The ‘FUCK CANCER’ bass
Promethean 5FF.
Neck through.
Reaver headstock.
32.5” – 34.2” scale lengths.

- Swamp Ash body wings.
- One piece Burl Maple top.
- 11 Piece Flamed Maple / Wenge / Black Walnut laminate neck.
- Birdseye Maple fingerboard, bound in Ebony.
- Burl Maple head veneers.
- Sperzel locking tuners.
- ABM individual saddles.
- EMG 45TWX pickups.
- Jescar stainless steel frets.
- Graphtech Black Tusq nut.
- Dunlop strap locks.
- Luminlay side dots.
- Polyester lacquered.

This one didn’t really get posted about much when I was building it as I decided that I wanted to get it all together before showing off too much of it. It was a challenging project and definitely different from my usual offerings in terms of theme. A lot of my customers tend to indulge their fandoms when looking at inlay work and that's ideal as it needs to mean something to you personally to be a worthwhile addition to the instrument in my opinion. I think this bass more than any I've ever built rings true of that statement. Greg has had a really fucking rough time with his illness, and this bass represents a very small snippet of the ordeal he’s endured.
The inlay work on this bass represents the multiple surgeries Greg has undergone – The main fingerboard piece is scar area on his forearm (check the photo!). His surgeons took a large chunk of his flesh and an artery from there to rebuild his tongue after a large section of that was removed. From there they then had to take a large section of flesh from his leg (the donor site inlay piece for this ended up on the back of the headstock) to then patch up the donor area on his forearm. Pretty gnarly. The main fingerboard inlay piece is a combination of Aluminium, black and red resin and wood stain. The other pieces are just resin and wood stain. I used a little artistic licence to help the main fingerboard piece make sense in the realms of inlay, making it look a little more 'tender' than the photo Greg supplied shows - almost as if it were a freshly closed wound.
The one piece burl Maple top was chosen as a symbolic offering. Burls are generally known to be abnormal growths on/in trees, so it seemed fitting that we use it here. The colour work over the maple (while looking badass) was chosen for the obvious ‘muscle/flesh’ tone, and the burl clusters within were shaded to a yellow/orange tone to suggest abnormal growth within the flesh.
During the build I allowed Greg far more input than I would normally allow a customer once the build is active, I kinda felt like I owed it to him to create something that was exactly as he imagined it and giving him far more control over the creative process was the obvious thing to do. I’m glad I did because as we were heading toward the end of the schedule he informed me that the Cancer had returned and the prognosis wasn’t good. THANKFULLY, after yet another surgery this year he is still very much with us and slowly healing!
I just want to say a massive thank you to Greg for being so ace to work with and thank you also for coming to me with this project when there are so many other makers out there! I truly appreciate it, dude!

TLDR: The dude that ordered this bass is a fucking badass.

© Will Satchwell Photography