Built me a P Bass

  • Thread starter Thread starter Obi-Wan zenabI
  • Start date Start date
Obi-Wan zenabI

Obi-Wan zenabI

Active member
'57 RI MIJ Fender Neck, worn in by yours truly as a teenager. I managed to lose the body in a refinishing fiasco (never picked it up from the guy who did it) The SX (aka essex for those searching) body took some work in the neck pocket, but it wasn't too hard to do.

PBasses2008006.jpg


(slideshow)

PBasses2008002.jpg


PBasses2008005.jpg
 
Gotoh 201 Bridge, Allparts BWB pg, Allparts 250 K pots, orange drop transistor. Gold pg screws bought cheap at Lowe's. I even found the right screw to get for the neck screws there! Much stronger than some guitar specific screws I got a hold of. The other P is an SX "57" P 3ts. I also have a 3ts Ibanez Blazer.

And I don't even use my P's Live!
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
orange drop transistor.
Click to expand...


I'll admit to not being up on all the semiconductors out there, but I know a thing or two about guitar electronics, so I would bet you mean capacitor.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Sweet looking axes

Very nice. Classy look. How do they play?
 
The Rotosound 77 Flats on the SX (white pg) feel too stiff for the bass, even with med/low action, but I like the sound. Stock SX bass. $109 new. www.rondomusic.net or .com...

The Project bass plays great. I took too much off the truss rod at first-- it had been sitting under tension for a while and I needed to let it off 3/4 turn. It's settled now and the relief is a little too much, so will tighten it a tad this week. I did have the action nice on it, though-- The E and possibly other strings need the nut filed down a bit. F is a little bit of a bear to play. Maybe the nut is what made me think that the original bass was lame when I was a kid. I'm afraid to file it, though... :rolleyes: Not too much to lose, though, I suppose.

The Qp'ers give a comparitively aggressive rock tone. I don't need a bass that really has that tone, but with all my other P options (4 of them) it's good to have variety. :cool:
 
Thanks, fellas. I spent some time with it in rehearsal and then practice alone in the studio. Sounded best playing along with Willie-- so much so that I am making my band let me play and sing "Georgia on My Mind" now!

I love it, but I think that Fender Japan neck and Flame Body might make it good trade bait for a Strat or a new lighter bass amp.

I'll do a shootout sometime between my 3 P basses and my PJ and post it on here at some point. It would be a good excercise in recording electric bass, something that I should really be better at, being a bass player and all. I've spent far more time working on recording drums and vocals!
 
So does this mean

that you've got an extra SX P neck laying around? ;)

Nice job, BTW.

How easy was the bridge swap?

And the pickguard swap?

I'd like to do both of those on my SX fretless P.
 
notCardio said:
that you've got an extra SX P neck laying around? ;)

Nice job, BTW.

How easy was the bridge swap?

And the pickguard swap?

I'd like to do both of those on my SX fretless P.
Click to expand...

No neck-- I bought the body with the bridge on it already. Looks like it was pretty much a direct replacement. Have no fear, just throw one on and mark where to drill piot holes-- my guess is that it was a direct replacement. I bought it from someone in Queens who likely did not have enough tools/workshop space to do anything serious to get the bridge on.

Pickguard holes only lined up in one or two places. I didn't fill or anything, just screwed the new one in. The original body only had about 8 or 9 screws, not 13.

The heel area of the PG requred filing to allow the neck to fit, probably about two milimeters in along the radiused and of the neck pocket, and just a hair in along the E string side. Otherwise the guard would have sat to far back for the jack to go in to the rout.

I really wasn't too worried about messing up the body, and definitely didn't want to alter the screw holes in the neck at all, since that is the only valuable part of the bass.

On the pickguard, I used a combo coarse fine wood file that is flat on one side and curved on the other, followed by some 60 Grit paper that I just held in my hand.
 
So you redrilled the holes on the body to fit the neck, not the other way around? :confused: I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who did that. I would think it would weaken the pocket too much. Interesting.
 
notCardio said:
So you redrilled the holes on the body to fit the neck, not the other way around? :confused: I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who did that. I would think it would weaken the pocket too much. Interesting.
Click to expand...


It probably has made the joint less stable. The eventual plan is to drill out the body holes for dowelling and re-drill with my cousin's drill press. I'm not going to gig with it for now or put it in harm's way at all. I agree with your asessment of the neck pocket-- I want to reduce the chance of anything untoward happening to it.

The body isn't really worth anything, so I didn't care about messing it up-- as I did not yet trust that the whole thing would fit at all in the end.

The MIJ neck, even though it's been well worn in, is worth a couple hundred, I think, so I wanted to do zero alteration on it.
 
So did your original's electronics just drop right in, or was there some alteration involved to make it fit?

And what kind of p/u is that?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top