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Thought I’d share these few here, I started on them a few weeks ago and they are now going into finishing. The body shape has been in our range for a while in guitar form, it’s inspired by a Tele but with a bit more aggression and curves. The specs for all three are very similar; same body shape and mostly the same woods, they will differ in colour and hardware. There is one pickup in the Stingray sweet spot which has been custom made by Armstrong pickups, the goal was to have a sound similar to a Ray but fully passive (most Ray pickups require a preamp to sound their best). There is also a push pull to offer two very different tones from one pickup.
Specs are-
All are
32” scale,
20 Fret
Ash Body
Ash Neck
Custom handwound Aaron Armstrong MM pickup
Gotoh Hardware
Passive, CTS pots with push/pull
Contrasting black grainfill (Ceruse style)
Differences will be colour schemes:
1) Will look like a Hornet – Yellow and black! Transparent Yellow, Ebony fretboard, black hardware.
2) Modern - Transparent charcoal, Ebony fretboard, chrome hardware
3) Traditional - Natural, Rosewood fretboard, black hardware
All three are for sale at £1350 each which includes a hardcase, so speak up if you’d like one!
Let’s get started.
Here's the set of templates. As the design has it's control cavity on the front, all routing (pickup, neck, controls) can be done with the template at the same time as cutting the body. The template also features indexing holes for the control plate.
Lets look at some of the woods, these are the fingerboards I'll be using. The Rosewood will be for the nautral variant, an Ebony for the Yellow and one for the Grey/Black. All are AAA grade and look great in person. They currently have too many frets (24 instead of 20) so these will be trimmed off.
The body blanks. All three are single piece English Ash blanks.
This will be the one used for the black/grey bass, it's the least pourous and slightly more subdued than the other two.
This is for the yellow bass. Luckily that knot was avoidable. You can see I drilled through it from the other side to make sure neither side of the body would contain any knot! I wouldn't have used the blank if the knot was unavoidable, which would have been a shame.
Finally the blank for the natural bass. I chose this one for the natural as it features some interesting colour and burr like figuring.
The neck blanks. I intended the blank on the bottom for the natural bass, but in end it was not suitable, so was scrapped and replaced.
More coming soon, thanks for checking out this thread
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Moving along. Truss rods have been routed for.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/9 Echo MK II Tele bass thickness taper.jpg
Neck taper cut using a router jig, these necks are quite slim at approx 20 mm at the nut for the two Ebony boards and a little thicker for the natural.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/10 Echo MK II Tele Bass headstock thickness.jpg
Headstock thickness reduced. I won't shape the scoop/transition until the fingerboards are glued and I'm carving the rest of the neck. So they stay rough until then.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/11 Echo MK II Tele Bass glue up.jpg
Glue up time, using a large Walnut caul (under the neck). The fingerboard is held in place via 1 mm tacks through two of the fret slots
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/11a radius jig.jpg
Next up is radiusing using the jig seen here.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/12 Echo MK II Tele Bass boards tapered.jpg
Here the fingerboards have had their radius cut and have been flush trimmed.
That's all for now, thanks for watching
Next the frets go in.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/fad839ac-338b-4161-b65e-ea4ec6b6eb95.jpg
Then the the frets are leveled, beveled crowned and polished
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/16 Echo MK II Tele Bass fret shine 2.jpg
Gratuitous fret shine shot
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/18 Echo MK II Tele Bass head scoop transition.jpg
Then I start shaping the transition. Starting with chisels, the masking tape holds down a veneer to protect against tool slips!
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/19 Echo MK II Tele Bass scoop 2.jpg
Here the scoop has been roughly shaped. Next the rest of the neck is carved.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/28a Echo MK II Tele Bass yellow close up.jpg
A shot of all three bodies nearing completion. Just the roundover and sanding remaining really.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/31 Echo MK II Tele Bass bodies.jpg
Next up I cut the roundover, I've gone for a fairly large roundover compared to Tele guitars.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/35 Echo MK II Tele Bass ferrules.jpg
As I've said before I'm not really a fan of neck plates, so I'm using ferrules as I usually do... And why have four when you can have six! Seriously though, it's six as the bass has a fairly long pocket. This long pocket helps with balance.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/34 Echo MK II Tele Bass roundover 2.jpg
The back after all woodwork has taken place.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/36 Echo MK II Tele Bass trial assembly.jpg
I like to pre assemble any build I do, this ensures there are no holes to be drilled through lacquer for various hardware parts and if any alterations are necessary they can be easily made.
Thanks for watching
Initially I did wonder why anyone would mix a Stingray, the best bass, with anything else, because axiomatically it wouldn't be the best bass any more.
However, the shape has nice "balance" to it.
A bit of a gap in updates but here we are with pictures of the finished natural version. The yellow bass is also finished, I just need to take some pictures. The black bass was lacquered a bit later at the same time as a guitar, so that one will be a bit later.
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/1.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/7.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/3.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/5.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/2.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/13.jpg
Annnnd here's the yellow bass
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/1_1.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/2_1.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/4.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/3_1.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/9.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MK II Tele Bass Build progress/Finished Echo MK II basses/6.jpg
That's it for a while, the black one will eventually follow, just waiting for the lacquer to cure and to find time in between customer work! Thanks for watching
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 1.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 3.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 4.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 7.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 5.jpg
http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u425/Manton-Customs/Manton Customs Echo MKII Bass Black 2.jpg