Building the Electric Double Bass - Tips and Tricks

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In this article I plan to give you some tips I found vital when building the electric double bass.  Hopefully this information will save you many hours of wasted work, and I'm going to deal especially with keeping to scale in this article.

First of all I have been building electric double basses for some years now, and the problem I see over and over again holding new luthiers back is always scale.  

You may think the parts are to scale but when you assemble the parts you may find little problems have accumulated. The process I hope to teach you here is called "lofting," and in its purest sense is simply drawing a cut out of the parts.  

Do not underestimate the art of lofting.  It is vital to your success.   First you will decide how big the part you are building is. Next stick together several squares of A4 paper until the finished part would fit on it.  Carefully mark out the proportions on the paper and build a paper part.   Next continue to loft all the parts of the double bass and cut them out.

Now assemble all your paper components until you have a completed electric double bass, and then carefully check your measurements are perfect.

Now when you trace your lofted paper parts onto the wood to cut them out, you know that you will have a double bass that is perfectly to scale.  

I have been a Luthier for many years and I think it vitally important for anyone new to the craft, to realise the importance of research.  I hope this was helpful to you and you enjoy your new bass