Thread: Build weight reduction question

G'Day Michael, I have not forgot about you things will be sorted next week if you are still interested. panic here at the moment one of my wifes sons had a heart attack last weekend and tomorrow go's in for open heart surgery.
As for your question lighter guitar one way is use something light for the core and then something nice on top, I would suggest Macracarpa core.
Cheers, Bob

Hi Bob,
I've PM'ed you back
Hope all goes well for the surgery.
I've heard active EMG's make good pacemakers
Michael

How light do you need to go? What about carbon fibre for the thing?

I am happy to bow to the Carbon Fibre Gods on the forum, if someone could point me in the direction of the how.
How and where is it bought?
How is it incorporated, say into a blackwood body and neck?
How is it manipulated, cut, etc?

I'm hoping to get under 8 pounds all up for a 4 string bass
Michael

Im no god on this. Ive used it in acoustic instruments. Firstly to stiffen the neck and secondly to stiffen the rims. For necks I use 2mm x 10mm rods. For the rims I use CF tow and bathe it in epoxy and then lay it up on the kerfing. Makes for very stiff sides. Ive also seen CF rods used to separate the neck block from the tail block in acoustic instruments. These last two are Rick Turner tricks. He is the god on this stuff.

Maybe a very hollowbody with lots of CF reinforcement and very little timber in the body itself? Stewmac sells CF rods, Tow comes from model airplane suppliers.

Originally Posted by bassbuilderman

For example, can you rout small channels into the back of the fingerboard or into the glueing face of the neck tio lighten the neck weight. Does this effect trussrod adjustment?

Could I ask this again please?
For example,I know that there is routing at the back of a fretboard when LED's are put in. So how does this sound as a weight reduction method.

Or alternatively, routing say 3mm wide x 3mm deep channels say 4mm either side of the truss rod channel.

Does this sound like a feasible way to reduce neck weight?

Michael

Carbon fibre rods can be laid in channels either side of the truss rod channel....I do this on my steel string acoustic necks.

Be aware though that reducing mass of the neck can affect sustain of the instrument.

The way I see it the most effective way of reducing the weight of the instrument is by chambering the body.

Hi - I was lucky and bought a MIJ swamp ash body off ebay that turned out to be really light and the tele I built from it is my favourite guitar by far. I bought another one piece swamp ash tele body and a strat and, as someone wrote earlier, they varied in weight a lot. The strat is a one-piece and comes in at a hefty 5.6lbs. What seems best for swamp ash guitars is the 3-4lb mark.
I've been based in the UK for some time and am coming home soon but did a fair bit of investigation into swamp ash.
You can buy bodies from Warmoth (I'm sure you know all this) but the lighter the swamp ash the more expensive. The thing is, the reason swamp ash is so light and sounds so good for guitars is that the time spent in the water creates fibre that expands as it is full of water - and when that dries out there is more air in the wood which helps the weight and gives it the bell like tone.
Has anyone investigated species of woods in Oz that spend a lot of time in water to see whether the same effect occurs? There's a lot of areas in Australia where this is possible.
I also have a mahogany tele body with a curly maple top that has been chambered in a special way by a US builder. He investigated the chamber configuration and came up with his own routing plan for a series of diagonal chambers. The body has a great tap tone and is only 3.6 lbs. His name is Jaquet, Jacquet Guitars - A new body of Vintage Masterbuilt guitars - and he might share his secrets...
It also might be a worthwhile experiment to get a piece of anything timber, create a temporary cap and try a few different chamber configurations.
I'm only talking as an amateur here and have only built a few solid bodies and a thinline to date from specifically sought parts (no real workshop space) - but have ended with some great sounding guitars. Most of which I'll be bringing back soon to sell. (28 guitars are too many for any semi-pro who wants to stay in a relationship )
Good luck with it.
J

I thought I'd throw in my 20 cents worth.

I'd trial laminating a composite of timber and carbon fibre for the neck. and if you are looking to hollow out the neck, I would start with routing channels into the neck either side of the truss rod, rather than the back of the fretboard.

Make up a test piece, like a scaled down piece, and compare the bending strength against something tried and true like solid maple.

I'd also go for a through neck construction with the core providing the rigidity required for a base, that way you could construct the wings of the body out of virtually anything light.

Good luck. This will definately make for an interesting build.

Cheers,

Peter

Thanks Peter and others.
I am aiming to do a Tas Blackwood Parker Fly body style 34 inch scale 4 string bass. So with the extreme body carving of the Fly, chambering or hollowing the body will not be easy. I was going to do neck thru and consider some chambering in that piece thru the body.

Doing the maths, say Blackwood is 600kg/m3 ( i will measure the pieces that Bob sends me to get an actual figure). that means every cubic centimetre (on average) weighs 0.6gm -- not a lot.

So a EMG bass soapbar rout is around 9x4x3 approx = 108cm3 or about 65gm.

This is the method I'll be using to "predict" weight reduction for all the timber bits.

Anyone have thoughts on this method. I know it assumes a bit, but what else have I got?

BBM

With a Bass build the danger with too much weight reduction in the body is that you can end up with neck dive.
Areas to consider for weight loss/ balance are
Lightweight tuners like the hipshots
Small headstock design preferably not inline
Length of upper horn/strap button location

IMHO it is not worth trying too hard to reduce body weight below normal figures unless you take steps to reduce weight at the headstock end and get the strap button location up around the 12th fret

Thanks jeffhigh,
I'll be using the Hipshot ultralight that Stewmac sell.
The Fly headstock is quite small and 4 in line. I'm interested in the comment
about not using 4 inline and the reason.

Picture attached of early drawing. Done without the hardware on hand, so will still need small refinement

My recommendation against inline is because they are generally bulkier and have weight further away from the centre of gravity of the instument.
The parker design is a bit different
As long as your strap button at lest reaches the 12th fret or 13th you are probably fine.

Hi jeffhigh
Could you adjust/edit your last post to read 13th fret and then I'll be happy!!!
(I didn't post that pic)
BBM