Post by blablas on Feb 10, 2015 18:35:09 GMT
For some people this might already be a familiar conversion, but this is a Harley Benton forum so I think I am allowed to post it here as well.
Here it goes:
A while ago I bought a fun little (lefty) Harley Benton PB-Shorty.
I liked this little bass a lot (after having put in a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder), 30 inch scale while all other dimension are similar to a Precission Bass.
It got me thinking of wanting one with Jazz Bass pickups, given that this is not available I decided to convert one myself, this is my little rebuild diary.
Orderer another to do this conversion.
After it arrived I found out that this second one was nowhere near as well made as the first one.
Well whatever is wrong or I don't like will be fixed along the way.
(The second PB-Shorty is the one in the back)
For this conversion I'm going to use a set off Jazz Bass pickups I have laying around that came from one of my Squier VM's after I put Chi-Sonic's in that one.
For controls I prefer volume/balance/tone, these three controls will be on the top and I am going to ad a sidejack.
The conversion and fixing begins:
The tuners needed realigning, they were mounted rather sloppy, not at an straight angle and also misaligned from each other.
Before modifying.
Filling the holes with toothpicks and CA glue. After the glue hardened I just cut of the toothpicks and leveled them with a sharp chisel,
re-drilled the holes and mounted the tuners again.
And after modifying, mounted straight.
There were also a lot of sharp fret ends, well they are gone now.
On a more positive note, the neck is made out of a piece flatsawn maple.
First real sawdust.
Drilled the hole for the sidejack.
And jackplate in place.
Routing and new pickguard.
Routed the pickup cavities and made a new pickguard (mint green, the protective foil is still on, it doesn't look at its best right now).
Shielding.
Applied shielding and mounted the bridge pickup.
And more shielding.
Shielded the pickguard.
Mounted the neck pickup, made a shim (the saddles are a tad to low to my liking without).
Mounted the neck and put on some strings to check the alignment of everything.
Here it goes:
A while ago I bought a fun little (lefty) Harley Benton PB-Shorty.
I liked this little bass a lot (after having put in a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder), 30 inch scale while all other dimension are similar to a Precission Bass.
It got me thinking of wanting one with Jazz Bass pickups, given that this is not available I decided to convert one myself, this is my little rebuild diary.
Orderer another to do this conversion.
After it arrived I found out that this second one was nowhere near as well made as the first one.
Well whatever is wrong or I don't like will be fixed along the way.
(The second PB-Shorty is the one in the back)
For this conversion I'm going to use a set off Jazz Bass pickups I have laying around that came from one of my Squier VM's after I put Chi-Sonic's in that one.
For controls I prefer volume/balance/tone, these three controls will be on the top and I am going to ad a sidejack.
The conversion and fixing begins:
The tuners needed realigning, they were mounted rather sloppy, not at an straight angle and also misaligned from each other.
Before modifying.
Filling the holes with toothpicks and CA glue. After the glue hardened I just cut of the toothpicks and leveled them with a sharp chisel,
re-drilled the holes and mounted the tuners again.
And after modifying, mounted straight.
There were also a lot of sharp fret ends, well they are gone now.
On a more positive note, the neck is made out of a piece flatsawn maple.
First real sawdust.
Drilled the hole for the sidejack.
And jackplate in place.
Routing and new pickguard.
Routed the pickup cavities and made a new pickguard (mint green, the protective foil is still on, it doesn't look at its best right now).
Shielding.
Applied shielding and mounted the bridge pickup.
And more shielding.
Shielded the pickguard.
Mounted the neck pickup, made a shim (the saddles are a tad to low to my liking without).
Mounted the neck and put on some strings to check the alignment of everything.