Electric guitar build

[CrealCritter]

I'm going to build my 4 year old granddaughter daughter an electric bass guitar. It's will be a mini sized version of a full sized bass.

I'm kind of shooting for something like this but with maybe a little longer scale. These are 22.44" or 570mm which is pretty small for an electric bass. I would like her to be able to use it for many years to come and grow into it. Her favorite color is dark blue, so I'm going to dye the wood dark blue with Ritz navy blue dye.

Are you all interested in a Work in Progress (WIP) thread where I post pictures and write up of steps A ~ Z and all points in-between? If there is enough interest, I'll be more than happy to invest the extra time so we can all learn together.

Thanks

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Hubby might be. He has more guitars than I can shake a stick at. On the other hand. Perhaps if you do this thread, I'll not show it to him. His current project is to replace standard tuners with locking tuners on one of his guitars.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

How cool! She's gonna love it!

 

[sumi]

Are you all interested in a Work in Progress (WIP) thread where I post pictures and write up of steps A ~ Z and all points in-between? If there is enough interest, I'll be more than happy to invest the extra time so we can all learn together.

Yes! Please do. I found a member over on BYC wanting to know if anyone there builds guitars and directed him to your thread about your guitars here. I'll let them know if you start the thread here.

 

[CrealCritter]

Ok I'll start posting here WIP stuff then. I build neck troughs, what is pictured above is a bolt on neck - so there's a major difference already .

I'll try and be a detailed as possible without going off the deep end. But if there are any questions post them and I'll do my best to try and answer them.

 

[CrealCritter]

Ok first things first... Wife said your building a kids bass? Build two of them, one for another grand daughter. Thankfully they are pretty close in age (4 & 5).

Second decide on the type. I kind of like this one and since I only build neck through body types this style will work well with a glued on top and back. Plus I like the contrasting wood colors

Next and most importantly source out your hardware first because the critial wood working measurement must fit the hardware (bridge, turners, truss rod, nut blank, binding if any, pickups, potentiometer, knobs, strings, fret wire and strap locks).

The most important measurement is the string spread (the total distance from the center of the first string to the last string) on the bridge. Factory basses vary by manufacturer. Off the top of my head Fender has the widest string spread of 2 1/4", Rickenbacker 2 1/8", Gibson 2" on many models. These are all to wide for little hands. So I looked at mandolin & ukulele bridges since are also 4 stringed instruments. I found the mandolin & ukulele bridge string spread to be to small at 1.4" uggg... So now I'm looking at finding an off the shelf custom bridge because I want a string spread a little more than 1.5 inches. Bass strings are thicker that guitar strings. Luckly I found a bridge that's just shy of 1 5/8" (42.3 millimeters =
1.665 inches) string spread - this should do nicely. It's pretty fancy but I don't have much choice, I ordered two of them them.

It's nice that they have all the measurements for this bridge. It takes the guesswork out of it.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

How quickly will those girls outgrow those guitars? Do they have the desire to learn to play?

 

[CrealCritter]

How quickly will those girls outgrow those guitars? Do they have the desire to learn to play?

They should be able to play them for many years to come. Even an adult will be able to play them. Both grand daughters have expressed an interest in music, so hopefully they will find playing intersting & enjoyable. As long as they can count to 12 and know their alphabet from A to G, I can teach them the mechanics. Kids are actually easier to teach than adults are.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

You'll be a good mentor for them.

 

[CrealCritter]

Future bassist.