Wine Box Acoustic Bass

Welcome to the first real post on my blog!  Here's something I finished recently: a monstrous cigar box guitar inspired acoustic bass.

A while ago, the nice folks at Trade Up Music gave me a de-fretted First Act electric bass neck that they had laying around.  Being an accomplished dumpster-diver and collector of garbage, I combined it with some more junk that I acquired from various free piles, alleyway trash heaps, and the majestic project palace known as the Rebuilding Center, and yielded myself a musical instrument.

The body is made from a fine pinewood wine box.  Since it is just nailed together, I glued some triangular-shaped mystery-hardwood (maybe beech?) reinforcements into the corners.  Didn't need to use clamps, just applied glue and rubbed them into the corners until they stuck, which is a trick I picked up reading Cigar Box Nation's forums.  

The heel is a couple pieces of fir held together with long screws. I might stick some furniture plugs into the screw holes to give it a finished appearance later.  I wanted to give the neck plenty of back angle, unlike your usual acoustic bass guitar.  To attach the neck, I drilled all the way through the screw holes on the back of the neck, then countersunk the holes in the fretboard.  It's held to the heel with four very long screws.

Neck bock is just a big piece of pine glued to the inside and then screwed into the heel with some four inch long deck screws.  Solid!

The soundboard is made from two beautifully fine-grained pieces of cedar that were formerly siding shingles (50 cents each at the Rebuilding Center).  I spent about a billion years laboriously hand planing them down to thickness, note the pile of fragrant shavings.  Shortly after I finished this project, I eagerly purchased a Wagner Saf-T-Planer.

Caressing the stylish First Act logo.  Mark of quality!  There's a note from my old boss thanking me for my service when I quit the joint unintentionally included in this photo.  See if you can spot it! I am a valuable asset to any workplace. 

Note my rough, hairy left muleskinner protruding into the above frames.  Although not pictured, the right one looks similar.

I adapted a bracing pattern from Liutaio Mottola, who provides lovely free plans and builds beautiful and creative instruments.  The braces are arched per the template provided by Rudy at Blue Stem Strings. Check him out too!  The braces are a stiff-feeling mystery softwood that makes very hard and crinkly shavings, maybe a very pale fir or maybe even spruce?  The center reinforcement strip is a thin piece of walnut.

My Quebecois friend M. assures me that this is an excellent wine region and producer.

I like the large blocky heel. It echoes the shape of the wine box and reminds me of Brutalist Eastern European buildings.  And it looks silly.

My tailpiece was made of a chunk of a busted up walnut chair I found in an alleyway.  It smelled delicious while I was carving it.  The endpin is a little whittled piece of hardwood dowel and the tailgut is some stripped copper wire found laying on the sidewalk around the corner from my house.  My bridge is carved out of of maple.  I like having the round cutout repeated from the soundholes, but I think I might cut it in half and rework it to make it adjustable.

Finished!  My friend and housemate Max gave me a spare set of light gauge extra-long-scale strings.  Thanks Max!  It's louder than a typical acoustic bass guitar, but it sounds more like the bass notes on a piano than like an upright bass. I like it that way.  

I also picked up another neck from the Value Village in Tigard, so a banjo bass will be coming soon.