Help! SUB bass project

[the unrepentant]

SUB bass project - 2012, actual progress!!

This is sort of off topic a bit, a bit of help needed, whatever, i thought you guys might be interested. A while ago a few of you may remember me saying something about buying a SUB bass body and some parts and putting it together. A few of you said it would cost more than it would to buy a SUB bass anyway (so far it's cost me about £200), but i went ahead with it and here it is, i'm in the final stages of getting it together.

Here's all the parts:

Basically what i have there is the SUB bass body routed for a neck humbucker, an OLP neck with black tuners, some cheap chrome tuners i may or may not fit, depending whether they fit or not, an OLP control plate, a status MM pickup, an OLP MM pickup, a seymour duncan basslines pickup, a cheapo bridge i got off the bay and some screws and bits. Now don't take it as me trying to make it better necessarily, i'm not. I'm just making do with what i can. From what i hear the basslines MM pickup isn't too bad, but i have yet to try it. However i would like to get a couple of EBMM pickups, preamp, bridge and neck at some point if at all possible, but the OLP neck doesn't seem too bad, though i may refinish it with gunstock oil at some point.

Next i got the neck drilled, someone had cut recesses for the ferrules at some point before, i'm not sure why, personally i prefer the chrome plate but that's just me. Anyway that bit was relatively easy. I'm going to get some nail varnish at some point to go over the chips at some point too.

I've fitted the scratchplate now (missing a few screws but that doesn't matter right now) and the control plate. I've only attached the control plate at each end for now because it's black and it came with the olp pickup and neck and it's only temporary until i get a chrome one so i don't want to be drilling too many holes.

I also fitted the bridge and here's the problem (i managed to get a fairly similar aftermarket one on ebay, but it's not as hefty looking). Thing is, the 3 screws went in ok, but the bolts either side don't fit the metal inserts, so i'm thinking either get a couple of bolts that fit, or take the old metal inserts out (any suggestions how?) and put the new ones in, or just leave it as it is, but i'm wondering if it will be alright with just 3 screws? My guess is no.

Looks like someone drilled a couple of extra holes to fit a badass II or a gotoh 201 or something at some point, i may do the same, i'm not sure yet.

Also i strung it up with some wire to see how it aligned, and it doesn't align that well, so i'm wondering do i cut some new grooves in the saddles? (if so where because the bottom strings seem to line up ok) Or do i get some new saddles maybe? Or will it work as it is? Maybe it will....

Thanks for reading, and please don't flame me or anything for what i'm doing, i'm not trying to improve upon the original SUB bass or anything, it's just a project to keep me entertained a bit.

 

[INMT]

Thanks for reading, and please don't flame me or anything for what i'm doing, i'm not trying to improve upon the original SUB bass or anything, it's just a project to keep me entertained a bit.

Looking good so far.
I hear ya man, I do those type of projects during the winter myself. Only "suggestion" when drilling on a painted surface put down a layer or two of blue painters masking tape, it will cut down on the paint chipping

 

[bovinehost]

Very impressive!

I bet those three screws hold that bridge down just fine....would be nice to have the anchor bolts, but you may be okay.

Please report back in and let me know if I'm full of poo-poo.

 

[strummer]

Looks like a lot of fun if you like tinkering with stuff (I do).
The alignment is more important on the neck of course, but from the pic it looks like your grooves are 18,5 mm apart or so instead of 19, and regrooving that close might be difficult.
I think you'll need to get bolts that fit, cause otherwise the saddles will move sideways.
What's the 7:th neck screw hole for?

 

[the unrepentant]

cool thanks all

I might see if i have any bolts in the shed that might fit... nothing amazingly shiny or anything, but at least it will hold it down until i think of a more temporary solution. (didn't some vintage fenders only use 3 bridge screws though? Hmm)

Also the 7th neck screw hole.... My SUB bass has a hole there under the neck plate, i can only assume that someone has drilled it out just it doesn't look so out of place, but obviously if i was to put a screw in there i'd just hit the truss rod. I've just put a spare ferrule in there to make it look a bit more tidy, I might super glue it in there and a screw head onto it too just to make it look better.

 

[fly]

helluva good start man........glad you're having fun with it..........show us when you're all done eh.

 

[the unrepentant]

Thanks i shall do, still got to find some bolts that will fit the bridge anchors and i'm still waiting on those damn pickup screws

 

[oli@bass]

Don't remember this clearly, but I think I saw an original SUB bridge on eBay or here... maybe you'll be lucky enough to find one including the original screws.

Good luck, and have fun!

 

[Rano Bass]

That's a fun project to do, good luck with it.

Are you gonna use a preamp or going all passive?

 

[the unrepentant]

For now it's staying passive until i can afford/find a preamp I'll see how it sounds passive first though.

Also give me a shout if you see anything of interest oli much obliged

 

[pepperman]

If it sounds anything like my passive SUB5, it'll rock your socks off! Cool project!

 

[DTG]

dude thats class,its always cool to rescue an old bass !!!

i have 2 fender that use a 3 hole bridge,i put the bad ass III on them,its not as good as a MM but it would do the job.if you can sort out the string spacing the one you have should be fine for now,the rest you seem to have sorted.

good job so far keep us updated with pic's !!

 

[the unrepentant]

Thanks dude, i've got hold of some bolts that fit trhe bridge now, they're black and they're not quite the same as the original ones but they'll do the job they're supposed to do, i just need to cut them down a bit. I also need to order the pickup screws and things again when i have some more money (looong story) but once i have them sorted i'll get some more photos up! It will probably be a couple of weeks until i get it sorted now i'd think.

 

[the unrepentant]

Update!

It's a very minor step, but a step none the less. I managed to find some bridge anchor bolts, not chrome, not exactly the same as the original ones (not at all really!) but they do the job and i don't think they look too bad.

Now i'm just waiting to get some money so i can order the pickup screws and foam again (my order got messed up) and possibly a preamp, though i'm not sure about that one yet.

 

[Rano Bass]

Looks good!

 

[fly]

can't wait to see the finished bass man

 

[the unrepentant]

Well here she is, the (pretty much) finished article, in that it works but there are some things i want to change about it in time, such as chrome tuners, chrome control plate and knobs, maybe a preamp and maybe a neck with a maple board. I might sand down the front of the headstock and maybe the rest of the neck and put gunstock oil on it, but that's for another post.

Basically yesterday, allparts woke me up with a phone call sorting out my order (turns out i typed in one of the digits on the expiry date wrong) and today in the post came my pickup sponges and screws! That's good service!

So today, i had mounted the pickups, but the sponges were too hard so on the neck pickup i chopped them in half to half the height so that the screws would go in (i don't use the neck pickup much anyway so that doesn't need to be too high), and on the bridge pickup i happened to have a couple of springs left over from when i swapped some pickups on another bass which did the trick nicely because with the sponges it was actually making the pickup casing bend around the screws!

So i got them in, soldered the pickups onto the respective pots (easy), slapped some strings on there, fiddled with the action and intonation and sorted! The easiest part was actually the hardest part! Oh well. I'm thinking of putting a blend pot in there instead though because i don't like volume volume tone, doesn't make much sense to me either consdering the control plate belonged to a single H OLP and i can't imagine either of the two coils would have sounded a great deal different. I'd quite like to get a preamp at some point too because a single tone knob doesn't give me the amount of control i'd like, it will do for now though. It does sound really nice though! very loud for a passive bass and that seymour duncan gives it a lot of bite!

Anyway, pics:

 

[fly]

sweet.....glad you got her together.........now make sure you enjoy it man,you made it.


nicely done

 

[midopa]

nice!

i was gonna do something very similar once i got a nice sub, with a varitone electronics kind of setup

 

[oli@bass]

Congratulations!
For projects like this it's often interesting to also read about the total costs.