Let's hack a ukulele bass into a travel guitar.

Hackmaster

Hackmaster

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A while back I had to make a couple of bass dulcimers, and had two U bass husks left over.
It was cheaper & easier to buy & gut a working instrument, then to source the bass piezo rod, preamp, battery box, rubber strings and tuning machines.
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So that left me with a naked husk to be contorted and perverted into something new.
I fitted some wooden dowels to plug the tuner holes and glued them into place.

Then used a thin piece of padauk veneer and glued it to the front of the headstock to clean things up.
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It sorta matched the color & grain of the body which looks like some kind of Asian mahogany ply.
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A set of standard guitar tuners would have been too long for the small headstock, so I magically turned a set of mandolin four on a strip tuners, into three on a strip. Plus they had some nifty pimpin' pearl buttons.
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Now my thinking was the front of the headstock looks pretty good, but the back looks like hell.
So I positioned the tuners in such a way as to hide the dowel plugs.
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Total stealth... After a little touch up, Bingo!

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Next I ponder on what to do for a bridge / saddle combo. Piezo or mag.
 
Had trouble visualizing a bridge that would work with the insane ideas in my head, and would still be low enough to work.
But when I started mocking things up, I had a clear winner.
It's not what one would expect to find on an acoustic guitar. In fact it's downright rude.

My vision called for a big chunk of the existing bridge to be whittled away, down to the top to make room for the abomination.
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I also had a thought for attaching it and spreading the load of the mounting hardware.
It involved a piece of .125 thick brass.
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The brass goes inside under the bridge plate to act as a big washer, then the attachment holes and stuff got drilled into it.
There's a nifty plate on the back that unscrews for access. It's original purpose was access to knot & thread the rubber bass strings through.
So back to the abomination. It's a cut down Telecaster bridge.
Yep. Got it from Goo a while back and it it's perfect.
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With the brass plate under the top and the cut down Tele thing on the topside, the guitar top gets sandwiched in between.
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Strings will bottom feed through the access hole.
Now the bridge saddles are where they need to be heightwise, with plenty of travel up & down.
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It's not elegant, it's not even proper. That's why it's perfect.
What could be simpler, a Tele bridge bolted to a mini acoustic body with a 22" scale length.
 
actually truth be told Ive seen the master in ACTION and been to his little shop of horrors' many times .............what he creates with the tools afforded him is even MORE STELLAR than his humble pics imply

true quality gear comes out of a shed in da swamp :cheers:
 
eSGEe said:
actually truth be told Ive seen the master in ACTION and been to his little shop of horrors' many times .............what he creates with the tools afforded him is even MORE STELLAR than his humble pics imply

true quality gear comes out of a shed in da swamp :cheers:
Click to expand...
I'm often amazed how well some of these crapshoots come out.
I wonder what kind of a bang this thing is gonna' make, when it implodes, in the middle of the night, from the tension of six steel strings vs four rubber ones. Nashville tuning is probably out of the question.:rolf:
 
IT'S ALIVE, wasted a day messing with a box of old take out preamps and piezos.
I suddenly realized why I had taken them all out. They were all junk.
One passed a weak signal and two were DOA.
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So I hung a singlecoil at the end of the fretboard and wired it straight to the output jack.
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I used a piece of tortoiseshell pickguard material, heated it up & formed it to the side, to cover the preamp hole.
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Made a bone nut, strung it with a set of .009's and tuned it G to G.

So how does it sound and play?
It plays great after some tweaking. It was buzzing out all over the place, but the truss rod and saddle adjustments took care of business.
Intonation is spot on. String tension feels good. Action is more than acceptable.
I was surprised to find it was a two way rod as well.
Acoustically, It's OK. Not real loud, but louder that a dozen squirrels farting in a shoe box.
Being a ukulele size plywood box, my expectations were low.
Plugged in it sounds surprisingly good.

All in all, this project was a success. Four string U bass into 6 string mini guitar.
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Hackmaster said:
A while back I had to make a couple of bass dulcimers, and had two U bass husks left over.
It was cheaper & easier to buy & gut a working instrument, then to source the bass piezo rod, preamp, battery box, rubber strings and tuning machines.
View attachment 65772
So that left me with a naked husk to be contorted and perverted into something new.
I fitted some wooden dowels to plug the tuner holes and glued them into place.

Then used a thin piece of padauk veneer and glued it to the front of the headstock to clean things up.
View attachment 65775
It sorta matched the color & grain of the body which looks like some kind of Asian mahogany ply.
View attachment 65777
A set of standard guitar tuners would have been too long for the small headstock, so I magically turned a set of mandolin four on a strip tuners, into three on a strip. Plus they had some nifty pimpin' pearl buttons.
View attachment 65782
Now my thinking was the front of the headstock looks pretty good, but the back looks like hell.
So I positioned the tuners in such a way as to hide the dowel plugs.
View attachment 65783
View attachment 65785
Total stealth... After a little touch up, Bingo!

View attachment 65787
View attachment 65788
Next I ponder on what to do for a bridge / saddle combo. Piezo or mag.
Click to expand...

Absolutely phenomenal.
 
Hackmaster said:
IT'S ALIVE, wasted a day messing with a box of old take out preamps and piezos.
I suddenly realized why I had taken them all out. They were all junk.
One passed a weak signal and two were DOA.
View attachment 65967
So I hung a singlecoil at the end of the fretboard and wired it straight to the output jack.
View attachment 65969
I used a piece of tortoiseshell pickguard material, heated it up & formed it to the side, to cover the preamp hole.
View attachment 65970
Made a bone nut, strung it with a set of .009's and tuned it G to G.

So how does it sound and play?
It plays great after some tweaking. It was buzzing out all over the place, but the truss rod and saddle adjustments took care of business.
Intonation is spot on. String tension feels good. Action is more than acceptable.
I was surprised to find it was a two way rod as well.
Acoustically, It's OK. Not real loud, but louder that a dozen squirrels farting in a shoe box.
Being a ukulele size plywood box, my expectations were low.
Plugged in it sounds surprisingly good.

All in all, this project was a success. Four string U bass into 6 string mini guitar.
View attachment 65972
View attachment 65973
Click to expand...
oh I can wait to rub my junk on that!
 
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