Righty to lefty Frankenbass

[Syemon]

History of this is that it was bought around 15 years ago for £40 as something to mess with as I was just playing guitar back then.

It's a 1980s Encore Coaster bass with the pointy headstock, plywood body and was a shoulder buster.

Being a lefty and not wanting to spend much a cheap righty restrung with a new nut seemed the cheapest way. 

That's all that was done to it and it gathered dust in a corner. 

I bought a used unmarked Harley Benton JB for £70 and used that. I put an S1 switch on that for a bit more lows and was considering getting a PJ or a P to play with. 

Anyway plugged the Encore in and it sounded nice to my ears so a mini project was on the cards. 

The first incarnation was lopping the big horn off and shaping the contours a bit. Not really happy with the look. Try to disguise the fugliness with stickers? FAIL.. 

Put back in the corner to regroup my thoughts.

It had to be done on the cheap or it wasn't worth it. So, a large sheet of pickguard, new nut, coping saw and a rattle can of gloss black it was time to begin. 

I had various bits in a box so a strat neck pickup and a couple of switches were to be added. 

Hammer, chisel and coping saw later the body was abused into this. 

 

Not pretty as I don't have a router but I cleaned up the cavities and the largest pickguard in the world would cover the righty routes. 

Next was the pickguard done with the coping saw and some sanding. 

 

I used some heat to relax the pickguard to follow the righty body contour. 

Next was a rattle can of gloss black to hide the fugly. 

Lightly sanded the fretboard and put a very light stain as it was too glossy and light then gave the headstock a little extra shape. 

Next I fitted the neck which needed a 1mm shim at the heel to get the angle I wanted, new nut fitted. 

I drilled the pickguard for the tone & vol pots and an extra two holes for neck/bridge pickup and the other for both pickups in parallel. It may change to a blend pot in the future but as I had a bag of switches from earlier tinkering it was in keeping with the low cost of this project. 

 

So it was time to assemble. 

It went OK but I had to reverse the polarity of the neck pickup as it was cancelling signal when in parallel mode. 

 

It is not a thing of beauty but the nut was filed, string height set, truss rod tweaked and intonated spot on. 

 

I'm happy with the result. It does what I need with my setup.

Compared to all of the guitars on here it's still fugly but it's to me it's the equivalent of Susan Boyle. 

Ropey looking but sounds pretty good. Just waiting for a string retainer to align the A string better. 

 

Be kind, here for your close alternative for needles in your eyes is Subo 😁

 

 

 

 

Thanks for not flaming😁 I hope.. 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Syemon
Typo

[SpondonBassed]

It's certainly unique.  I'm betting that it suffers from neck dive somewhat.

 

Thanks for sharing.  Not everyone has the workshop space, tools or skills to make a masterpiece.  If it makes the noise you want however, who's going to criticise it?

[Syemon]

Hi, thanks for the reply. 

Weight is definitely biased toward the neck but I play sitting down with the neck more upright than most so with the strap it's not too bad. 

Tone wise the P pickup is still the same and the strat single coil is bright as expected. The tone control can change that. 

In parallel mode the upper tones are very similar to the strat but you get get a nice fill-in from the P lower down. 

I spent a while tweaking the pickup heights last night to balance the outputs to levels that make them work together. 

The neck is surprisingly good, straight, level frets and after a light sanding is comfy and slick up and down. 

Between this and the J bass with the S1 switch I've got pretty much the tones I wanted. 

I've left enough space under the bridge pickup to be able to adapt to maybe a bass humbucker and do a split coil. 

No rush now as it works. 

I like little projects and might invest in a router further down the line and revisit this for some clean up and tweaks. 

So far it's cost around £25 to turn it into something I will use rather than the firewood it was. 

 

 

[SpondonBassed]

25 minutes ago, Syemon said:

the P pickup

 

Of course, with left hand stringing it has become a reverse P with the associated tonal differences due to the E and A poles being nearer the bridge than the D and G poles.

[Syemon]

I considered this and if I had a router I'd have done the cavity but there's only so much chiselling I can do. 

Any more wood taken off and I'd be left with just the pickguard left😁. 

 

Thinking about the neck dive and balance of the guitar the righty routings allow for wood or heavier ballast to be used to shift the balance point to reduce the effects. 

Playing sat down the overall weight isn't as much an issue and it doesn't matter what I do with it because it's worth nothing to anyone but me anyway.