Blue Lagoon
You ever seen the movie?
It has become a "standard procedure" for me to build two
basses side by side. So building "The Fenix" this one was/is
"the twin". It's convenient, fast and practical to have two
builds happening at the same time, since you can make the
same steps in the build on not one, but two pieces, while
your at it. For instance, while the first one is clamped
down and your waiting for the glue to dry, you can make the
second one ready for that particular gluing step. While
building "The Fenix" this "Blue Lagoon" was the second
(twin) build. The same shapes all over, except for different
woods used. I chose elm (ulmus glabra) for the body core,
partially chambered to make it a bit lighter, with figured
birch on both top and back. The neck was glued together from
birch (both sides), maple (in the middle), two wenge stripes
with cherry stripes on both sides of the wenge stripes.
All-in-all a 9-piece neck. The fingerboard was made out of
merbau (intsia spp.)
Some specs;
Construction: 5-string
(bolt-on) Scale Length: 810mm (32") Strings: Kerly Music 45-130 Number of frets: 24 Tuners: Boston (Gold) Bridge: Göldo (Gold) Frets: Dunlop 6310 |
Neck wood: Birch, maple,
cherry, wenge (9-piece) Body wood: Elm (2-piece) with figured book-matched birch top and back Fretboard wood: Merbau Neck pickup: EMG CS40 Bridge pickup: EMG DC40 Preamp: EMG BTS System |
Since the front and back of the body was nicely figured I wanted to dye the top and back. All along I had this idea of a simple blue/black burst, so I bought some blue food coloring, tested it out on a scrap piece of birch, and it turned out fairly well. However, when the blue dye dried it turned a bit green(ish), which actually looked quite nice. Sort of a turquoise tint to it, just like the waters in the Bahamas, hence the name "Blue Lagoon". About ten coats of clear acrylic lacquer was left to dry for about a week, then wet sanded, buffed, polished and waxed.
Here's a sound sample. Bridge pickup at 75% neck pickup 25%, bass and treble pots at 2 o'clock.