Custom Flying V-12
How to Build Your Own 12-String Bass at Home

Final Assembly and Finishing Touches

The tips of the V were a bit ragged, but they will be filled with ebony filler to match the black lines of the spalting.

 

Having glued everything together for the body and planed the top to shape (with a taper sideways and to the tips of the V), I then soaked the spalted top in wood hardener as some areas were a bit soft. After the wood hardener I sanded the whole thing down again and treated the surface with Danish Oil. I then finished off the ash back, planing and sanding the sides flush with the beech top, then planed the back.

 

The neck is attached with five screws, with the strap button centered.

 

Here is a picture of my wife Susan holding the bass to give you some idea of scale, though she is rather petite.
There are strap buttons on each tip of the V.

 

I initially strung up the V with an 8-string bass set I had lying around, and used guitar strings (knotted together) for the extra four octave strings. The result was exhausting to play so, bearing in mind that I prefer the lighter octaves on my 10-string bass, I kept the tuning at E-A-D-G but dropped the octave tuning to A-D-G-C. This was very much easier to play and it gave a nice bright jangly sound.

 

The back of the headstock showing the four string ferrules.

 

The bridge is a Schaller 471 8-string bass bridge, bought from Warmoth. The two Mighty Mite 5-string bass pick-ups were purchased from www.dancingdragonguitars.com. They have bars instead of pole pieces so string alignment won't be a problem. I have used these pick-ups on a fretless bass and they produce plenty of high end. It has the traditional two volume / one tone control layout. I exploited an interesting circular feature in the wood grain for the jack socket.

 

Mounting position of the four tuners on the body and the laminated maple veneer cover for the control cavity.

 

The first rehearsal for the new Flying V 12!

Well, last night was the first time I played the V-12 at volume, and I must say it was a very satisfying experience for me and for the rest of the band. I'm really looking forward to playing this live - and to seeing the looks on people's faces! Even non-musicians have spontaneously used the word "beautiful" to describe it.

 

The box on my belt contains some active electronics that I took out of one of my basses. I did this so that all my basses can go through them, rather than having a set of actives in each bass.

 

I put another strap button in the crux of the V, next to the tuners. Using the button on the tip of the V made it neck-heavy and really difficult to hold, but now it's as comfortable as any of my other guitars. It's not even too heavy! I might also install a series / parallel switch pot for running pickups in series.

 

My pedal board consists of an A/B selector, compressor, graphic equalizer, tuner, wah pedal, phaser, chorus, octaver (one octave down) and valve distortion. It sounds a bit much, but I use them with relative caution. Mind you though, the wah plus a touch of valve distortion sounds great on multi-course basses.

 

The Flying V next to Chris' T-bird 4-string bass

Having played the V-12 for a bit, I have to say it's not something that works low slung. The scale of the V is the usual 34" but all that timber sticking out behind the bridge adds on a lot in terms of length and weight. The action is as low as I can get it - no more than 1.5mm at the 12th fret, possibly 1.25mm. It plays pretty fast despite the width of the neck, and in fact my guitarist let rip on it with no evident difficulty.

I'd say the hardest job was planing the wood to size and shape, but that was hard as in "hard labor". Other elements were more complicated, such as cutting the veneer for the headstock or shaping the slots for the pick-ups. Fortunately I had some old cabinet making training to fall back on. In the end though a guitar is just some wires on a bit of wood; an electric guitar is this plus some wound magnets.

In retrospect I should have thinned the neck down a bit by a few millimeters on both sides, although that would have meant a complete refret. I can play it OK but it could have been easier. Now, when I go back to my custom 10-string bass it's like playing a broom handle! The reason I used a 6-string bass neck was that the width at the nut was the same as at least one commercially available 12-string bass. Maybe thinning the neck could be a project for next year, although I might need to fit a new nut.

I kept a record of what I spent on this 12-string bass. It breaks down as:

Anything else was given to me (the ash was from a friend who works in ash, etc.) or cannibalized from other guitars (neck bolts). Excluding the strings, and assuming £1 = $2 US, this gives a grand total of $421.50.

 

  

I suppose I'd be lying to myself if I said this was my last project. There is nothing quite like taking to the stage with an instrument that you've made yourself. Also, if I don't take into account the financial value of my time, home builds are usually startlingly cheap. Until the next project, my wife is happy to have regained control of "her" workbench in the workshop where she makes mosaics.

Cheers!
Chris Whiteley