Swanny's DHB-5

[Swanny]

I've never played a bass guitar before, so I thought, why not build one and learn.

The kit arrived today, and looks alright, apart from a small repair on the top edge of the neck pickup. The body has dark binding, so I think a lighter finish would contrast this, though a solid colour, or maybe a burst, would be needed to cover the repair.

Hmmm... decisions!

[Bugeye29]

I am looking forward to watching this build as I am thinking of that kit for a future build.

[Swanny]

I’ve just got to say, I’ve been dying to get to this point.

I’ve had to build a new kitchen for the wife, so the bass got put on the back burner.

I think I’ll lock in this colour...

[Swanny]

I found a large glue stain below the string holes, and around the repaired section at the neck pickup. A needle and some GoofOff got rid of the glue.

[Swanny]

Getting closer to finishing the body. It’s not perfect, and a needle shouldn’t be used with GoofOff to get rid of glue . I’m not entering geetar of the month, so I’m not bothered. I’m close to assembling the pickups, pots and such.

It got me thinking about string grounding. I have a wooden bridge, the tailpiece is wood. There is a hole from the control cavity that leads to the D string ferrule for a ground wire.

Do all strings need to be grounded, or will shielding the control cavity stop the hums? Should I drill more holes to feed a wire between each string ferrule?

[Simon Barden]

It's a tricky one. I'd certainly shield the cavities (making sure the shielding is connected to ground) as this will reduce any noise picked up by the wiring within the guitar. What it won't do is provide a means of grounding your body to that it a) soaks up RFI and passes it to ground, and b) stops your body from acting like an aerial that transmits some noise.

But you have humbucking pickups which will be pretty quiet anyway, so its not like you've got single coils where it's much more important. If you think you could manage to drill connecting holes and run a ground wire through so that connected all the ferrules that would be good, but if you can't, I wouldn't worry too much.

I'd start to be thinking about finding suitable strings for it, as you will need ones where the wound section of string is extra long. The through body and end-of body string-through hole positions mean that standard bass strings will be too short, and you'll end up with the tapered bit starting around the 1st fret.

I'd use a piece of string to work out how long the fully wound section needs to be. There are some makes that do extra long strings, but they aren't likely to be held by your local music store, so it's probably a web-only order.

[Bugeye29]

Great colour combination.

[Swanny]

My son came around to start on his new Tele kit, so I kicked on with this one, now I have my first bass guitar!





My first bass lesson, playing along to oldies on the radio was fun!

I still have some back finishing, neck levelling, bridge tuning to go, and to purchase a bass amp.

It’s pretty cool, though!