.

I have the springs from the underside of a snare drum and I hope to incorporate them as an option on the head of this bass. I might be able to get a good natural distortion that way, or at least be able to play the drum as percussion too.

I conceived this bass as a sit-down instrument. Front porch style. But as usual, I will probably start to look for good ways to amplify it later.

I have been trying not to spend more than 15 hours or 15 dollars on any one instrument. This one has cost me around 3 dollars in various hardware, and is probably approaching 8 or 9 hours of shop time. But that includes putzing around, trying to figure out what to do. There just really is no way to avoid that kind of time when you are making it up as you go along.

Oh, and by the way, There is no discrete way to stash bourbon in this one…