Homemade Bass Project

Last year, I designed an upright bass made from cardboard and wood. The boady is supported by a thin wooden frame, the neck is made from a wide stair rail, ground down and tapered. The headstock is a piece of the same rail, just turned around. The measurements roughly match a 4/4 size bass. After all the cutting and measuring, I painted and lacquered it inside and out. I used a lot of wood glue and only a few screws, and installed a piezo buzzer pickup to make it electric, though that needs improvement, because it feeds back. The original bridge was half of a plastic speaker frame, which was horrible, so I improvised a notched wooden block. The strings are just different sized weed-whacker strings.
I'm obviously not an upright bassist, as evidenced in the fairly shitty playing, but you can see that it actually works!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• upright bass
• stand-up bass
• double bass
• bass
• homemade
• cardboard
• diy

[mitchbitch100]

hey man, I am working on the same thing, I have a drawing made up and everything, you mentioned you used a hand rail from stairs, is that hard to get ahold if? cause im 15 and i dont think my parents would apreciate me cuttin up our stairs.

[Becchini1]

You're 15 and making a homemade upright? Wow, you're starting early. I just found an extra stair rail lying around, it hadn't even been stained or lacquered yet. You can use a piece of wood flooring, or any good sturdy wood, as far as I'm concerned. I started out with a cardboard box and a piece of flooring, based on the Bogdan Bass designs, and evolved from there. Do you have the dimensions measured in your drawing?

[mitchbitch100]

@Becchini1 yes, i have it packed away because were in the process of moving, so i couldnt tell ya, and yeah, I listen to alot of nekromantix, Kim Nekroman really inspired me to make one,

[Becchini1]

That's awesome, I was inspired by the coffin bass, too! If you can get videos posted of your progress down the line, let me know, I want see what you come up with.

[Becchini1]

thanks, kc7wwy--It sounded better when I repositioned the pickup, but I still could use a preamp in it.

[washtubbass]

sweet !

[Becchini1]

Thanks--I actually got the idea from the Bogdon basses.

[mitchbitch100]

@Becchini1 allright sounds good, I plan on getting it started durring the summer, I will infact upload videos

[kc7wwy]

nice .very nicely done and not bad sound either. keep up the hard work.

[Becchini1]

I'm not sure of the thinnest size, but a common size from high-low string is .045, .065, .080, .100

The largest guitar strings are usually around .046 or so, depending size of the set. I used weewhacker strings on this bass, which are actually pretty close in size to regular bass strings. Thanks for asking!