jonny5
Sr Member
About two weeks ago my daughter Anna (16) announced that for Halloween this year she wants to be Marceline the Vampire Queen from the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. She puts this URL under my nose. Soynuts Props – Adventure Time: Marceline’s Bass Guitar and does her best Beruka Salt impression. "Daddy I want a Marceline Axe Bass NOOOOOOWWWW!!!"
No seriously.... she is a dear and I was very excited by the project.
This is a prop and not a functional instrument. It was all accomplished at near lightning speed (for me) starting on Thursday 10/25 and finishing it Saturday 10/27 in time for her school Halloween party that evening, using my fall back tools a rechargeable drill/driver and a hand-held circular saw with a masonry blade
My big concern was the schools anti-weapons policy. I feared this would be for naught if it looked too much like a real axe, so painted it to look as much like a cartoon prop as possible.
I admit I stole this sketchup template from soynuts printing it out and adjusting dimensions to my own spec of what looked 'right' scaled to my Anna who is 5'8".
The finished prop is 49" tall and 24" wide across the blade.
A gallery of pics of my build is here.
Axe Bass Pics
Highlights
I went about the build my own way making only 3 main pieces instead of 5.
My build has a neck made from a 2x6 that extends through the body and a pair of body skins that were cut out simultaneously from thin finish grade plywood with a jigsaw after screwing the two pieces together.
The edges were screwed together while the epoxy set and then filled the holes with wood putty. The openings top and bottom were covered with thin styrene also epoxied in place. Big bolts were threaded into the bottom and back of the neck to attach the guitar strap
It was painted with spray cans. The 'bite marks' are drilled into the body and streaked with thinned black paint The two silver knobs are Coke caps. The pickup & bridge are bits of wood shaped with the masonry blade. Frets and the big X on the headstock were bits of Gorilla tape.
The cost was minimal as we already had the wood on hand. The only things we had to purchase were the ($0.66) shelf pegs used for the tuning pegs on the headstock, some red, burgundy, and silver spray paint cans ($3.99 ea) and the gift wrap string used for the strings ($2.99).
No seriously.... she is a dear and I was very excited by the project.
This is a prop and not a functional instrument. It was all accomplished at near lightning speed (for me) starting on Thursday 10/25 and finishing it Saturday 10/27 in time for her school Halloween party that evening, using my fall back tools a rechargeable drill/driver and a hand-held circular saw with a masonry blade
My big concern was the schools anti-weapons policy. I feared this would be for naught if it looked too much like a real axe, so painted it to look as much like a cartoon prop as possible.
I admit I stole this sketchup template from soynuts printing it out and adjusting dimensions to my own spec of what looked 'right' scaled to my Anna who is 5'8".
The finished prop is 49" tall and 24" wide across the blade.
A gallery of pics of my build is here.
Axe Bass Pics
Highlights
I went about the build my own way making only 3 main pieces instead of 5.
My build has a neck made from a 2x6 that extends through the body and a pair of body skins that were cut out simultaneously from thin finish grade plywood with a jigsaw after screwing the two pieces together.
The edges were screwed together while the epoxy set and then filled the holes with wood putty. The openings top and bottom were covered with thin styrene also epoxied in place. Big bolts were threaded into the bottom and back of the neck to attach the guitar strap
It was painted with spray cans. The 'bite marks' are drilled into the body and streaked with thinned black paint The two silver knobs are Coke caps. The pickup & bridge are bits of wood shaped with the masonry blade. Frets and the big X on the headstock were bits of Gorilla tape.
The cost was minimal as we already had the wood on hand. The only things we had to purchase were the ($0.66) shelf pegs used for the tuning pegs on the headstock, some red, burgundy, and silver spray paint cans ($3.99 ea) and the gift wrap string used for the strings ($2.99).
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