Dlog

I am making an electric upright bass out of a vintage suitcase. It will be a beautiful blues machine with a real 3/4 sized upright neck attached to the suitcase. I have two soap-bar bass pick-ups for it, am customizing a floating bridge and shaping my own fretless finger board. I am cutting f-holes into the front, etching brass for the control plate, jack plate, and a peice on the back of the neck where it attaches to the body. The body has a structure inside to beef up the strength. So basically it is a neck-through electric bass with a big box for a body… read more…..>

History:__________________________________________

It is is not a new idea to make a stringed instrument out of some kind of box or hollow shape. Wash tubs, stringed gourds, bleach bottles, coffee cans, a barn, on and on. An easy pop culture reference is to Bo Diddley and his cigar box guitars. And Daddy Mojo is an amazing site where you can see and purchase your own. Really, the box is just a cavity, a hollow space to resonate, amplify and direct the sound. Any hollow cavity, including your head, resonates at some frequency. Here is Dennis Havlena’s site dedicated to many home-made instruments. Two other amazing art-instrument builders are Phil Sylvester and Ken Butler.

Barry Winfield made the bass that I play right now out of a 50 gallon drum with a drum head stretched across the top, and a hand-fashioned neck with a wicked, hand-carved headstock. It has 2 strings which I tune to low E and mid D, so I work alot in the middle of the neck to get all the notes I want. This thing has lasted a long time and been amazing for the band. (Check out Cicada Omega.)(These 2 photos courtesy of Chase Allgood.)

At the same time Barry was making the bass, John Murphy was fashioning a fretless banjo. And I made a 3-stringed electric cello, much like an electric guitar but made with bowing in mind. (Thanks to Paul Sasso at MSU.) Since then, Barry has made a Resolectric Briefcase. His design work has inspired my own on the bass project. I particularly like the corner pieces on this one.

So with these experiences, a few more, and help from friends, I hope to acheive a fairly high level of quality with this project. It is definitely an experiment and I am sure that it being my first attempt at this idea, and no other examples quite like this one to work from, which is part of the appeal to be sure, I will discover things while playing it that could be considered more fully and adjusted in the making of another one. In any case I have enlisted the help of many of my multi-talented friends whose input has been invaluable and so I hope to get really great results. (Credit for the endless help from friends will flow in-line with the project posts.)

Features:__________________________________________

the box:
The most notable feature is that the body of the bass is a vintage suitcase. The suitcase cost me 5 dollars at a local junk store. I tend to collect these boxes and use them to store recording equipment, art supplies, other boxes, etc…

This one is a beautiful golden color with red leather trimmed edges. It is fairly beat up, but as it is made of eighth inch wood and then covered with a thin muslin-like material, it has held up well over the years. I chose this box for all of these reasons. The size, the color, and that it is wood, which hopefully will have interesting resonant qualities.

One of the benifits of this idea, especially at the scale of a bass, is that the box will still open from the back and has plenty of space inside where I can store cables, microphones, space for the electronics and the telescoping foot, and whiskey. (More on that later.)

the neck:
I purchased a 3/4 size white maple upright neck made by Kay? for $90 from Pete’s Bass Shop in south east Portland. It is a great shop for purchasing uprights, getting them repaired, and I think he gives lessons. He looked at me a little weird when I explained what I was doing, but he told me of another guy who made a bass out of a Porsche gasoline tank. So the notion wasn’t completely foreign to him. I couldn’t promise you that he would sell you the same neck for the same price as this was out of his usual routine, but I encourage you to visit his shop if you need anything related to upright basses, especially repair or fine tuning. He knows his stuff.

Doug Kelly, a good friend of mine, and also a fine musician, is helping me attach the neck to the body. The neck came with not only a dove tail to work with, but a tapered one at that. We considered just chopping it off and working from there, but were supremely interested in getting the strongest joint possible so we had to build the receiving end of the dove tail from 3 peices of ash wood. Note to wood workers enlisted in similar projects: the Kay 3/4 upright neck is not the most finely crafted one available… the angles on either side of the dove tail were different. Doug and I spent a night in the shop cutting and recutting this joint, and man, that is alot of angles to contend with.

The bottom piece of this joint is wedge shaped. This is to angle the neck forward. It comes with a pretty substantial angle leaning it way back. On a traditional upright bass this raises the strings about 6 1/4 inches off the body at the bridge. For my purposes that just confuses things, makes it harder to get the pickups next to the strings, and seemed that it would make it harder to play. The fingerboard and strings will still definitely rise away from the body, but this bass will still be closer to a normal electric bass, except for the neck being shaped like an upright neck, and of course, the body being a box.

the internal structure:
The box wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand the tension of the strings, let alone that i intend to rock this thing out on stage so it is going to have to withstand some strain. The first step for the whole project after conceptualizing and talking with folks ad-nauseum, was to prep the box. Josh Smith, another craftsman friend of mine, helped me build the internal structure of the box. It amounts to a really tall I-beam configuration made from ash wood. I emptied out some of the main center beam to both lighten the load and to let air circulate and move when I play. I want as large a chamber as possible in there. The whole construction will be installed a half inch away from the front surface of the bass so that it won’t dampen the vibration that comes through the floating bridge. Again, at any point, I am trying to keep it as accoustic as possible, yet still giving ultimate priorety to strength and playability. I am in a rock band. It has to be loud. But I still want a hollow body sound if at all possible. I might have a feed back problem. I will stuff it full of band shirts if I have to, to keep it from screaming like a banshee.

Here is an updated, more proportionally correct concept drawing of the internal structure. You can see the I-beam, the place where the telescoping foot will be, and also the carriage for the fifth of Old Forester Whiskey. Also on the right side, you can see the less drastic angle that the finger board and strings take off the surface. After talking with Todd last night, I have decided to move the tail piece up closer to the bridge so that the strings will pull down more tightly on the bridge. I don’t want that thing slipping around.

the connection:
I have mentioned the crazy 3-piece dove tail construction. Doug and I glued that up last night and it is very, very strong. So, big success there. this was a big step.

The neck isn’t glued in yet, just fixed in there dry and with 3 screws going right up through the dovetail. We still have to do some trimming and shaping of that piece before the neck is glued permanently into this joint. After the shaping and the gluing, we will attach the whole rig to the internal structure, through the box, with some honkin’ huge bolts. I will be able to remove the entire neck mechanism from the body if I should ever need to, maybe for long distance travelling or something. And the wide, angled wedge that you have seen in the photos will get trimmed so that it doesnt cover the whole top of the box. That will leave room for the control panel with the tone and volume knobs. The back of the neck mechanism will have a beautiful flat shape that I am going to cover with a piece of etched brass. The brass comes courtesy of Doug Kelly, the etching courtesy of Tom Prochaska, the head of the print department at PNCA. I have also begun designing the patterns to be etched on the jack plate and the control panel. I am working with a Hibiscus flower theme. My grandfather, Smitty, used to recite this poem to my mom about getting a “Hibiscus for your soul.” So this idea is in honor of them both, and simply beautiful.

the wiring:
Todd Pidcock, a killer bassist, production engineer, and technical whiz, is a huge consultant on this project. I left the pots and switch with him last night to begin the wiring process. I don’t know a whole lot about this stuff. What I do know is what I want in the way of functionality. I have 4 pots and a 3 way toggle switch to wire up to 2 Mighty Mite pickups.What I want is the classic Les Paul set up wherein I can choose between the bridge pickup or the fingerboard pick up, or choose both, and that I have a tone and volume adjustment for each pickup. The only real challenges here, hopefully, are that the space is tight up in the structure where i have bored out for the electronics to fit, and the distance down to the jack on the bottom of the bass is pretty large. Todd says, “No problem.” (Todd is also building amplifiers and mixing boards.)

This is how I intend to run the wiring, keeping it close to the center beam, held in place with some kind of small brackets. Todd picked up some wire, solder, and a new soldering iron. He is pretty stoked, I think, about doing this kind of work. I think it is a practice run for him just like it is for me as far as never having done something quite like this. Anyway, there are 4 pots, capacitors, a 3-way switch, 2 pickups, and an input jack to wire up. To me, this seems overwhelming. But Todd is a cool cat. 1. The pots. 2. The 3-way toggle switch. 3. Two soap-bar pickups. 4. The input jack.

Assembly - dry fit:
Man is this exciting! Last night Doug and I accomplished so much! I would be nowhere without him. Thanks, Doug. (I would also be nowhere without the patience of my dear Teressa. These are long monday nights in the shop, away from her. Thanks, Teressa.) So we started with the dry-fitted neck assembly and bare, simple internal structure. First, we concentrated on the special neck joint, drilling the holes for the big ‘ol bolts, and using a forsner bit to widen the top of each hole to give room for the washers and bolt heads. On the outside Doug used 1/2 bit, exactly the size of the washers, and ground channels into the top of the bolts so we could use a big flathead screwdriver to get torque, since there wouldn’t be enough room for a socket. We are going to plug these holes with some white maple. On the inside, on the internal structure where the bolts will emerge, I Forsnered a 3/4 inch well so we could get whatever tools we wanted in there. No need to plug these holes.

Doug trimmed the front and back and cut the crazy angles on the neck joint, cleaning up and eliminating the excess wood and weight. This was a huge moment in the process. Here we are celebrating, still a little bewildered that we made it this far. This piece is really the keystone, literally and figuratively, to the entire project.

At the same time, we cut and shaped a peice of red maple to attach to the interior frame. This piece is to give the tail peice something to hold on to. This is where all of the stress will be when the strings are wound tight. (It appears in the internal structure concept drawing as well.) Also, I applied some 1/2 spacers on the corners of the frame to hold it that far away from the surface of the bass and to help to keep the whole thing from twisting inside the box.

We decided on an alignment for the neck joint, drilled the pilots, and bolted the thing right on using washers and lock-nuts. I hack-sawed the bolts to appropriate lenghts so they wouldn’t stick out on the inside and be a nusiance. The bolts fit so tightly that I had to use a hammer to push them through. That is very comforting. Aligning it was a “best guess moment.” There are no perfectly flat surfaces on the outside of the box on which to use a level. So we had a serious yet etherial conversation and then I just followed my gut. I think we nailed it. But anyway, it is close enough that adjustments on the bridge should sort it out.

Here it is all dry assembled, and in the position it will likely spend the most of its time. Currently it is a little top heavy. And it will probably be more so when the brass tuners are put on. There is still weight to add in the interior. The foot, the pickups, the saddle, and the whiskey will help counter balance the whole thing. But there is also more for the neck, the nut and the fingerboard. Then of course the strings. I will weigh the whole thing when it is complete.

the finger board:
Doug also cut the fingerboard last night, leaving some meat on the outside for me to shape away after it is glued to the neck. It is a beautiful piece of Wenge, an African wood that I purchased on Ebay for 25 dollars. (I reccommend this wood as it is beautiful. But working with it has health hazards, so read up.) I have decided not to give the very end of the finger board any decorative shape. The whole piece has a kind of deco flare and is fairly rounded-right-angle-centric. So introducing any other angles or shapes might muddy up the design. At the end of the board it sits about 1 1/2 inches from the surface of the bass. I am guessing that the bridge will be about 3 - 3 1/2 inches tall. This is a bit more than I thought, but totally acceptible. As far as the curvature of the surface of the fingerboard, I haven’t really decided, though it is certainly about time to. I am leaning toward keeping it fairly flat. The one that I play right now is flat. And considering how narrow the neck is near the nut, I think the only place I would notice will be way up in the high notes. Bowing isn’t a huge priorety. The strings are going to be closer to the box than on a traditional upright. And that would impede bowing anyway. We’ll see.

f-holes:
The f-holes are an interesting consideration. Originally I had placed them in the concept drawings near the top of the box. It was a purely aesthetic choice to place them there. The other day I invited my bandmates to weigh in on the size of them. Dave Rue pointed out last night at practice that most uprights have them down around the bridge. I assume this is to maximize the accoustic resonance. A quick Google search of images of “f-hole” shows what he is talking about. It also shows some steel guitars and resonators with them placed near the top. This might simply be because the hubcap takes up all the space down around the bridge. In any case, these findings give validity to either choice. So back to aesthetics. I made some digital comps of the bass with the f-holes in 3 positions, as now I am rethinking my original placement. I think that I may like them way down around the bridge after all. It kind of looks like a Flying V. But I may be shooting myself in the foot by inviting tons of feedback. Oh well, I will deal with that if I have to. I chose the positioning you see in this comp. Printed out the f-holes at size, and after some measuring and crazy math to find the center point of the box, using fishing line to mark it, slipped a piece of carbon paper underneath and traced them out on the box. This left a great line. I drilled through and used a cutting bit on a rotary tool to cut them out. The material covering the box fuzzed on the edges. I don’t think I am going to line the edges of the f-holes with red material like I originally planned. It’s just too much red on the front of the bass. So I am considering sealing the edges with a matte urethane or some other similar solution.

Resonance!:
Some good news, I think. When I was cutting the f-holes the box wailed like you’d imagine Edvard Munch’s The Scream sounding. And then when I was done and put it all back together, I thumped here and there around where the bridge will sit, and the box gave back a nice full whoomp. I think this thing might just be a good accoustic instrument as well as electric. Of course I have a bunch of stuff to fasten to the front which might dampen the vibration. But I feel like I am starting from a good place. (I played it with only 2 strings on Monday the 26th! It is loud!!!!)

Gluing the finger board:
Hoo-ray! (I hope you can see that I am getting progressively more excited with each new addition to this post. I am almost frenetic, but not quite. Soon, though.) The finger board is on there! Doug trimmed it down on the planer, seemingly a risky move, but his skills are to be envied. He perfectly achieved the size and taper to match the neck. Gluing it to the neck was a bit hairy. Since we got the board so close to size before gluing, we had to really make sure it stayed straight as we clamped it all down. But everything turned out great. This morning on the way into work, Doug handed me the unclamped neck and fingerboard combo, all beautiful and ready for me to sand. We did so well that I will have very little rasping and filing to do; mostly sanding along the edges. The wengé is so beautiful. Dig the contrast of the wengé to the white maple.

Beauty and the Bourbon:
Other updates: You can also see from the photos that Doug routed the edges of the neck joint using a 1/2 inch bit. It looks beautiful. The curve mimics the curve on the corners of the box itself. I also routed the inside frame so it was a little softer to the eye and to the fingers, and the hole where the fifth of Old Forester Whiskey sits, just for some class. Now there is a saddle for the neck of the whiskey bottle with a snap and some leather to hold the bottle in snuggly. The running joke is that the whole idea for the bass is that I was trying to design the perfect travel case for my Bourbon. Another joke is that if you find the body of an old upright bass laying around, I could sure use it to make a suitcase out of.

By the way, Old Forrester is a great bourbon. I surely also enjoy other bourbons, (couldn’t pass up Pappy Vanwinkle) but my friend, David Rue, the drummer for our band, Cicada Omega turned us on to the superb experience of a flask with a blend of Old Forrester and Woodford Reserve in it. Man is that tasty! Anyway, the reason this pertains to the bass is that you might notice from the photos that this particular fifth has a bottle shape unlike most other fifths. And I wanted to explain the specialization of the bracket that holds it in.

Set up:__________________________________________

Has anybody seen the bridge?:
Doug is working on a white maple bridge. It already looks incredible. White maple, shaped and tapered, and with the screws and flat nuts that will allow for adjustments. He is really going the extra mile for the bridge. He says it’s like a sculpture project all its own. It will have the shape of a bridge from a classic arch-top guitar, only larger. And it will float and be adjustable.

Way back I decided to take Todd’s advice and aim for 36″ from nutt-to-bridge. (He referenced the P-bass.) This is important because I will have no frets to guide me, and if the distance between notes is somewhat standard my fingers will have an easier time finding the right placement. I am planning to insert dots on the side of the neck later, after I have played it for a while and gotten used to the note spacing. Just for reference, I copied down the fret placement on a 36 inch string from a book that Todd has.

All the angles included, the bridge will be 1 7/8 inches tall at its lowest setting. That would have the strings sitting on the neck. I estimate that I will adjust it so that it is about 2 1/8- 2 1/4 inches. There is plenty of space between the fingerboard and the bridge for the pick-ups, giving me a wider tonal range. That rocks.

Risers for the pick-ups:
The risers and pickups are in place. The whole process of routing out the risers was crazy. The biggest challenge, other than overcoming tool malfunctions, was the angle on each riser that relates to the angle that the strings travel over the surface of the box. It made clamping the router jig extra complicated. The neck pickup is right up next to the fingerboard and there are about 3 1/2 inches between that one and the bridge pickup. This should give me great tonal range. They are are set with small springs on the shafts of the screws so that I can adjust their position to be as close to the strings as possible. And the magnificent routing allows for the edge of the pickups to be hidden at all times. Sweet. I probably won’t have to adjust them too often once I play it for a while. The wires fall right through holes we drilled and appear inside the box. They are waiting now for Todd to include them in the wiring curcuit.

Unless I hear from anyone telling me something specific, I am going to eyeball and intuit the placement of the tailpiece. I know I want it somewhat close to the bridge so that it is all tight. But not too close. Any thoughts? Leave me a comment.

Hardware:
Before even begining construction, I had collected a number of the parts. I ordered the tuning keys from Bob Gollihur at urbbob.com. They cost more than the neck. But are totally worth it. They are brass and will look great with all of the other hardware. I have been sending Bob updates on this project and he is jazzed… sorry for the horrible pun.

I have decided to go with a bone nut. Aesthetically, it makes sense to me. My only other reason is, “Rock and Roll.” But I don’t really know what that means. Feedback on this choice is welcomed.

The tailpiece is a fully adjustable Wilkinson bass bridge, with the springs and all for full intonation abilities. But I took all those saddle pieces off and am just using the brass plate as a tailpeice. The knobs are the classic Les Paul knobs, golden, translucent.

The Extra Long Scale RotoSound flatwound bass strings that I ordered from Musicians Friend (2 months to ship!) were STILL TOO SHORT!!! So I drove in a hurry to Pete’s Bass shop, showed him the bass as it is, and he sold me some used Corelli upright bass strings. I think he said they were 1/2 scale. They are way too long which is way better than way too short. I had to choose the extra long strings because the headstock on a 3/4 upright neck is super deep. And the normal size electric bass strings wouldn’t reach. The strings are silver in color but wound in blue cloth on the tail piece end. Originally I was expecting the wrap to be red and was exited about that feature as the trim on the box is red. But blue gives me the primary triad, red yellow, blue. Just an interesting note; I had the option of choosing black nylon strings for this set up. They would have looked pretty cool, but there is not enough metal in the core of those strings for the pickups to really work. It just reminds me that Basically I am shaking metal at some electrified magnets and transmitting that sound into some electrified paper cones.

For the foot of the bass, I picked up a pool cue at Goodwill for 5 bucks. (They wanted 8, but it was broken so I haggled them down a little, though, even 8 dollars would have been less expensive that fashioning the foot from brass or steel tubes from the hardware store.) It will screw into a T-nut placed way up into the structure of the bass. And it is a cue that breaks down into several peices, so it can be stored inside the bass when I am not playing. It came with a rubber gasket on the thick end which will keep the thing from sliding out from under me. And hey! A pool cue! That’s a pretty freaking cool idea! Thanks, Doug.

(Quick update on the foot. Brass sucks. It is a soft non-cooperative metal. Go steel.)

Current situation:
This pic is from last monday the 26th. I only have 2 roundwound strings as I am waiting for the flatwounds to arrive in the mail. And there is an extra piece wedged under the bridge, (we mis judged the final height.) And I still haven’t etched the brass plate for the switch, but at least it is installed. The foot seems weak to me. The pool cue seems to bend. I am uncomfortable about it even though I know wood does that. So Doug and I are brainstorming other approaches. Still, this thing looks BOSS! And it is loud even without being plugged in!

The Grand Total:__________________________________________

This section will discuss all the time this project has taken. I have kept every receipt for all of the items I have purchased for this project, and kept a decent tally of hours in the shop with both Josh Smith, and Doug Kelly. I will throw out an estimate for outside-of-the-shop work for both Doug and I. And when Todd does the final wiring I will add that in.

Currently I am logging 453.10 for all of the materials. (I don’t anticipate needing anything else.) Some things I purchased, I did not use much of. For example, 6 dollars for a package of carbon paper, of which I used a single sheet. So in some respects, this total is high. On the other hand, many materials were donated that I did not add in. Doug alone donated some red maple, some white maple, and a sheet of brass. Todd is paying for the wiring costs, the soldering iron and solder. I am certain that the good folks at Trade Up Music were kind to me while ringing me up. And I certainly don’t own all of the tools used to build this thing. So I think it all evens out.

Doug, Josh and I have spent over 40 hours total in and out the shop. That does not consider design time.

I have not purchased the first fifth of Old Forrester Bourbon to ride inside the bass. That will be a somewhat final act of completion. Like breaking the bottle of champagne on the bow of a new boat. I think that would be a waste, though, so I am not going to break it. I am going to drink it.