Building a double neck

mart

I’ve decided I need a double-neck, with a 12-string on top, and a fretless bass below. 

I've been getting into offset Fenders lately so, style-wise, I was thinking of something based on an electric XII on top, and a Jazz below. 

I want to go the partscaster route, not getting a custom build, or making it completely from scratch. So for this I need some help/advice from the experts on here.

I wondered about just chopping and gluing a couple of Squiers together. Sadly they haven’t made a Squier XII yet, so it’d have to be a jazz bass and either a jazzmaster or jaguar on top, with a replacement 12-string neck from somewhere. I thought that would have to be a custom-built neck, but I read somewhere about Warmoth doing a XII-style neck. Is there any hope that would fit a Squier body?

But I also don’t want the instrument to be too heavy, so I wondered about going for something semi-hollow instead. I could start with a jaguar thinline, but I don't know of a suitable semi-hollow bass. And even if I could find two suitable semi-hollow donor bodies, would it even be possible to glue them together, i.e., would I need some trickery to make the joint strong enough to hold the bass on?

Or would I be able to (get someone to) rout out the back of two Squier solidbodies, in order to make them semi-hollow?

WezV

go semi hollow and make the body yourself or get it made.  a bit more time and money but it will work a lot better  than sticking too bodies together and having to deal with the weight

 

it may seem simpler to stick two existing guitars together, and it will work, but it won't be any less work

mart

Thanks. It'd have to be somebody else building the body - that's way beyond my woodworking skills. But I suppose then I could buy the necks and get the body made to fit.

In that case I'd be tempted to go for a Rickenbacker approach, as I don't like the square edge most semi-hollows have, and prefer the rounded edge they do on the 360s. Or is that going to make it stupidly expensive?

John_P

I've made two double necks by modding and joining guitars.  A strat style double 6 so I could have different tunings and an Ibanez 7 and 6 (RG 560/RG7620 iirc)

I chopped a piece off each body, biscuit and glue joined them together and reprofile the new double body to look right.   Simple job and I have poor woodworking skills.

I sold the strat style years ago and I'm about to start a refinish on the ibanez - I'll post pics of the process when I decide what I want it to look like.- thinking about a jooky style fabric and gold finish

I'd go for it - if you use a couple of squiers, with careful shopping you could do it fairly cheaply as an experiment - I'd be interested to see how you get on!

WezV

i still need to finish mine off - its a bit further along than this

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/IMAG0079.jpg

mart

John_P said:

...
I chopped a piece off each body, biscuit and glue joined them together and reprofile the new double body to look right.   Simple job and I have poor woodworking skills.
...

That's encouraging, thanks. But @WezV has got me tempted by the prospect of a properly built semi body. But two Squiers would probably be a lot cheaper ... oh, decisions decisions!

mart

WezV said:

i still need to finish mine off - its a bit further along than this

...

Wow! Quilted maple and a blue rinse just look stunning. And the shape is amazing. Not my thing at all, but absolutely incredible!

mart

The more I think about this, the more I want a new body built to my spec - electric xii & jazz in style, 360 in construction.

I even put together a little mockup, although somewhere the head of the bass got trimmed annoyingly.

http://i327.photobucket.com/albums/k455/mart206/Music/Mockup1_zpsfb56617b.jpeg

Thinking about making the body myself ... I can wield a jigsaw ok, and just about all the routing will be on the inside ... so maybe I can manage it if I buy myself a router?

And any tips on where best to source the wood? Maple with strips of walnut preferably.

mart

Getting seriously excited now ... @GSPBasses is going to be building this for me.

ThePrettyDamned

mart;396454" said:

Getting seriously excited now ... @GSPBasses is going to be building this for me.

This will be a stobkingly good guitar then.

mart

ThePrettyDamned said:

mart;396454" said:

Getting seriously excited now ... @GSPBasses is going to be building this for me.

This will be a stobkingly good guitar then.

Yep! 

It was partly your PRS that led to this - it looks so good, but I knew I really didn't need another 6-string. So I got to thinking about exactly what I did need, and then put 2 and 2 together. 

mart

Finally this is on its way to me. I'm quite excited.