u/Additional_Narwhal42

Hello all- my first post here. I quite like a project, having built and or heavily modified a few instruments. And I seem programmed to do things the hard way, if ever there’s a choice!

So I’ve decided to build myself a bass vi, instead of doing the obvious thing of buying one.

I’ve bought an unfinished 30” scale bass neck with large unshaped “paddle” headstock from an eBay seller in China- a bargain £50, although the price for the same item has now increased by 50%. I’m planning to use bass machine heads instead of guitar tuners, so this should work well.

And I’m awaiting delivery of a lovely slab of American walnut from a supplier in Portugal, which should make a very nice body.

I’ve pre-ordered a very nice Staytrem stainless bridge, a couple of months ago so going by their website I’ll have to wait a further 3-4 months for it to arrive. More on this in a bit.

And I’ve ordered a pair of stainless pickup rings for single coils from C B Gitty which are in transit (I could’ve made them but even with international shipping they weren’t silly expensive. Anyway, can anyone detect a general “stainless” theme here?)

I’ve also bought a piece of 2mm stainless steel. Remember I said I like to do things the hard way? I’ll be making the neck plate from this, and also a hardtail plate.

Here’s where I need some help, mainly because of the lead time on the bridge. I plan to make a start on the body and rout the neck pocket as step 1, and I need an idea of how high the bridge saddles will sit above the body. I have in mind routing the neck pocket with a slope in the hope of not needing a shim. I bet I’ll end up with a shim anyway!

I also need an idea of the dimensions for the string “keyholes” for passing the ball ends in the tailpiece plate. These will be drilled (I have a drill press- cobalt drill bits, and lots of oil) and then finished with needle files and no doubt a great deal of swearing and cursing.

Can anyone possibly give me some accurate measurements for these keyholes? The rest of the geometry, ie the spacing of the keyholes, I can work out.

I’ll try to post pics as I begin and work on this. I hope I beat my “slow project” record, currently held by my EUB. For that, I bought the body slab, which had once been the mahogany end of a snooker table, in 1995. I then bought a semi-finished neck, fingerboard and most of the hardware around 2010. I finally got around to the project and built it (quite quickly I add) in 2024. I know this is a bass vi group but here’s a pic in case anyone is interested.

Many thanks!