Official Luthiers Forum!

You guys are artists! I've done some lurking here and the degree you guys take this too, kinda humbles me a bit with this question. I play an acoustic guitar, and when I was in the market for my last one I looked for a year before I found the sound I liked, that was within my budget.

That said, I recently got an electric bass guitar from my brother, that the body was busted up, so I need to build a new body.

It is a Lyle, bolt on neck, Maple I believe. I just want to make a body that sounds decent, that I can practice the Bass Guitar with. I originally thought of using Oak, because I like the grain patterns of a dark stained oak, but it sounds like oak would not be a good tone wood.


I want to spend as little as possible, yet do something that would work, look good, and sound good as well---otherwise it ain't worth doing.

Any suggestions?

If you like the way oak looks I would recommend building a bass body from Ash. It is a great sounding wood for bass, isn't too heavy (depending on type), and isn't too expensive.

Good luck!

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Brad
Avon, OH

on any electric instrument the body wood makes a difference but a TINY one, especially compared to the difference on acoustic woods.

Bassists sem to be more open to tropical and striking looking woods than guitarists.

Maybe it's because they're more adventurous, maybe they know the wood doesn't make THAT much difference at those low frequencies.

A good preamp and eq will sort out any fine tuning needed.

Pretty much any stable hardwood will DO,

Maple, Mahogany, Alder, Ash etc, the traditional electric guitar body woods are all fine.

MOST other hardwoods would be OK as well. Oak would probably be fine, though it can have pores big enough to loose a small child in

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Thanks for the replies.

Would I be better off Gluing two pieces together for the body, or looking for a solid 14" x 22" piece? I'm wondering if the low frequ. vibrations would affect a glue joint. I 'spose that would depend on the wood used? Does wood tend to work-anneal like metals do?