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When 4 becomes 5


Owen
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I have a Ryder P bass. I did not love the headstock so I bought a JIm Deacon P on here for £50 cos it had a nice neck. I swapped necks and flogged the other bits so that the whole excercise was cost neutral. I do not use it because I do not really like a P nut width (as I discovered after buying it) but I hate having things lying around. I bough a Wilikinson 4+1 kit to turn a 4 string into a 5 string years ago and have been keeping it for the right occasion. I mounted it all yesterday and the bass seems quite happy being a 5. Sadly the Wilikinson bridge means I would have to put a shim the size of a brick under the neck so that will come off. I have a spare machine head which will go onto the lower edge of the headstock and I have bought 5 individual chrome bridge units (£7.92 inc postage!) because that is the only way I can see of getting close to 15mm spacing at the moment. There is a one piece bridge out there but that is in black and that would be wrong. The Wilikinson nut is fine. Total outlay including bass = £95 + a new set of stings.

Before with Wilikinson kit on it

[URL=http://s8.photobucket.com/user/peredur/media/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00110_zpsz9eejpyi.jpg.html][IMG]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/peredur/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00110_zpsz9eejpyi.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

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  • 3 weeks later...

[url="http://s8.photobucket.com/user/peredur/media/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00124_zpslrhpgobg.jpg.html"][/url]

Filling in the original bridge holes with dowelling (AKA matches)

[url="http://s8.photobucket.com/user/peredur/media/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00125_zpsbybfw5ms.jpg.html"][/url]

New machine head. If I knew what I was doing then I would have put it somewhere where the G would run straight after the nut.

[url="http://s8.photobucket.com/user/peredur/media/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00127_zpsshgy3t0t.jpg.html"][/url]

Finished bridge. The A unit happened to sit in the right place using and original screw hole so I bodged the rest around that one.

[url="http://s8.photobucket.com/user/peredur/media/Mobile%20Uploads/CAM00128_zpslg7ltu2g.jpg.html"][/url]

Finished headstock. Dodgy string alignment. Do I care? No.

The pickup seems to be fine, but the G+D side is quieter than the B+E+D side. I will raise it up to see what difference that makes. The strings are old spare until I get it working properly.

It took about 2 hours, and I am the bodgiest of the bodgers and it was OK. String spacing is a bit tight, but nothing I cannot work with.

Good times!

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It's working nicely. The spacing is obviously TIGHT, but it is not a huge issue. The screw head on the G+D side is knackered so I will have to get into that with something proper, but for an outlay of frankly pennies I am very happy with it..

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