The Spear
(aka Lil' Gripper)

I've always gravitated to short-scale basses -- I just don't have the wing span to comfortably play a full scale bass all night long. I originally solved this by purchasing a couple of Scott Beckwith's Birdsong Cortobasses. I've played and gigged those for years and enjoyed their comort and quality. If you go buy one of his instead of this one, it won't break my heart -- you have to lift your heroes up. Scott gifted me the Texas Pecan on this bass and so I decided to try to make a short-scale bass with it.

And wow, I sure did. The concept was to make a short-scale riff on the Gibson Ripper (or Epiphone Grabber) -- do we really need another PJ bass? Well, maybe, but I didn't need to make it. So now you know where the "Lil' Gripper" nickname came from. I wanted to capture the slightly offset nature as well as some of the body carves common on the Ripper. And I wanted to use as much of the spalted Texas Pecan as I could. On the front, the center strip is some of the not-so-spalted pecan between some walnut stringers. The back has a single walnut stripe with the spalted pecan blending to the less spalted parts. The center is Alder, a wood commonly used for making Rippers and Grabbers.

As part of the tribute, I wanted to use a period appropriate bridge (this one is from a Thunderbird bass). I like stringing through the body (especially on a short scale bass to get more overall string length in play) and I really dig how you see those fat bass strings come out of the body and stretch over the bridge. Your excitement level may vary. ;-) The "spade" headstock was common on certain runs of these original basses, so why not. When I found the Spear pickups, that name just made sense and tied in with the headstock. Happy to rewire with a blend pot instead of the selector switch, if you prefer. Dean Markley Blue Steel .045-.100 strings.

I keep forgetting to make a big deal of this -- it's 30" scale length. This thing fits in a normal guitar bag (and comes with a very nice one). 

Working on a recording/video -- but kinda hoping it sells before I get to it. This is, hands down, the best expression of my guitar making so far. I have a new personal standard to hold myself to.

With premium Road Runner GUITAR SIZED gig bag for $1495. This item is available for shipping.