I built this bass in May 2009 using 1/4" poplar and red oak, with the grain going diagonally across the face instead of parallel with the strings, and 1/8" purpleheart for the top, and red oak for the body, completely hollowed out, and fully contoured, and finish in a subtle cherry sunburst finish with a medium gloss. I originally started building the body of this bass in the summer of 2002 to be a hollowbody 7-string guitar with a tremolo. But I then put it aside to do other things. When I decided to build a fretless 5 string, I thought it would be the perfect surrogate, albeit with some mods and changes, such as the grafted on strap horn extension. I crafted the bridge out of rosewood with a bone saddle. The controls are simple volume and tone with a series/parallel switch for the MEC 5 string passive pickup. In front of the bridge, you can see the long oval sound hole within which resides an 1/8" piece of purpleheart with my signature. The neck is maple, and the fingerboard is rosewood with a dark walnut Danish oil stain. The truss rod cover is also 1/8" purpleheart. The strings are standard gauge flatwounds. And it is a string through body design. A 3" black Dimarzio bass cliplock strap rounds out the hardware. And the bass resides in its own custom fitted(by me) Martin hardshell case.
luthier
fretless 5 string bass
custom crafted
hollowbody
series/parallel
oak
poplar
purpleheart
doronm
63
