Post by dougsbassplace on Apr 6, 2022 16:45:05 GMT
Hi all. I wanted to share some photos of my modded PB-50 bass. I've had GAS for a single coil bass for quite a while but I just didn't have the budget for a off the rack Squier or Fender. Soooo....I found an almost new Harley Benton PB-50 for sale here in the states for a pretty reasonable price...$150.00. I played it for a little while totally stock but then the modding bug bit. I checked out some of the mods here on this board and was impressed by what I saw. The first thing I decided was that I wanted something a bit different than the norm. I noticed the stock Harley Benton headstock was similar in shape to the old BC Rich firebird type headstock. Being a long time fan of BC Rich, I decided to create a "what if" BC Rich single coil bass. I had five Riches back in my band days, 3 Warlocks, and Ironbird, and a first gen Innovator, so going with the Rich theme got me excited! I first removed the neck and hand sanded (yes, sanded) the headstock to a pretty close approximation of the Rich classic. The Fender guys have a template to use to cut the HB into the Fender shape, but I was on my own with my idea. The edges of the headstock were sanded totally smooth. Next, I dressed the fret ends, and made sure the frets were level before I applied 5 coats of Tru Oil on the fingerboard, the back of the neck, and edges of the headstock. I let it cure for about 48 hours and then I used 000 steel wool to knock off the shine and give it a nice satin finish. I then masked off the headstock and applied a BC Rich waterslide. I really like the large font logos, but on reflection, I should have gone with the smaller script logo or even just the single "R" as my string tree covers a lot of real estate on the "B". I applied several coats of clear lacquer over the waterslide, let it cure for for a week, then sanded it down with various grades of sandpaper down to 4000 grit. The headstock looks factory. I replaced the stock tuning machines with super smooth Grover 142C machines. I filled and redrilled the holes with no problems. Lastly, I added the Hipshot 2 string tree to the front of the headstock. Unfortunately, it covered quite of bit of the "B" as I mentioned earlier. I then reattached the neck using a BC Rich neckplate I purchased off Ebay. Everything fit perfectly and it looks like the neckplate and holes are Fender spec'ed. I then copper shielded the control cavity and pickup cavity. The pots are the large style version which surprised me as I thought I'd be looking at the usual dime sized import pots. I reattached the control cover and replaced the dome knobs with flat top chrome knobs that I had lying around. I replaced the flimsy, thin stamped output jack plate with a heavy duty Gotoh football style plate. Last, I swapped out the stock bridge (which wasn't bad) with a high mass Omega bridge. Again, the holes were almost perfectly lined up. I'm going to change out the stock D'Addario strings with my favorite DR strings and eventually I'll swap out the pickguard with an off white one that has less sharp "points" I've decided to keep the stock Roswell pickup as I have found the "upgrade" pickups don't really make much difference. All in all, I really like the way this bass turned out.