Pic of homemade ABS Bass, in Wired magazine, May 2010

[TonyW]

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_radioshack/

Interesting article on the evolution of Radio Shack, with a cool picture of Steven Muscarelli and his electric bass made from ABS plastic. I did a search, but couldn't find more info on the bass.

[TonyW]

I spoke too soon, I just found this Make magazine article on building PVC guitars:

http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol09/?pg=117#pg117

[TonyW]

Well, to add another reply to myself... a video on building a PVC bass.

[Dave Keenan]

The above plastic tube guitars appear to be poor attempts to copy this. ;-)

[Randy S. Bretz]

Wow that is so cool...looks like carbon fiber....wonder how they did those fret marks....thanks for posting this !!!

Dave Keenan said:

The above plastic tube guitars appear to be poor attempts to copy this. ;-)

[Roosterman]

Looks like LEDs to me, but either way.... I WANT ONE!

[Dave Keenan]

Yes, carbon fibre. Yes, the light is from LEDs inside the tube. Those are not just marks, but actual glowing frets made from a single piece of leaky optic fibre laced all the way up the neck. They are called "Choobs" because that's how you pronounce "tube" in Australian. The one in the video is called Whitney (after the mountain, not the singer). She's currently in California with Carl Lumma who commissioned her and convinced me to use Carbon Fibre. The first one I put together was called Mad Max after the South Australian desert where I found the pieces in the sand after going there to watch a total solar eclipse in 2002. My friend and fellow Aussie guitar maker Ian Hutchinson is playing her in the video. This was a pretty amazing feat on his part since part of the alienness of Whitney you will realise if you count the number of frets to the octave (i.e. to the half-scale point). Here's a photo.

[Ted Crocker]

Wow Dave, that is pretty dang slick, good job!

[Dave Keenan]

Thanks Randy, Roosterman and Ted. You gentlemen have built some mighty fine lookin' axes yourselves.

I need to finish another electric project before I can build any more Choobs. But I'm happy to provide more information if anyone's interested in building their own. I have no doubt you folks could improve on the design.

It may surprise you to learn that this is a solid body electric guitar, hence the good sustain as opposed to Kipkay's dull-thud-with-pipe-resonance. In fact it doesn't get much more solid than this. The lower quarter of the CF tube is filled with concrete and the twin piezos are siliconed to the concrete through holes in the CF tube. Instead of neck-thru-body it's body-thru-neck.

[Dave Keenan]

Some info on the origins of the choob.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/MakeMicroMusic/message/16661

[Philip Diamond]

Hi Dave,

I'm new to this site, and actually joined specifically to ask you about this creation. I was wondering if you had any diagrams of how everything was assembled, including the parts and methods you used. That is a terrific piece of art you've created, and I would be interested in creating a version of my own. I was also wondering approximately how much the materials cost you.

Thanks so much,

Philip

Dave Keenan said:

Thanks Randy, Roosterman and Ted. You gentlemen have built some mighty fine lookin' axes yourselves.

I need to finish another electric project before I can build any more Choobs. But I'm happy to provide more information if anyone's interested in building their own. I have no doubt you folks could improve on the design.

It may surprise you to learn that this is a solid body electric guitar, hence the good sustain as opposed to Kipkay's dull-thud-with-pipe-resonance. In fact it doesn't get much more solid than this. The lower quarter of the CF tube is filled with concrete and the twin piezos are siliconed to the concrete through holes in the CF tube. Instead of neck-thru-body it's body-thru-neck.

[Dave Keenan]

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the kind words. Yes I have some drawings and construction notes I can email. And I'm happy to answer questions if these prove insufficient.

You can send me your email address by going to my YouTube channel and clicking on "Send Message" (part way down on the right hand side, under "Created by").

[Dave Keenan]

I just had the thought that you might not be able to Private Message me from my YouTube channel if you don't have a YouTube account. You can find my email address in (hopefully) non-machine-readable form on my website.