Greetings all, I need your guidance...
A dear friend of mine got into lutherie about 17 years ago. He piled on the tools and excelled quickly (one of those annoyingly-awesome savant types). After Taj Mahal bought one of his guitars (a lacewood flying V with a wenge neck) I started taking him seriously. We rode up to a great (long closed) exotic wood shop in Springfield, Mo, and I bought two matched lengths of cocobolo, some wenge, bubinga, and padauk. We slabed a beam for a neck from the wenge, bubinga and padauk. I designed a groovy, original bass, and prepared the design file for CNC or to print as big cut stencil/guides.
My band moved.
He quit building guitars.
Such is life.
The neck slab and the cocobolo sat on his drying racks for... 15 years.
Two years ago I moved back here.
I befriended a different very cool, very good guitar repair / luthier guy.
I ran into my old friend, and he gave me the beam and cocobolo back.
I bought a Berg cabinet from a fellow who's family supplies the swamp ash to Elrick and others, and he sent me a set of swamp ash body wings.
My repair/luthier buddy says, "grab all that wood and your design, and lets finally build your dream bass!"
GREAT!
The cocobolo is enough to cover the body, the fretboard, and the headstock, and has enough movement in the grain such that it will look like one continuous piece.
And I was able to find and update the original design file.
Now, I am unsure about having my repair/luthier buddy (who builds awesome gibson style guitars) build my bass. He flat refused to do a carved headstock and volute as I wanted, he insisted flipped the headstock with a glue joint.
Fine, but now he wants me to go to a young, new luthier who studied under him, that just got a CNC table, to cut the body. Now, I have history in signmaking, and have run hundreds of thousands of dollars in signage on a big Kongsberg. In fact, I started programming jobs for a CNC routing table 23 years ago. I am understandably nervous about putting my job on his table, even with my own 2D cut file.
So, here's my conundrum: I have the neck beam (neck-through bass) the two body wings, and all the pieces of cocobolo, cut and ready to glue up.
The glue up hasn't been done... its the neck beam, two ash body wings, and the cocobolo body cap pieces, fretboard, and headstock cap.
I also have a plexi headstock stencil.
Is there any pro bass luthier that would take on this project and finish it?
If so, where, and how much should I be ready to pay for them to take my 2D cutfile, my dimensions for all other elements, recieve the wood, hardware, and electronics, and take this bass project across the finish line?
Precious wood, and I would hate to ruin it after all these years.
I'm asking for your guidance.
Eric
A dear friend of mine got into lutherie about 17 years ago. He piled on the tools and excelled quickly (one of those annoyingly-awesome savant types). After Taj Mahal bought one of his guitars (a lacewood flying V with a wenge neck) I started taking him seriously. We rode up to a great (long closed) exotic wood shop in Springfield, Mo, and I bought two matched lengths of cocobolo, some wenge, bubinga, and padauk. We slabed a beam for a neck from the wenge, bubinga and padauk. I designed a groovy, original bass, and prepared the design file for CNC or to print as big cut stencil/guides.
My band moved.
He quit building guitars.
Such is life.
The neck slab and the cocobolo sat on his drying racks for... 15 years.
Two years ago I moved back here.
I befriended a different very cool, very good guitar repair / luthier guy.
I ran into my old friend, and he gave me the beam and cocobolo back.
I bought a Berg cabinet from a fellow who's family supplies the swamp ash to Elrick and others, and he sent me a set of swamp ash body wings.
My repair/luthier buddy says, "grab all that wood and your design, and lets finally build your dream bass!"
GREAT!
The cocobolo is enough to cover the body, the fretboard, and the headstock, and has enough movement in the grain such that it will look like one continuous piece.
And I was able to find and update the original design file.
Now, I am unsure about having my repair/luthier buddy (who builds awesome gibson style guitars) build my bass. He flat refused to do a carved headstock and volute as I wanted, he insisted flipped the headstock with a glue joint.
Fine, but now he wants me to go to a young, new luthier who studied under him, that just got a CNC table, to cut the body. Now, I have history in signmaking, and have run hundreds of thousands of dollars in signage on a big Kongsberg. In fact, I started programming jobs for a CNC routing table 23 years ago. I am understandably nervous about putting my job on his table, even with my own 2D cut file.
So, here's my conundrum: I have the neck beam (neck-through bass) the two body wings, and all the pieces of cocobolo, cut and ready to glue up.
The glue up hasn't been done... its the neck beam, two ash body wings, and the cocobolo body cap pieces, fretboard, and headstock cap.
I also have a plexi headstock stencil.
Is there any pro bass luthier that would take on this project and finish it?
If so, where, and how much should I be ready to pay for them to take my 2D cutfile, my dimensions for all other elements, recieve the wood, hardware, and electronics, and take this bass project across the finish line?
Precious wood, and I would hate to ruin it after all these years.
I'm asking for your guidance.
Eric
