PreVIsion bass 6

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Horsefeather
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PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Horsefeather » Wed Nov 09, 2022 1:13 pm

So I've been planning some kind of home brew VI project for a while. First I was going to use a spare Bronco Bass body I have, then I was going to use a Jazzmaster body, and finally I've committed to a plan.

I've decided to pretend that I'm Fender skunkworks and start with a Precision body. There's really no good reason for this, as it creates more problems than it solves, but I like the shape that can be achieved with it, with a little whittling. I'll see if I can manage to get the requisit 10 degree offset to avoid being run out of this town on a rail.

I had this cheap Pitbull 30" neck hanging around and now I have a $40 Chinese body (that's seriously featherweight) to screw it to. I drew inspiration from the P-bass route and acquired a pair of split pickups to use. I was happy to discover that unlike the Fender XII pickups, these ones do seem to be RWRP.

I'm going to use some kind of roller bridge with a JM vibrato mounted in a custom Mustang-type plate that I've worked up. I've posted before about the conversion I did to my Mustang and now it's time to create the improved version with a dedicated plate. I'll get it laser cut from stainless and polish it up.

Will update with shots as I progress.

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marqueemoon
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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Nov 09, 2022 7:09 pm

Nice. I like where this is going.

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copacetic
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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by copacetic » Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:22 am

What a cool idea!! The mockups look awesome. These are always the most interesting types of builds to me; mashups of various parts that werent necessarily made to work together but come together to make something rad with a little ingenuity

following eagerly to see what you cook up :)
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Embenny
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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Embenny » Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:57 am

One thing I will say is that you might not want to cut down the upper horn so much. The stock Bass VI body has the strap button at the level of the 13th fret, just a little bit farther down the neck than where the stock P's body seems to line up with your neck.

The farther down you bring it, the more neck heavy it'll be on a strap. I love long upper horns because of their ergonomic impact when playing standing. It might not be as important to you, but I thought I'd mention it.
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N0_Camping4U
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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by N0_Camping4U » Sun Nov 13, 2022 11:41 am

This is cool as hell.
"I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner, now I am the master."

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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Horsefeather » Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:05 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:57 am
One thing I will say is that you might not want to cut down the upper horn so much. The stock Bass VI body has the strap button at the level of the 13th fret, just a little bit farther down the neck than where the stock P's body seems to line up with your neck.

The farther down you bring it, the more neck heavy it'll be on a strap. I love long upper horns because of their ergonomic impact when playing standing. It might not be as important to you, but I thought I'd mention it.
mbene085, thank you for this sage advice. This is an issue I was indeed thinking about. I had decided to proceed without concern for it, putting aesthetics before functionality cause I'm that kind of guy sometimes. I hardly ever play standing up so it's something I could live with.

After reading your post, though, I've taken a closer technical look at the situation and I think it will actually be okay. I've discovered that my shape reduces the horn length by 1" and that my VI neck will end up 3" shorter at the headstock than a normal P-bass neck. Hopefully with the (possibly?) lighter tuners and the increased weight at the butt from the vibrato guts, it'll hang okay. I'll report on this when it's done.

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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Embenny » Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:09 pm

Glad you've thought it through. Sounds like it shouldn't be much of an issue. Can't wait to see the final result!
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MattK
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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by MattK » Sun Nov 13, 2022 2:18 pm

Sounds familiar to me! I planned to cut down a Jazz Bass body I had but in the end a used Squier Mustang Bass body was cheaper and already had a pretty nice finish on it.

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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Zork » Sun Nov 13, 2022 2:20 pm

Cool project! I love the mockup in the middle. How do you you like your pitbull neck? I've got one on my homebrewn bass VI, too, and while I found it pretty cool at first, it ultimately was way too chunky for me and I had to shave it down quite a bit. I'm impressed by the quality of the wood, though.

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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Horsefeather » Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:23 pm

Incremental update:

I finally unboxed the Harbor Freight spindle sander I bought a year ago and got the rough contouring done.

The more challenging step will be the roundover routing. I figure I'll be doing the entire perimeter of the body on both sides, as trying to match the Chinese radius is probably a non-starter.

Regarding the Pitbull neck, it seems fine. Nothing special but no glaring issues. Some minor fret sprout. The only peeve I have is one that could be applied to almost all aftermarket necks: the fact that they cut the tuner side curve so high down by the nut. I assume they do this to keep the blanks generic enough to work for either right or left handed but it doesn't match what Fender does and it prevents the use of vintage style tuners, as there's not enough wood south of the low E to accommodate the length.

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Re: PreVIsion bass 6

Post by Horsefeather » Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:28 pm

I got the roundovers routed and hand shaped and some rough sanding done.

The next step is to mount the neck. It came with no holes drilled in it so I'll add these once it's firmly fitted in the pocket.

If anyone has recommendations for how to tighten up the pocket, I'm all ears. My current plan is to glue equal strips to either side such that they take up the slack and hold the neck firmly side to side. This means its placement will be determined by the sides of the existing pocket route. I figure this should work fine but if anyone has a better idea, please share.

I'll deal with the end of the heel afterwards.

With the neck fitted, I can use the E strings to properly locate the bridge/vibrato assembly.

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