Bronco Bass to a guitar!

[matt1215]

If it's possible, why wouldnt it be worth it?

[hella1hella]

If it's possible, why wouldnt it be worth it?

Many reasons. The time and money that could be invested into other endeavors was my reasoning.

[frelonvert]

Well, having fun modding a bass or a guitar is perfectly reasonnable.
There is worst ways of spending your time^^

Nowdays, I play with the idea of making a bass vi with a badtz-maru bass. Of course it would be cheaper and less eforts to buy a squier bass VI but buying new is not my thing and modding is joy. Joy is priceless.

[AWSchmit]

What makes you think any of the "sound" you get from the bass will be present in the guitar? If youll be using fair standard guitar appointments it will pretty much sound like a guitar. If youre lucky. If youre unlucky youll misplace the bridge. Youre strings will be crooked. Nothing will intonate and your strings will be an inch off the fret board.

Dont get me wrong. I get it. Youre probably new to tinkering with guitars so you want to do something odd. Otherwise whats the point? Right? Well ill tell you.youll end with a project youve put ten times more money and time then you ever tjought you would. You likely wont love it. And when you go to sell it youll get exactly nothing for it. So then youll part it out. Lose money on it and regret the whole thing...

.. does this sound familiar to any of the other builders and avid modders?

[Shadoweclipse13]

What makes you think any of the "sound" you get from the bass will be present in the guitar? If youll be using fair standard guitar appointments it will pretty much sound like a guitar. If youre lucky. If youre unlucky youll misplace the bridge. Youre strings will be crooked. Nothing will intonate and your strings will be an inch off the fret board.

Dont get me wrong. I get it. Youre probably new to tinkering with guitars so you want to do something odd. Otherwise whats the point? Right? Well ill tell you.youll end with a project youve put ten times more money and time then you ever tjought you would. You likely wont love it. And when you go to sell it youll get exactly nothing for it. So then youll part it out. Lose money on it and regret the whole thing...

.. does this sound familiar to any of the other builders and avid modders?

Been there. I love doing mods and weird stuff, but I make DAMN sure it's what I want (or at least within a range, i.e., you can always change pickups or pickguards).

Honestly, it's your project dude, and it sounds like it would be cool, but you could always get a musicmaster body and mod the SHIT out of it for the same effect. There's nothing wrong with tinkering and modding and OWNING that axe, but there is a point where it's too much work or too much money or both for what you get out of it. Basically, mod at your own risk. Especially (what I keep coming back to) since you said you liked the sound of the bass to begin with. I personally would never mod a guitar (to that extent anyway) which I already liked the sound of. I'd go get a crappy cheap guitar to mod the hell out of, so if I sink more money or time into it or it didn't turn out the way I wanted, well, it sounded like crap anyways.

But again, it's your project and I'm sure anyone here would be willing to help or offer advice if you DO go through with it (myself included!). I can't speak for everyone, but I'm betting that most people offering the advice of caution are just trying to make sure you don't try to turn a bass into a guitar, and instead end up hating both because it's been modded and you can't do anything with it. Nothing feels worse than a project that didn't quite turn out right.

[ruraldave]

Yes, it can work, but you will have some work at the heel., like tribi9 says. The heel pocket on the body would be too large... you can fill it or glue a piece of wood and redrill it.
At the end, you could have a nice John Squire's guitar:

That looks a lot like the project I just finished (bass VI body with a JM scale neck) http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... =8&t=92419

[matt1215]

Well if i get the help I need, it won't be likely that I misplace the bridge or mess something up. To me, it really sounds like the only hard part I need to do is getting the neck to fit in the pocket. Once I have the neck, then it's bridge placement. Then it's as easy as wiring a guitar. I just really don't see how that can be a waste of time. It sounds fun to me. I order a replacement neck from one of those off brand companies, get some wood glue, cut a chunk of wood to fill the space in the pocket, redrill holes, and See if the neck will get on. Then it all comes to bridge placement, and wiring which should be easy if I get the help needed (which I could use from you guys if you'd like), and in time, I can use this newly regenerated piece of musical fun. This is a project that I want to try. To me, it's not a waste, it's fun. If i'm not satisfied, oh well. That's my problem. I'm doing this. No doubt about it. I just need to know what steps I can take to make it possible. If anyone would like to help. It would be very appreciated.

Thank you

[matt1215]

And to add on the to the point people keep bringing up (that I like the sound of the bass): one, I never even said I liked the sound of it. I always played it with Distortion and played songs on it mimicking guitar parts. Two, As a bass, the tone was just dry.

It's no Precision Bass. It just gave me a really clean bass tone. And I thought it would sound good as a GUITAR. So I don't care for the tone as a BASS. I have a Fender P-Bass and that is the best sounding bass I have ever played. That's all I need as far as my current bass needs.

[noisepunk]

It doesnt seem too bad. Just have to shape and glue another piece of wood to make up for the difference in the pocket, and redrill holes for the neck. It seems like that would be the hardest part to it

It's a lot harder than writing it out would indicate- having something like this done in a professional shop would be very expensive.

A bass VI is a pretty cool instrument and would actually probably better suit your guitar-bass wants- they're certainly not just another bass.

[matt1215]

It doesnt seem too bad. Just have to shape and glue another piece of wood to make up for the difference in the pocket, and redrill holes for the neck. It seems like that would be the hardest part to it

It's a lot harder than writing it out would indicate- having something like this done in a professional shop would be very expensive.

A bass VI is a pretty cool instrument and would actually probably better suit your guitar-bass wants- they're certainly not just another bass.

I know. Bass VI's ARE cool. But they are baritone guitars. If I wanted a baritone, i'd just buy the baritone. I want to convert a bass...into a guitar.

[noisepunk]

I know. Bass VI's ARE cool. But they are baritone guitars. If I wanted a baritone, i'd just buy the baritone. I want to convert a bass...into a guitar.

Not really- a baritone is tuned halfway between the two, a bass VI is essentially a short scale bass with six strings that are all quite a bit thinner than bass strings.



You'll need a router and some good bits, you'll probably also want a bad jaw or jigsaw- moving the bridge is pretty easy, the main part is marking off where the center line of the instrument is so that you don't accidentally place it out of alignment.

Fitting a plug for your neck is going to be really tricky- you'll need to not only get a super accurate tracing of the current pocket, you'll then have to replicate that (with the router); it won't be right, not even a professional woodworker would get it perfect on the first go, so you'll then have to sand it to fit (more tedious than anything, but don't underestimate how frustrating this part can be). Finally, once the pocket filler is correct and glued in place (you'll need to sand smooth the old pocket so there are virtually no gaps, you'll need to just about do the exact same thing for the new neck pocket (except inverted of course). Drilling isn't too tricky after that, but refinishing it can be, which you'll probably want to do or else the'll be weird discolored wood in just one spot.

[zastruga]

It doesnt seem too bad. Just have to shape and glue another piece of wood to make up for the difference in the pocket, and redrill holes for the neck. It seems like that would be the hardest part to it

It's a lot harder than writing it out would indicate- having something like this done in a professional shop would be very expensive.

A bass VI is a pretty cool instrument and would actually probably better suit your guitar-bass wants- they're certainly not just another bass.

I know. Bass VI's ARE cool. But they are baritone guitars. If I wanted a baritone, i'd just buy the baritone. I want to convert a bass...into a guitar.

So why not start with a bass that isn't already available as a guitar? My point was that after all those mods you aren't left with something unique, you're just left with a (likely) crappier version of a Musicmaster or Duosonic (which use the same body shape) but at 10 times the cost and effort. Grab a J/P bass or Bass VI and convert to guitar, THAT would be cool. This just seems like an exercise in futility...

Don't get me wrong, I admire the spirit and don't wish to discourage you if it's really what you want to do. It just seems like the effort would be better spent on something that would actually end up unique, interesting and not already widely available in guitar form, whereas this has a lot of potential for not turning out as anything special.

[funkyeah!]

I'm not gonna try to discourage you because this is a great way to get into modding and building, but for what it's worth, you might be better off keeping the bronco bass, tracing the body onto a blank, and making a new guitar. You're already gonna buy a new bridge and neck for this thing; you'd have to paint to cover up the neck pocket plug; and you'll need a new pickguard anyway.

That being said, if you do just mod your bass, an easy way to get around the neck plug stuff is to square it off. You gotta make the heel totally straight on the bottom and then use a chisel (carefully!) in the corners to get 90* angles. It's a lot easier to just make a block that's the right size than to perfectly contour a plug heel. You'll still have to sand over the top to make it flush with the body but it's soooo much easier doing the block instead.

I did the tracing method from a bronco body to make my cyclone here http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... =8&t=86985

Also one more thing, I think that you like the bronco bass because it actually uses a stratocaster pickup in it. If you take the pickguard off, you can see the 6 poles on the underside of the pickup. The guitar pickups help give a punchy and twangy bass sound.

[ihnpts]

With the aforementioned difficulties, it seems like this is a lot of work

Howzabout this for a totally different tack: use the existing neck & body, upgrade the tuners & bridge, and string it with long scale guitar strings in 5ths to make it a 4 string tenor guitar/celloblaster. If you've already been playing with POTUSA style stuff, they use weird tunings & open chords and the like. The long scale will give you a killer baritone sound. Or just lighter strings tuned in 4ths as a tenor or picc bass/low strung bottom 4 of a guitar. It saves you the headache of major mods that might make it unplayable.

Just a thought, YMMV.

If you're set on going ahead, I'd rout out a rectangle at the neck pocket, glue in a new block to fit, then route the guitar pocket into that. You could maybe shim it, but that's a lot of space to fill to put a strat sized heel into that pocket. Set the bridge saddles to 7.25" from the end of the heel and you're good.

[ihnpts]

That being said, if you do just mod your bass, an easy way to get around the neck plug stuff is to square it off. You gotta make the heel totally straight on the bottom and then use a chisel (carefully!) in the corners to get 90* angles. It's a lot easier to just make a block that's the right size than to perfectly contour a plug heel. You'll still have to sand over the top to make it flush with the body but it's soooo much easier doing the block instead.

If you're set on going ahead, I'd rout out a rectangle at the neck pocket, glue in a new block to fit, then route the guitar pocket into that. You could maybe shim it, but that's a lot of space to fill to put a strat sized heel into that pocket. Set the bridge saddles to 7.25" from the end of the heel and you're good.

Ignore mine, he explained it better.