Timber supply - WA

[nicco]

Hi there,

I'm interested in making myself a bass guitar (electric) after having done an electric guitar making workshop a couple of years ago. I live in Bunbury in WA. Does anyone have any recommendations about where to get electric body blanks and neck timbers from?

I've been looking around on the net and have found a lot of acoustic back and side sets, and fret board blanks, but I've struggled with body and neck blanks. I'd quite like to use the Australian timbers, blackwood etc, but not sure where to go to. I've spoken with the local timber yards and they only have the WA timbers. Having said that, one showed me a lovely looking bit of Marri that I'm interested in grabbing, but I'm concerned by not finding anyone else using it - does anyone have any thoughts on the suitability of marri?

Thanks in advance,
Nic.

[Gazm]

G'Day Nicco,

You could try your local go to man Tim Spittle, at Australian Tonewoods, somewhere south of Perth!
An abundant variety of instrument timbers to suit your needs & a good bloke too deal with.

Look forward to pic's of the build.

Gaz

[colburge]

Hi

Tim Spittle is your guy in WA, I have bought lots from him, fair prices and good service.

Col

[simso]

Tim has lots of nice wood, if you want it cheaper and willing to cut it up yourself then austim timbers in wangara

Steve

[Crafty Fox]

I often go to Austim in Lansdale in Perth, and they do stock blackwood. However, their stock range gets reduced constantly and I'm often disappointed to find that they no longer stock what I'm after.
I like to use sheoak but that's not stocked now.
I'm currently building a sheoak back & sides archtop with a maple neck. Maple from The Timber Bloke at Naval Base, near Kwinana. I haven't been there yet; I got the maple from him at the Working With Wood Show at Claremont a few months ago. Meet be worth googling him to see what's available? Still a fair way from Bunbury but might be the only option.

Let us know how you get on.

[simso]

Your spot on mate, you got to get in fast with austim when they have new stuff arrive, anything cut on the quarter gets snavelled fast.

Steve

[nicco]

Unreal, thanks everyone for that.

I'll be heading up to Perth soon anyway, so I'll call Australian Tonewoods and Autism ahead of time and have a chat.

I'll crank up a build thread once I've got started.


Cheers!
Nic.

[Superoo]

Hi Nic,

I'm in Bunbury too, and have a back and side set for acoustic set but You require a billet it seems.

I may be able to get a blank for you, but I would need to be able to tell the bloke in Collie what is fair to charge for it.

If you are interested, what sort of price / size is fair for a suitable WA Sheoak billet etc ?

Cheers,
Chris

[nicco]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that. I'll flick you a PM.


Also, I've been busy building up a CAD model to help speccing out the job (timber sizes and what not). One thing I haven't been able to find much science on is pickup placement. I've kind of eyeballed it based on other bass guitars. Does anyone have any good links to docos for pickup placement?

[nicco]

Was a bit under the weather today, so spent the day at home. In between bouts of not much I managed to order all the components for the bass and finish the CAD model.

Printed it out at full scale and stuck it on some mdf to use as a routing template for the body.

On the weekend I'll try and get the template cut out and ready to roll.

Centre line is obviously the centre line, the line full width side to side is the intonation line for the bridge, end of the scale length (proper term for this point?) The rest of the weird lines are artifacts from the chamferring on the body or from printing on A4 sheets. Ha ha.

[simso]

Funky design,

Pickup placement is what you want, then you choose a pickup with the magnet strength to suit its location.

If you get stuck, send me a pm.

Steve

[routout]

Run a scale through to the bridge pick the harmonic points ,that's what fender and others used.

[Crafty Fox]

I built a PJ bass a few years ago and I went in to Kosmic sounds in Osborne Park and measured the pickup placements on both Fender Precision and Jazz basses. I'll check what the positions were when I get a chance later and let you know. Or if you have a shop nearby you could do likewise? I used a soft plastic ruler to avoid any risk of scratches or offending the staff.

[Crafty Fox]

Here we go:
145 mm from centre of bridge (middle saddles) to centre of Precision p'up.
71mm from bridge to centre of Jazz p'up.
I hope that helps you.

[nicco]

Steve, John, Ken,

Beautiful, thanks for the help. I'l have a read about the harmonic points first, see what I can understand and go from there.

[kiwigeo]

A quick Google came up with this: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/pickup ... ent.45618/

There are lots of other useful resources on the net.....as well as this forum

[kiwigeo]

A quick Google came up with this: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/pickup ... ent.45618/

And if you want to get into the heavy science side of the subject there's this: http://www.till.com/articles/PickupResponse/

There are lots of other useful resources on the net.....as well as this forum

[simso]

So much involved in pickups,

Here's me making a pickup, hope its informative.

http://www.mirwa.com.au/HTS_Manufacture_Pickup.html


Steve

[Andos]

I like that Steve. And as I'm needing a pickup it is food for thought. As I don't have a magnetic source at home, would making the poles by inserting a neodymium magnet into a mild or stainless steel shank work?

[simso]

If the stainless is magnetic stainless to start with, then yes.

Steve

[nicco]

That Tillman article is really interesting, explains a lot of things I'd never really thought about; like why the bridge pickup is hotter than the neck pickup usually, and why the old fenders had the bass side of the pickup pushed towards the neck.

Steve, wow. I've seen winding pickups before, but making every bit from scratch!

Also, after you all suggested Tim Spittle I gave him a call last week. Up in Perth this morning to grab neck and body timber from him. Super excited!

[nicco]

Whoo hoo! New bass guitar;

* some assembly required

Thanks for the help with everything so far.

I'll keep this thread as a bit of a build thread because I'm sure I'll have more questions along the way.

[simso]

What are the woods you went with. The body blank looks a tad thin?

If you need some tracing templates cut for doing the board shape, body shape and or neck shape, drop us an email, bourbon is always good, can laser cut templates out of 3mm mdf so you can use them as required from your drawings, or 6mm so they are usd as guides for your router.

Steve

[J.F. Custom]

So much involved in pickups,

Here's me making a pickup, hope its informative.

Steve

Hey Steve.

Where did you get that "electro magnet" ? Do you have a brand or source for these ? I have not been able to find one like that.

Cheers in advance and apologies to the OP for the diversion from topic...

[simso]

http://www.kks.com.au/yoke_da200_parker ... tromagnet/

Any supplier of NDT products

Steve