Well so my dad's 70'th birthday is nearing and I decided to make a bass in his honor, a bass which he unknowingly designed.
 
See back when I was a boy he once made me toy guitar by sawing out what is roughly the shape of an electric guitar on a piece of plywood with a piece of construction lumber as a neck.
 
The neck has long since gone but the body was always kept, the paintjob I did back then has since flaked and faded.
 
But I kept looking at that old body and going How cool would it be to turn this old thing into a real playing instrument for dad's birthday?
 
So I took it to the workshop, traced it onto a new piece of plywood, cleaned up a lot of the wonky lines and made it into a template for a four string bass.
 
Initially my idea was to honor the original toy by using scrap material so I routed out a body from pine, to be finished in black with a Fender style pickguard (you can make out the place where I drew the pickguard on the original toy) but when orders came in for basses made from very pretty pieces of maple I decided to make it into deluxe bass.
 
It has a Hippie Sandwich body of striped maple, Cedrella (Spanish ceder) and tiger maple. The pickups are custom wound Harry Hauessel units and the Bridge is a Leo Quann badass II.
 
Go here to see the whole process.
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f57/well-my-dad-will-70-year-so-im-going-make-commemorative-bass-1016389/
 
I hope you guys dig my handywork here, it certainly was a labor of love.

Awesome story behind the build.  Have you presented it to your father yet?

Lovely tribute!

Wow.  I'm certain your dad will be deeply touched.  Congrats on the build, the idea, and ofcourse, the occasion!!

Respect!

Way too cool!  My son gave me a guitar, but building one??  Tell your dad I'll trade him kids.......
 
Peter

Coolest bass EVER!
Nothing like love being put into an instrument.  :-D

Nice work!