6feet7 Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 (edited) I've always had a weak spot for Les Pauls and 'f' holes, and because of this I used to own an Epiphone Zenith bass (basically a not quite as semi hollow as it looks with double f hole Les Paul type bass). I now only play 5 strings and they only made the Zenith as a 4, so when I saw a Zenith bass body going for sale for less than it costs me to fill my car with fuel I had an idea. Firstly I bought the body and had to wait a week for shipping from the USA. I then got in touch with Keisel/Carvin in the USA to make a 5 string neck (I didn't want a Fender type headstock and they were the only people I could find who could make me a neck with a paddle shaped headstock affordably (unfortunately it's a 22 fret neck and the Zenith was originally a 21 fret neck, so some routing out of the body plus reshaping the heel of the neck will be required.) It's maple with an ebony board. The headstock will be shaped in the open book more Gibson than Epiphone style. Instead of the piezo/magnetic mix pickup that was on the original Zenith I've got an almost new set of EMG passive pickups plus a copy of an LR Baggs piezo unit/ batteryless preamp. I was going to go for Kent Armstrong Claymore pickups that are in my Patrick Eggle basses, but found the pair of EMG's for the same price as one Armstrong one. I'm sticking with the wooden/through body stringing bridge, though a new wider rosewood bridge will have to be made to accommodate the 5 strings. Unfortunately I'm totally cack handed when it comes to either woodwork or electrics, so Simon Farmer of GUS Guitars (maker of Prince's last guitar and bass) who lives just up the road from me is doing the mods (you should have seen his face when I took all the parts over to him Anyway, here's the body when it first arrived. (and also a photo of what it 'originally' looked like). Edited December 20, 2018 by 6feet7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 5, 2018 Author Share Posted June 5, 2018 Here's the neck pocket routed out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 5, 2018 Author Share Posted June 5, 2018 And the headstock shaped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 5, 2018 Share Posted June 5, 2018 1 hour ago, 6feet7 said: Unfortunately I'm totally cack handed when it comes to either woodwork or electrics, so Simon Farmer of GUS Guitars (maker of Prince's last guitar and bass) who lives just up the road from me is doing the mods (you should have seen his face when I took all the parts over to him I though I recognised the roller work bench! The guitar looks nice too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 5, 2018 Author Share Posted June 5, 2018 (edited) Yup. It's Simon's. And as much as I absolutely love his stuff I can't afford it, so I'm using his talents in other ways I might try and save up for one of his G5 bases though. Rather gorgeous Edited June 5, 2018 by 6feet7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 Next phase is to fill in the through body holes, route out new ones and make a new ferrule out of brass then apply chemicals to it to blend it in with the other 4 (the Zenith bass appears to have different ferrules to everyone else, so it wasn't an 'off the shelf' buy unfortunately). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 (edited) Because we are converting a 4 string to a 5 string which happens to have a rosewood bridge (that, once again, isn't an off the shelf buy), Simon had to make a new bridge. He just happened to have a block of left over rosewood that was the exact right size. Because we couldn't find a piece of plastic/graphtech or bone long enough for the saddle, brass was used. Edited June 11, 2018 by 6feet7 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pea Turgh Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 Corrr! That’s gonna be ace! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 You should see it mocked up with the two pickups in place with a gold 3 way Gibson style toggle for pickup selection with a rotary series/parallel switch and master volume and tone. I can't wait for it to be finished and plugged in Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roman_sub Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 looks nice, but can't quite picture how the string alignment will work out between nut and tuners! Look forward to seeing this finished! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 22 minutes ago, roman_sub said: looks nice, but can't quite picture how the string alignment will work out between nut and tuners! Look forward to seeing this finished! Like this:- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 1 hour ago, 6feet7 said: Like this:- Cool. From the image before it looked as if your G post was going to foul the D string run. Glad to see you aren't obsessed by symmetry on your string runs. I also love the way you are giving a classic looking instrument new legs, so to speak. Fives are great. How old is the body? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemmywinks Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 2 hours ago, 6feet7 said: Like this:- Might be camera angle trickery but the angle of the B, E and A slopes downwards there, on yours it looks like it's a gently V shaped with the A being obscured by the E. Obviously Mr. Farmer knows what he's doing so probably just the perspective! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, SpondonBassed said: Cool. From the image before it looked as if your G post was going to foul the D string run. Glad to see you aren't obsessed by symmetry on your string runs. I also love the way you are giving a classic looking instrument new legs, so to speak. Fives are great. How old is the body? The headstock is a direct copy of my early 90's Epiphone El-Capitan V fretless , so I am slightly obsessed with getting it right (sort of, says he converting a 4 string to a 5 string, adding a neck with an extra fret and putting in 2 EMG's). No idea how old the body is, but I assume it was made around 2010 (that's when they came out and they weren't around for long). I had a black 4 string version a few years ago but as I only play 5's now .......... 1 hour ago, lemmywinks said: Might be camera angle trickery but the angle of the B, E and A slopes downwards there, on yours it looks like it's a gently V shaped with the A being obscured by the E. Obviously Mr. Farmer knows what he's doing so probably just the perspective! Think it's camera angle trickery (well, iphone trickery really Just been to see it (I managed to get hold of a mini brass Epiphone logo that is on the original bridge which I want Simon to stick on for me. He says he's had it set up already and the string height and intonation is bang on. PS. For those worried about me sticking Epiphone logo's on the headstock and passing it off as an Epiphone (I don't think Epiphone is a lusted after enough brand, but you know what I mean), I'm not, apart from the truss rod cover and the brass bridge logo (both un-screwable and removable). The body is Epiphone but the rest isn't, so the headstock will just be oiled ebony (to match the fret board). Edited June 11, 2018 by 6feet7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpondonBassed Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 20 minutes ago, 6feet7 said: PS. For those worried about me sticking Epiphone logo's on the headstock and passing it off as an Epiphone (I don't think Epiphone is a lusted after enough brand, but you know what I mean), I'm not, apart from the truss rod cover and the brass bridge logo (both un-screwable and removable). The body is Epiphone but the rest isn't, so the headstock will just be oiled ebony (to match the fret board). Phew! I was beginning to sweat over that. (guffaw guffaw) No really, I'm glad you've cleared that up. Heeheehee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted June 11, 2018 Share Posted June 11, 2018 That looks brilliant. One of the many things I've thought about over the last 10 years is getting some of my favourite 4-string only basses made as 5-string versions. Good to see that I'm not the only one with this idea! I see though that you are changing the pickup system entirely for your new bass. That was always one of my concerns - getting suitable new 5-string pickups made that would retain the sonic characteristics of the the original 4-string bass. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 11, 2018 Author Share Posted June 11, 2018 (edited) On 11/06/2018 at 19:20, BigRedX said: One of the many things I've thought about over the last 10 years is getting some of my favourite 4-string only basses made as 5-string versions. Good to see that I'm not the only one with this idea! I see though that you are changing the pickup system entirely for your new bass. That was always one of my concerns - getting suitable new 5-string pickups made that would retain the sonic characteristics of the the original 4-string bass. But then we are both GUS owners - well, I was. I once had 6 GUS G1 guitars, 1 baritone and 2 basses. All gone to pay bills etc But it shows that we don't like 'the norm'. I'm not too worried about the original pickups on the Zenith. I wasn't totally enamoured with them when I did have a 'stock' Zenith, plus, I like passive basses (less to go wrong), so always change the pickups to passive on anything I have. Edited June 28, 2018 by 6feet7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted June 23, 2018 Author Share Posted June 23, 2018 (edited) Nothing much happening at the moment. A piezo strip has been fitted under the brass bridge whilst the preamp (based on an LR Baggs version) is somewhere in the post. The idea is to have two separate jacks (like the original Zenith), one for magnetic and one for piezo (we could try and blend them but then we are getting expensive - and this project is going to be expensive enough as it is - so we arnt going to do that, and I can always use two cables and an A/B/Y pedal if that were needed). So in the meantime Simon has routed out the cavities for the magnetic pickups. Edited June 25, 2018 by 6feet7 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted July 3, 2018 Author Share Posted July 3, 2018 Latest exciting bit. Just fitted a rechargeable piezo preamp - no battery needed, just charge up before a gig. Just need the volume pot wired in for this plus the magnetic pickups fitted and wired and we are almost there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alittlebitrobot Posted July 8, 2018 Share Posted July 8, 2018 This is fantastic. I have a bunch of zenith photos in my reference folder for guitar designs. It's such a beautiful design and I'm dying of jealousy that you got the body for so little Great work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted July 13, 2018 Author Share Posted July 13, 2018 As Simon at GUS has been working on some 'Prince' G1 guitars he hasn't managed to get going as quickly on the Zenith as he would like, but here is the latest news. Almost there Hi John, Just a little update for you...I’m creeping forward! Have the body all wired up now and the neck sprayed. I managed to blend the heel area and then applied some ‘rosewood’ stain in the lacquer...has approximated the colour of the top pretty well?! Needs a final set of lacquer coats and then polishing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigwan Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Looks great! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimothey Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 1 hour ago, Bigwan said: Looks great! +1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted July 13, 2018 Share Posted July 13, 2018 Very nice! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6feet7 Posted August 13, 2018 Author Share Posted August 13, 2018 (edited) Just got the Zenith back. All I can say is OMG. It's gorgeous. Simon at GUS has managed to fit a 22 fret 5 string neck to a 21 fret 4 string bass and you'd never know. The passive EMG's and greasebucket tone mod sound lush with a threeway switch and wired in series and parallel. The piezo only has a volume pot but it's got a hidden secret. Instead of being battery run it's powered by a capacitor that takes only 1 minute to charge and this will last 16 hours. I've put the original brass bridge logo on the headstock instead of where it should be. In my opinion it just looks better on the headstock (it looked good on the original rosewood bridge but now that has been made larger it looked out of proportion and 'wrong'). Anyway, I know I didn't do anything to convert it (unlike some of the skilled people on BC I would have just ruined something that, in my eyes, is probably one of the best looking basses I've ever laid eyes on), but I knew what I wanted and luckily had one of the finest luthiers on the planet just down the road from me who managed to transform my thoughts into a work of art Edited August 14, 2018 by 6feet7 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.