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I've been gigging for many years as a bass player, on electric and on upright. One of the things I really value is light weight--I generally like the way light instruments sound and especially like the way they feel by the third set. I also really like the 34 inch scale on electric basses--I've never liked shorter scale instruments.

The thing i really dislike is neck-diving. A neck heavy bass really bothers me. All the basses I own were chosen for balance or modified with lighter tuners so they'd balance.

I've been doing a lot of building lately and wanted to build a fretless bass out of parts I had on hand. Clear out the parts bin. I wanted it light, and well balanced. I wanted a fretless, and I wanted something different from the usual fender derived design, and I wanted a 34 inch scale. I've always liked Rick Turner's Model One body shape. But that's a recipe for neck diving. Turner's is scaled to I think 30 inches, for just that reason




I could have made a headless bass, but I wanted to use stuff I had on hand, which included a set of Hipshot bass tuners. So the answer: A 34 inch scale bass with a 15 fret neck.

I made an eastern white pine body, and bound it, which was really hard. The neck was made out of three pieces of home depot maple. The fingerboard was made from ipe leftover from our deck construction. I finished it with transtint does and then KTM-9, which is not shown in the pictures here

The bass balances perfectly and sounds great. It's extremely comfortable to play. It looks like it might be short scale, but it's not--it's a full 34. That makes it easier for me to play it in tune. IMHO the short neck long scale is a really nice solution. If you feel like you need the extended range beyond 15 frets, then add a high "C" string. Fender made a bass like that, briefly, in the late 60s, but it never caught on

Sorry, the finished bass pic didn't go through. here it is