Left-Handed Oakurst Vintage 4-String Bass for Steve in Las Vegas

This page documents a Left-handed vintage Oakhurst Bass being built for Steve in Las Vegas. Basic features:

  • The body is made from a two-piece blank of medium-weight black Swamp Ash
  • The neck made from a three-piece blank of highly flamed hard rock maple with Indian Rosewood accent stripes
  • The fingerboard is Indian Rosewood
  • The fingerboard will have white mother of pearl shell position markers and white side dots with medium-jumbo frets
  • The 12th fret will have an inlay of two red dice showing "Hard Six"
  • The neck will have a double-action truss rod
  • The bass will have a Bartolini P/J pickup set
  • The hardware will be all gold plated
  • The tuning machines will be a set of the gold Fender-style "elephant-ear" open-plate type
  • The control knobs will be 3/4" casino-style dice

November 18, 2008: The body after sanding is almost complete:

November 29, 2008: Getting the neck ready for carving:

November 29, 2008: More progress on the neck:

Note the slices from a couple of the dice - these will be inlaid into the fingerboard.

December 10, 2008: The inlay in the fingerboard is complete, and the fret installation was done today:

First, while the frets were being installed:

Next, the logo at the 12th fret. This is the logo of Steve's business:

The neck showing the entire length of the fingerboard:

The headstock and the first seven frets:

The back of the neck showing the two Indian rosewood stripes:

December 16, 2008: Trial assembly to check fit and to locate the position of the bridge:

January 3, 2009: The inlay on the body is done:

I have also put one coat of epoxy grain filler on the body.

I did the inlay with a Padauk wood background to match the wood I used for the dice on the fingerboard.

January 4, 2009: Here's the back side of the body after two coats of epoxy:

February 14, 2009: The body has been curing for almost 4 weeks now - I felt that it needed extra time because of the cold weather. Today I wet-sanded sanded the body with successively finer sandpapers, starting with 600 and working up to 2000 before polishing with Stewart-MacDonald polishing compound. The next four pictures show the result:

February 18, 2009: Beginning the Final Assembly

I begin by lining the cavities with copper foil shielding and installing the volume and tone controls:

Next I install the pickups and bridge:

A shot of the headstock before I installed the tuning machines, to show the decals in place:

Next I drilled the holes and began installing the tuning machines:

The headstock is shown here with the tuning machines all ready to go:

February 20, 2009: nearing completion - I put strings on the bass today, and completed the wiring and the installation of the output jack:

February 22, 2009: I made the knobs today:

 

All Pictures and Text
(c) Copyright 2009 by Stephen Cyr
This page last updated February 18, 2009