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this is a new one.
from Wikipedia~
“The salamander is an amphibian of the order Urodela which, as with many real creatures, often has been ascribed fantastic and sometimes occult qualities by pre-modern authors (as in the allegorical descriptions of animals in medieval bestiaries) not possessed by the real organism. The legendary salamander is often depicted as a typical salamander in shape, with a lizard-like form, but is usually ascribed an affinity with fire, sometimes specifically elemental fire.”
a curious thing, considering the typically moist habitat and manner of the non-mythical variety.

one piece cucumbertree body with lightly hammered and torched finish.
bolt on maple neck with osage orange fretboard.
homespun humbuckers with aluminum casings and alnico 5 polepieces.
bridge~ 6000 turns per coil, 8.8k
neck~ 5000 turns per coil, 7.5k
aluminum compensated tailpiece
hipshot classic tuners
weighs 6.6 pounds.
$1750      available at  Little Branch Farm 

i change things a lot, often with little or no explanation.
for the past few years, i have been using this shape for the barnstormer…

but some of you may remember this as the original…

so this is the new version of the old one, which i like better than both.
particularly with the new bridge and pickup covers.
like the previous iteration, this one has a bolt on neck.

the body is made from sections of salvaged 2×4 beech barn rafters, with the edges hollowed out prior to gluing up.
the neck is walnut, with an osage orange fretboard.
homespun p90 pickups, brass compensated tailpiece, hipshot classic tuners.
oh, and a cute bug hole in the end by the strap button.
$1950      available at Little Branch Farm 

one piece elm barnwood top with original red paint, on quartersawn sweetgum back.
walnut neck with persimmon fretboard.
two homespun humbuckers.
brass compensated tailpiece with locking studs.
grover deluxe tuners.
weighs 7.7 pounds
$2500   gwen@dismalax.com

this is one i built a couple years ago and decided to change a few things on.
here is how it looked before~

and now, with an antique copper pickguard and one less pickup~

the top is one single piece of elm barnwood with the original red paint, on a single piece cucumbertree back, with a distressed finish.
neck is maple, with a persimmon fretboard.
single coil pickups with coil taps wired to give humbucking operation in the middle position.
grover deluxe tuners and brass hardtail bridge.
weighs 7 pounds.
$1950 including case. available at Little Branch Farm 
gwen@dismalax.com

i haven’t played much music in a while, but i recently ended up playing bass in “Rock of Ages”, a broadway musical from 2010, playing at the Arts Center of Canon County , so i decided i needed a new bass. i had the body and neck mostly done already, as i had started them a few years ago and never got around to finishing them.

the body is butternut, with a 1/4″ bookmatched knotty eastern red cedar top.
neck is birdseye maple, with a persimmon fretboard.
the bridge is a thick brass hardtail i have had for a long time, and i  don’t remember where it came from.
front pickup is a razor sinle coil p-bass
rear pickup is a humbucker i made. the coils are built like jazz bass pickups, with 8000 turns on one coil. and 12,000 on the other, with a coil tap at 8000.
the three position switch gives a heavy humbucker, a hot j-bass bridge, and a classic p-bass sound.
weighs a little over seven pounds, which my shoulder likes a lot.