Custom Electric Bass Guitars

Quinn’s Bass

I’m always eager for a new challenge, so when my son asked if I’d build him an electric bass I jumped at the opportunity. I built two modified P-style instruments for bandmates back in the late 80’s and still had the templates. The through body neck style was something I wanted to experiment with, so we started with two pieces of hard curly maple with an ebony accent between. I prefer to use well seasoned wood and happened to have some old growth vertical grain Douglas Fir left over from a boat building project. I suspected Doug Fir might be a good tone wood for electric instruments and it has proven to be so. The bass has wonderful tone and sustain. The pickups are from Seymour Duncan, the Apollo jazz bass model. The fingerboard, peghead overlay, and electronic cover plate are ebony. The Japanese maple inlays are paua abalone from New Zealand.

RD - 24

These days many players, bass and guitar alike, insist on 24 frets. Personally, I have always considered 21 or 22 enough, however, I had a request to design and build a modern style instrument with 24 frets. This bass is fretless, so the actual requirement was two octaves per string. From a design perspective, the challenge is to create balance and good ergonomics. A 34”scale electric bass has a very long neck, and no one wants to hold up the neck while playing. A key element to achieving balance is a long horn to which the strap attaches. The horn should extend to align with the 12th fret. Obviously, neck weight should be kept to a minimum. My peghead design, with a 3 and 1 tuner configuration, helps to keep the neck weight down.