A bit of a cheek.

GSPBASSES

Has anybody got a Stanley Clarke deluxe, photo below, I believe there are several versions of the bass but all using the same body shape, if you have would you be prepared to draw round the body for me.

 

prowla

I think there was someone on BassChat selling one.

jasonbone75

Graham, don't know what you have in the way of CAD software but there is a nice trick I have done in SolidWorks. You import the photo as a backdrop and then create a sketch over it. You can trace the outlines with spline tools and get everything matched up. Don't dimension anything till you are done. Then add a construction line between two points you know the dimensions of (perhaps the length of the pickup cover?) and dimension that line. This has the effect of scaling the whole sketch to that known dimension and your sketch becomes a very close approximation to the real life dimensions.

GSPBASSES

jasonbone75 said:

Graham, don't know what you have in the way of CAD software but there is a nice trick I have done in SolidWorks. You import the photo as a backdrop and then create a sketch over it. You can trace the outlines with spline tools and get everything matched up. Don't dimension anything till you are done. Then add a construction line between two points you know the dimensions of (perhaps the length of the pickup cover?) and dimension that line. This has the effect of scaling the whole sketch to that known dimension and your sketch becomes a very close approximation to the real life dimensions.

That's very interesting, unfortunately I don't have a CAD system, if you have SolidWorks would you do it for me? I'll be prepared to pay obviously.

Although I may end up buying SolidWorks, although I haven't got a CNC at the moment, I've just seen a demonstration of a small desktop CNC 9060 that comes in about £1800. 

jasonbone75

Sure, I'll give it a bash. I might not get to it until early next week depending on work but we can see if you like the result before money comes into it! What 2D format would you want the output file?

Also in the mean-time try and chase down a dimension - looking closer the distance between the two body wings across the neck through might be best because it is so sharp a contrast maple to rosewood(?) and it is perpendicular to the centre line. If not, calipers around somebody's Alembic pickups would do it too.

WezV

jasonbone75 said:

Graham, don't know what you have in the way of CAD software but there is a nice trick I have done in SolidWorks. You import the photo as a backdrop and then create a sketch over it. You can trace the outlines with spline tools and get everything matched up. Don't dimension anything till you are done. Then add a construction line between two points you know the dimensions of (perhaps the length of the pickup cover?) and dimension that line. This has the effect of scaling the whole sketch to that known dimension and your sketch becomes a very close approximation to the real life dimensions.

I often do the low brow version by printing off the image in various sizes until I get the size of a known dimension correct.  

jasonbone75

@WezV you get a wiz for that - yours requires more patience and more skill than these jumped up desk jockeys 

WezV

Either way works.  The important bit is getting a known dimeson correct, and obviously starting with a good straight on pic.

Here I would also check the 24th fret to high E saddle, as it should be  bang on 1/4 of the known scale length, +2 or 3mm for intonation.

i.e on a 34" scale bass the distance from 24th to saddle will be 8 1/2" + 1/8" compensation = 8 5/8"

jasonbone75

Good shout on scale length, thanks. I'm a widdly widdly guitar player and don't know most of the bass scale lengths!

The pic above is not quite horizontal but a tiny rotation of 0.1deg anticlockwise got the centre line horizontal. It isn't super high res but it's got a lot of info in it and I think we have enough to get Graham what he needs. My initial fiddling:

GSPBASSES

Thanks for all the information very interesting, the only measurement I have is at the bridge, it's 18mm between strings.
I'm looking for another picture very similar that includes the 12th friend fret as the scale length is 30" I believe this hopefully will give us a much more accurate scaling of the body. I should also say it doesn't have to be an exact copy of the body lookalike will be good enough I think.

@jasonbone75 it looks like you will be able to do it, a PDF would be great.

jasonbone75

Scale length is 30.75" - http://www.alembic.com/prod/sc.html

Also useful was the 24th fret width at 2.15inch which I was able to scale with and confirm the 24th to E saddle as well. I'm pretty close to done. Just having issues exporting it as usual! Want to make sure it is 1:1 when you actually receive.

I'm not near SolidWorks from lunch today till Monday so if I don't finish I'll pick it up later.

jasonbone75

@GSPBASSES ;

OK think I've got something for you to try. This should be an A2 sized page with a 1:1 body in the middle. The centre line should measure at 330.30 mm when printed:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLJwuu21Ug_609NSBwUwz4cVqz6perGR/view?usp=sharing

Once you've had a play come back to me next week in case we need to tweak anything.

JB

jdgm

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

GSPBASSES

jasonbone75 said:

@GSPBASSES ;

OK think I've got something for you to try. This should be an A2 sized page with a 1:1 body in the middle. The centre line should measure at 330.30 mm when printed:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLJwuu21Ug_609NSBwUwz4cVqz6perGR/view?usp=sharing

Once you've had a play come back to me next week in case we need to tweak anything.

JB

Thanks for doing that it's worked out just fine, I've now got it printed out and hopefully later in the week and make some jigs. 

Although the customer who initiated all this seems to gone very quiet at the moment, but there's been a bit of interest in it as I don't think anybody makes any kits of this particular bass.