BlownCorona Builds a Stingray

[BlownCorona]

No not a Chevrolet

Over the last year or so i have been learning to play the bass guitar after a lifelong love for the instrument and how it has shaped my entire taste in music, paired with nearly a lifetime of thinking it was worthless to try to learn an instrument as an adult, while im still not very good, i can play music and i love it.

When ever i think back to songs i love, no matter if there rock songs, hip hop beats, jazz or even early electronica, you can usually find a prominent bass line.
If you dug further you might notice something curious, more often than not, the artist behind many of those songs are playing a Music Man Stingray. They remain to this day one of the most sought after bass guitars and while being particularly distinctive in their sound somehow fit right into many different styles of music.

Aside from the excellent sound, i also really like the shape and style of the Stingray, its iconic for good reason. 


Tim Commerford - Rage Against the Machine


Kim Deal - Pixies


Dave Farrell - Linkin Park 


Trent Reznor - Nine Inch Nails 


Cliff Williams - AC/DC 

And from wiki



You get the idea, its an instrument that has lent its iconic sound to most great corners of music. I want one, i want one bad. 

I told myself that when i got better i would let myself have a nice instrument instead of the 2nd hand facebook bass i currently have, however the world took a swan dive in that time and i dont have much expendable income and the problem is proper Stingrays are pretty fucking expensive and im not a successful musician. They do offer entry level stingrays, but they just arnt the same. I am however sick enough in the head to assume that i can build anything, so why not, how hard can it be to build a high end instrument?

I have begun with choosing one of the earliest Stingrays, the 'pre Earnie Ball' ~76 model as a base mostly because i prefer its rounded edges, but im also a sucker for vintage. now while this will be a shameless replica, i will be picking and choosing a few details from the 70s - 80s range and perhaps adding in some personal touches.



This is my model as it stands now after a couple of lunch breaks, the image has been moved to the side so you can see how it was used to trace the iconic silhouette. There still alot of work to do on the model and you may notice one difference being the lack of a bolted on neck and the pickgaurd being recessed. more on that later.  

With the help of many others, im very much looking forward to this one.

 

[BlownCorona]

When i was starting to think about this project i was looking around at various construction methods. The moment i laid eyes on through neck, decoratively laminated instruments i was blown away, they just looked so great. its not especially difficult but it is more labor intensive and probably hard to automate you dont tend to see many cheap instruments looking like this. 



So with a very loose plan in place i set out to acquire several different bits of timber. 



I ended up being given some Filipino Mahogany and some (not picture) Australian Iron Bark and purchased some African Purple Heart aswell as some American Red Oak for the wings and i ended up with some European Beech for the neck. I had wanted Maple for this but it was a special order thing. however because im laminating the neck and will also be reinforcing it with some twisted carbon twill, the Beech' properties are near enough and it looks great to boot. 

Next i had to figure out what i was going to do in terms of laminations, que several hours of blankly staring at a pile of timber and shuffling it around. 



I knew the two lengths of Beech were too wide (i hadnt commited to a layup yet) but i still wasnt too happy with the look. Then i had a thought, which kind of required commitment before being able to see it as i may not be able to square the timber back up.. 

i put, i think a 20 degree angled cut along one of the Beech Necks and the corrosponding Red Oak wings, putting the outboard decrotive Mahogony strips on an angle. Not something i had seen in any of the instruments i was looking at. I hope theres nothing inherently wrong with doing this because i really was happy with how it looked. 

Shown below with Beech on both sides. 


And with the Red Oak


And again, with the headstock blank, which uses the offcut Beech vs the Oak. 


Happy, I set to glueing everything up. Clamping it to hell and back to ensure a solid joint. 
I used Titebond Original for this as the internet said it was good. 



Ive run out of image space, so will continue next post

[BlownCorona]

More glueup pics 

[BlownCorona]

 

[BlownCorona]

I then loosely flattened off the bottom so i could clamp the wings down aswell as into the neck blank. one downside to the angles was that it was pretty anoying to glue up, as i had made nice slippery ramps, but nothing that clamping scrap timber across didnt sort. 



And clamped the Oak wings on and left it over the weekend. (there is alot of excess timber on those bits and ive left is there for now incase its beneficial for clamping it down later.)



 

[ThePog]

I'm really looking forward to the results of this.

Do you know about Stewmac? I have bought some adjustable truss rods and various other bits from them in preparation for making a resonator guitar..

[BlownCorona]

I do, but they are out off stock for their bass rods. the truss rod is really the next thing i need to order, despite preferring to look at shiny tuners and bridges. 
 

[ThePog]

Ah i wondered of you were going to bother given the contruction and stiffness etc. Probably best to have some form of adjustment though, it would be a shame to do all that and have it unplayable.

[BlownCorona]

i certainly will, far too much risk to not have any way to adjust the neck, doubly so when that neck doesnt come off. though if anything goes horibly wrong i can still route out a neck pocket and convert it to a bolt on. 

if you have any other recommendations for quality truss robs im all ears, otherwise im sort of thinking about just making one in the same style as the stewmac ones.



for all those unaware of what we are talking about here, in the neck of most guitars and basses exists a component call a truss rod. this component is an adjustable method of counteracting the forces from the strings (in the case of a bass, it can be a metric fuckton of tension) and this force arches the neck forwards.

To a certain degree we want the neck to have an arch, otherwise when pressing down on a fret, the string would touch multiple points but if the strings pulled too much of an arch, it would be unplayable or it might even snap.

the truss rod applies an adjustable force in the opposite direction by way of two rods, one fixed length and the other adjustable, causing the assembly to bow and allowing a balance to be achieved. there are a few different setups but they usually all follow this general idea.

[Willdat?]

I hope you saved the purple heart off cuts, machining it is the best smelling thing ever. I used it for the lid of this box, smelt like strawberry jam on the lathe.

[ThePog]

1 hour ago, BlownCorona said:

i certainly will, far too much risk to not have any way to the neck, doubly so when that neck doesnt come off. though if anything goes horibly wrong i can still route out a neck pocket and convert it to a bolt on. 

if you have any other recommendations for quality truss robs im all ears, otherwise im sort of thinking about just making one in the same style as the stewmac ones.



for all those unaware of what we are talking about here, in the neck of most guitars and basses exists a component call a truss rod. this component is an adjustable method of counteracting the forces from the strings (in the case of a bass, it can be a metric fuckton of tension) and this force arches the neck forwards.

To a certain degree we want the neck to have an arch, otherwise when pressing down on a fret, the string would touch multiple points but if the strings pulled too much of an arch, it would be unplayable or it might even snap.

the truss rod applies an adjustable force in the opposite direction by way of two rods, one fixed length and the other adjustable, causing the assembly to bow and allowing a balance to be achieved. there are a few different setups but they usually all follow this general idea.

Tell me the length you need, I have a couple there and one is longer. They are not the twin rod type, they are the rod inside an extrusion, you can have one if it suits and you want it. Altho TBH it would be pretty easy to make a twin rod one...

[h4nd]

Lovely.  Vids For thread ...

I too have noticed amazing songs with stingray bassplayers: and I was surprised at some omissions from that list. May I offer also:

Shriekback, All lined up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mo3yt0VUjw&list=RD4mo3yt0VUjw and even doing beautiful pop irony with exquisite bass work (casual harmonics, like it's no thing) https://youtu.be/n3GNXWczgek but also 

the Psychedelic Furs, Love my way period: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGD9i718kBU

Perhaps sir would enjoy a more eclectic, fretless piece: Pete Murphy: Cuts you up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrfFHzqGBZI

and Latin? Mano Negra: Snr Matanza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBB7HeShhAg

Souxie &: Happy house  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amR6-neQBPE  Spellbound, etc

Anyways, enjoy the soundtrack. Those were just from my CD collection

 

[BlownCorona]

1 hour ago, Willdat? said:

I hope you saved the purple heart off cuts, machining it is the best smelling thing ever. I used it for the lid of this box, smelt like strawberry jam on the lathe.

There wasn't much left, but I've saved it with a mind to turn it into control knobs, perhaps laminated with metal. 

[BlownCorona]

1 hour ago, ThePog said:

Tell me the length you need, I have a couple there and one is longer. They are not the twin rod type, they are the rod inside an extrusion, you can have one if it suits and you want it. Altho TBH it would be pretty easy to make a twin rod one...

I'll work that out, I need to anyway, and let you know.

Its just a standard 34" scale, but I need to find out if being through neck changes anything. 

[Thousand Dollar Supercar]

On 10/07/2024 at 23:21, BlownCorona said:

I am however sick enough in the head to assume that i can build anything, so why not, how hard can it be to build a high end instrument?

My brother made this guitar using an existing neck:

He put the bridge too far out of position, which meant that even when the open strings were tuned to the correct pitch, the notes produced by fretting the strings would be sharp or flat (can't remember which). Also, something else was not quite right about the bridge mounting which would result in the tuning being thrown out if you used the whammy bar. Finally, the mounting of the neck to the body left a bit to be desired. His subsequent attempts have been more successful, and I think he has built a bass as well.

Good luck, this should be an interesting project. 

[Bling]

Spotted this from a channel I watch and thought it may be of interest. 3D printed guitar.

 

[GARDRB]

This guy goes good with home made geetaaaahs

https://www.youtube.com/@MakeWithMiles/videos

[BlownCorona]

yeah ive gone down the youtube hole of 3d printed guitars and basses, some people have real solid success. I also enjoyed the solid bronze bass which the guy smelted himself. it weighed an ungodly amount and he couldnt play a full song without it cutting the circulation to his leg off. He never put it on a strap because he was terrified of the strap breaking and it crushing his foot. hilarious.

i 3d printed my model for fun and to have a bit of a real world look as sometimes cad models on a flat screen can look a bit weird. It now lives on my desk as decoration.  



A test cut with some MDF and then ill be cutting the hardwood. 

truss rod from Stewmac arrived today aswell, and 90% of the hardware has been selected, purchased and is sitting in a freight forward depot in the states to consolidate freight to nz/make use of free US shipping. 

[BlownCorona]

I have been doing quite a bit of work (and purchasing) on this project. Firstly i finalised the 3d model, as seen above. threw some vaguely right colors over it but you'll see the hardwood blank looks quite different. 



next, i needed a bridge, the part which anchors the strings and affords various adjustments for string intonation. 
The problem is that i never really liked the orginal StingRay bridge. they were just a pressed steel thing and looks pretty plain, however i felt the overall footprint was important to the shape. i also really wanted something with the mute pads.



I couldn't find anything that i liked until i came across this item from Sandberg, however they only sold within the EU and i couldn't find an NZ distributor.



So.. i gave up and gave into my desire to just design my own. i took a leaf out of @Roman book and sent the design away for CNC machining from aluminium and nickel plating. i also had the saddles 3d printed from stainless steel


This also presented the opportunity to include a little hand drawn sketch of my cat who actively loves listening to the bass. if i stop, she will demand i continue.
She is very fluffy which leads to her looking perpetually angry, a great little logo i thought. 

 

[BlownCorona]

And heres a long and expensive list of things ive bought. however the amount of money ive spent is still less than buying the cheapest good quality instrument from a shop and this (should) be of far far higher quality. 

the most important first. Nordstand MM4.2 Pickup. This is one of two options i found for recreating the original sound faithfully (in conjunction with the correct preamp - more on that in a later episode) 


The the tuning machines. Gotoh Res-o-lites x3 and one Hipshot drop D tuner for the e string. this is unnecessary but i really wanted one. it allows you to pretune the E string to D and lets to flick a lever back and forth for the two tunings. just cool. Gotohs over Hipshots for the other 3 because they were substantially cheaper and look the same, still really high quality. 



StewMac truss rod


Nickel Plated control cover 



Cool little stainless steel preamp battery holder. i dont want any plastic. 




and a set of standard but correct spec strings