We quite often build project guitars and basses for customers, this one was a Telecaster bass. The customer had been after a Telecaster bass for a long time to add to his impressive collection. He wasn't a fan of the stock Telecaster bass necks, so wanted his to have a P bass neck. The only solution was a project guitar. It wasn't a easy task as the stock Tele bodies have a flat end to the neck heel, whereas the P bass necks have a curved end. The solution was the customer managed to source a custom made body in the USA that was perfect for the job! |
Once the neck and body were joined, the next step is positioning the bridge, really important to get it right for the intonation to be correct. You can see that the pre dented holes for the bridge position were slightly too far back, lucky enough they had not drilled the holes, so it was easy enough to mount the bridge slightly forward to allow for correct string intonation.
The bridge was also aligned with the neck to make sure the strings would sit evenly on the fretboard and not overhang.
The pickup cavity had to be slighly enlarged to fit the Kent Armstrong humbucker chosen for this project, once fitted, it was onto the wiring!
The wiring was fitted to make the most of the humbucker, with a coil tap and series/parallel switching option, both activated with individual push/pull pots. The circuit was finished with a oil & paper capacitor to give a more vintage tone. The bass was then fully setup before being ready for the customer to collect! Enjoy the photos of the finished bass guitar below! Note: The headstock decal had been fitted by us at an earlier date |