So, I decided after the Tube Bass failure to try something more orthodox: an electric slide bass.

Jack White’s demo in “It Might Get Loud” – slapping together an electric slide guitar and wailing on it within about 10 minutes – made it look almost simple.

I used a slab of salvaged oak for the body, edge-cutting a wedge-shaped peghead into it with the radial arm saw (the most versatile and dangerous tool in the shop). Non-trivial but – mercifully – non-fatal.

Drilling the holes for the machines was even dicier: the damn barrels come in a just-a-bit-thicker size than my largest nice 3/8″ bit, so I had to bore them out to make them fit.

I settled on a 3-string layout, figuring that the open G-D-G tuning I once built on a cigar-box guitar kit might be fun to slide bass notes on.

I fashioned the nut and bridge from blocks of brass from the scrap bin at my beloved Industrial Metal Supply (one of the few stores I really miss most from our life in LA a million years ago), and embedded them into the oak.

I then strung it up and tested with a piezo pickup taped to the body.

Open, the strings sounded great. But using the slide told me I had made a crappy choice: unfretted, the wooden neck fully deadened the string beneath the slide.

Sooo, I ordered a fret template and some fret wire, and soon set about building V.2.

This time, I cut the oak slab and shaped it more like a traditional bass neck – with the nut and bridge correctly spaced. I cut and inserted the fret wires according to the template.

Then I installed a set of bass-guitar pickups into the body, a jack on the bottom of the rail, and plugged the sucker in.

Note-wise, it sounds correctly tuned. But sliding requires a pro bass player’s finesse (which I lack), and I don’t want to daunt any casual musician who might walk up to the table to have some fun trying it out.

Plus, I cut the A groove too wide in the nut, which makes that string buzz like a sitar. It sounds much more annoying than cool, otherwise I’d just go ahead and just mis-cut the other grooves the same way.

What’s more, playing lap-slide bass might be just too weird for all but the most-dedicated bassist. (or would it?)

Anyway, in the end, I want the table to be fully acoustic with the option later to install piezos for each instrument so the whole table can be plugged into a mixer or recorder.

So, what’s left to try?

Well, f*ck it. I guess I have to figure out how to install a standup bass directly into the table.