Doing Things Wrong

Laboratory

Come up to the lab,
and see what's on the slab.
I see you shiver with antici ...

image

... pation !

I like to build oddball short-scale basses. You can't buy them. You can't even buy parts for them. If you want one, you're going to have to start with lumber and work your way up. That can involve some fairly precision work, the kind that requires specialized tooling. I thought I'd post some of the creations from my garage workshop for others to see and perhaps copy or improve on.

Almost everything here can be made from parts and materials from your local hardware store, with a few exceptions noted. There are many good sources for luthiery and general tools and supplies in the Links page.

And all you high school kids - take wood shop. You can make all of this stuff easily there. Man do I envy you for that. I wish I'd taken wood shop instead of French. Would have been a lot more useful.


Not sure what possessed me at the time, but I built this with A250 tone pots and B500 volume pots, and the B pots are doing their usual on/off switch behavior - no change until almost zero, then cut off completely. After my most recent testing, I have concluded that B pots have no place in a guitar at all. I probably did this because I have just two A500 pots in the parts bin, one mini and one full sized. A few days ago I ordered a lot of them, when they come in, I will swap these out. In the meantime, the B's will do, especially at full volume, so I can check this thing out.