Build a Band

As a bass player, I decided to build the string instrument in my group, and make an electric bass. I figured that I would first need to blueprint my design and write out my steps, so I did. I concluded that with only six build days it would be most practical to use the neck from my first bass in this one because I would not have the time or materials to construct my own neck. The next things I knew I would need were wood and a pickup, but I decided that the pickup could wait until later on in the build process. So I needed to find wood. I first acquired some from a local man who was looking to get rid of some douglas fir, but later found that with my tools it would prove extremely difficult to cut such large pieces of lumber. At a loss for ideas and in search of materials, I decided to go to Goodwill and see if I could find any appropriately sized wood (or other material). We went to the Novato store, but found nothing, so we drove to another location to continue the search. There we found an old end table that looked like it just might work. I purchased it for five dollars and took it home, where I took it apart, cleaned it, measured it, and finally cut it.

The day before all of this, I had designed the body of my bass in Inkscape, and programmed the cut route in Easel. I had originally drawn out a stratocaster shape, but I thought I'd like to do something different with my bass. After several drawings and deep contemplation of the body shape, I decided to design mine similarly to the Les Paul's shape. I spent two or so hours creating this design as an SVG to later export and finish in Easel. That is how I decided on the shape of my bass. I took measurements of the neck and created a digital image of the body, inputting it's proper size. I saved this so that I could later use it to cut the body.

The afternoon of the Saturday I found my final piece of wood, I started cutting. Considering past problems we've had with our CNC router, I carefully monitored this process, watching for and fearing a blunder in my design or in the machine's ability. It took about six hours to finish cutting the body, and afterward I wiped off the sawdust and cut the tabs between the former tabletop and the bass body. The next step for the body would be to sand and finish it before attaching the neck and strings. I also still needed to construct the circuit and design and cut a pickguard.

Frequency: The number of waves per second; the rate at which vibration occurs

Hertz: The number of waves per second, the unit in which frequency is measured

Period: The amount of time it takes for one complete cycle of vibration to pass a given point

Wave length: The distance between sequential crests of a wave

Amplitude: The maximum extent of a vibration or oscillation, measured from the position of equilibrium

Velocity: Rate of distance covered in any given direction

Transverse Wave: A wave vibrating at right angles to the direction of its propagation

Longitudinal Wave: A wave vibrating in the direction of propagation

Crest: The highest point in the wave

Trough: The lowest point in a wave

Compression: The area in a longitudinal wave where the particles are closest together

Rarefaction: The area in a longitudinal wave where the particles are furthest apart

Constructive Interference: When two waves line up in a way that changes/increases frequency

Destructive Interference: When two opposite waves line up in a way that cancels each other out completely

I think that this project challenged me unlike past projects in that it allowed me to explore an existing interest in music and design and be ambitious with my plans. I got to look closely at, not only how sound waves are created and received, but how pickups and electrical amplification work. It helped me to understand the instruments that I play. This has definitely been my favourite project so far.