The Bevington VI

Brad and I have been friends since Ms. Arons art class in 7th grade. That was almost 25 years ago! The two us and a handful of other friends have played lots of music together throughout the years. Not just play music, but we’ve all gone through so much in life together. You don’t hang out with someone for 25 years and not have some wild adventures! Brad is primarily a bass player, but he also has a penchant for guitar, uke, drums and synthesizers.

A while back he got on a Fender Bass VI kick. He asked if I could make him one, but he doesn’t really want a “Fender” Bass VI. He wants whatever my crazy mind comes up with. With this particular project he gave me complete creative control, The only question I asked was, “is there was anything he was into lately?” He answered with “triangles” which was a perfect answer. I asked my question so I could get a starting point for whatever inlay was going to end up on his guitar. Triangles it is!

The only spec I kept from Fender’s design is the scale length, 30”. The nut width and last fret width on the Fender I knew were going to be too narrow. Brad mostly plays bass and a 5 string at that; with plenty of room from string to string. So I knew from the start that I want the to measurements wider.

The next thing I wanted to figure out was the bridge design. Brad did mention he likes having individual string bridges like the ones ABM makes. At first I was trying to design a base plate that they could rest on, and the bridge plate could be adjusted for height with two adjustable thumbscrews, kind of like a tune-a-matic bridge. I thought I had something figured out; in fact I thought I had something figure out a few times! Unfortunately my machining skills aren’t that good; really, they are are almost nonexistent. I liked the general design though so I settled on something in the middle. I still used the baseplate design, a piece of Macassar Ebony glued to a base of aircraft grade aluminum. I was able to make the thumbscrews that secure the baseplate to the body. I just wouldn’t be able to raise or lower the height of the baseplate.

Hopefully as time goes on my skills with machining parts will improve. It is definitely a skill I would like to improve on. Working with metal has been something I’ve wanted to do more of. I’ve just never been in that particular environment to learn that skillset.

The next hurdle was the pickups. Because the string spacing was unique I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy a stock pickup set. I looked long and hard… Then I remembered a friend of mine, a fellow Roberto-Venn graduate and Luthier extraordinaire, Scott French, had just bought a vintage coil winder and was experimenting with his own pickup designs. I hopped over to his shop with some drawings I made, to see if it was something he would be into; and I wanted to check out the coil winder. Thankfully he was into it! I also gave hime some pieces of maple to make pickup covers with. I don’t think he had as much fun making the covers as he did the pickups… thanks Scott!

The next crazy bit is the finish. I knew I wanted to do something different but it wasn’t clear in my mind. I kept going back and forth about doing an opaque finish; something I had never done before. I was feeling blues and creams, that’s all I knew. It was also around this time I had just bought a fancy tape dispenser with a bunch of different width tapes from Stew-Mac. And one way way or another I ended up with this finish! If you asked me to do it again I would laugh. It happens regularly with me; I don’t know where I’m going, I know I’m on a new road, and I just let it roll. I might be able to do something similar, but by no means the same. I wouldn’t want to.

This was also the third instrument where I had a lacquer finish on the body and a tung oil finish for the neck, where the neck is also a glued in set neck. With this one I wanted the neck to be a tighter fit than the first two. It was a bit too tight this time. There was some finish stress cracks from glueing in the neck. Now I know, tight is ok, really tight is not.

It was a fun project for sure. I look forward to making more of these short scale, six string bass/guitars. I think for most folks, having a more narrow nut and last fret width will be more comfortable. But for all you normal low end users, I think this one is the ticket!

You can check out a bunch of Brad’s music at https://soundcloud.com/brad-cacciatore/albums

Specs

30” scale

1.750” nut

2.5” at the 22nd fret

Bone nut

Macassar Ebony fretboard

Two Piece Maple set neck

Alder Body

Birdseye Maple pickgaurd

Custom wound pickups by Scott French 7.5k and 9.5k ohms, respectively

Master Volume