NBD - 1981 Yamaha SB500S

[neepheid]

I picked this up cheap because it's in a bit of a state and I felt sorry for it.  It's not a particularly common bass around these parts, so I figured I could get it back to being hale and hearty again.

 

 

It's pretty dirty - the tuners are green in places and I had to wash my hands after stringing this bad boy back up - boak!  But that's just dirt.  The main issue with this bass is the neck pickup.  The coil windings have been... interrupted shall we say.  Thankfully most of the coil is intact, the break is pretty close to the beginning/end of the coil so I'm going to try to unwind it slightly back to good wire then solder it back up and see if that works, failing that I guess I'll need to get it rewound.

 

A wee project for the weeks ahead.  Its mostly cleaning and polishing, the pickup to attempt to repair, and maybe some finish repair on a couple of nasty chips in the neck finish.  Dunno if it's worth a build diary, so I'll probably just document my progress here.

 

FWIW, the remaining pickup sounded pretty decent in my wee Laney 30W combo in the office here.  For all the dings/dents/scuffs/scrapes/lacquer cracks, the bones appear to be solid and it feels quite nice to play.  I think with a bit of work this will end up being a fine counterpoint to my BB1200.

[neepheid]

Also props to @andruca for the write up on their SB500S which helped push me over the edge and snag this one - cheers!  Nice playing in the demos you put up, btw.

 

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/502833-nbd-pretty-nice-1981-yamaha-superbass-exemplar

 

[andruca]

4 hours ago, neepheid said:

Also props to @andruca for the write up on their SB500S which helped push me over the edge and snag this one - cheers!  Nice playing in the demos you put up, btw.

 

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/502833-nbd-pretty-nice-1981-yamaha-superbass-exemplar

 

My pleasure 🙏

 

Still my best Jazz Bass ever. After lowering the pickups inside the cavities (they were sticking out, and they're SHARP) and also putting shorter screws in the bridge saddle (also painfully sticking out) it is, counterintuitively enough, even more of a killer bass. Just wish it had a skinnier neck. I've been eyeing some 21 fret necks. I might try to adapt one, just to see if it keeps enough if its magic with a neck more to my liking. We'll see.

 

Glad you joined the club on this, such a huge sounding bass. I still keep my flying samurai, skinny neck and all (my 12 y/o's fave bass to play), great tone too (same aggressive Jazz vein), but still not up there with the SuperBass tonewise (less bassy, less glassy highs). The SB500 is sharpness, body, punch and big yet articulate lows, all together, a naturally "boosted" beast 🤘

Edited Thursday at 21:24 by andruca

[Misdee]

From the the golden age of Japanese-made instruments.Yamaha basses from this era are a combination of bulletproof construction and top-class design. Well-worth trying to resurrect.

[andruca]

Hope your repair goes well. You can always have the pickup re-wound with the same gauge wire. Not cheap, but those pickups are definitely worth it. I wish Yamaha offered these (and other) pickups, in 5 string version too (one has to dream big) 🤣 No, seriously, I'd have these in all my bass guitars, other than my Musicman 😁

Edited Thursday at 21:42 by andruca

[Pea Turgh]

I love a renovation project!  Might just be the camera angle, but the remaining pickup looks like a standard jazz size, whereas the cavities look slim soapbar-sized.  What’s going on there?

[Pea Turgh]

Oh I see now!!!

 

 

[andruca]

9 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

I love a renovation project!  Might just be the camera angle, but the remaining pickup looks like a standard jazz size, whereas the cavities look slim soapbar-sized.  What’s going on there?

Photo is blurry, but I think that's how they look. The center section is higher. It IS Jazz Bass width inside indeed. Casing is loose on the sides. I know 'cause I have disassembled them to lower them (pole pieces were sticking out like 3mm).

Edited Thursday at 21:49 by andruca

[Jono Bolton]

One of these keeps coming up for sale near me; I think the seller takes it down if it hasn't sold within a couple of weeks and then puts it back up again a few weeks later. I've been tempted a few times, they look cool.

[neepheid]

On 07/11/2025 at 12:07, Jono Bolton said:

One of these keeps coming up for sale near me; I think the seller takes it down if it hasn't sold within a couple of weeks and then puts it back up again a few weeks later. I've been tempted a few times, they look cool.

 

Wishaw, aye?

[neepheid]

So, I've made a start at restoring this bass (or at least minimising my chances of catching ebola from it ).  The pickup is with an electrical technician at work to see if it the coil can simply be reconnected, we got talking about it and it turned into a "give it here" type situation.  This suits me - he's got much better equipment than me (much finer and temperature controlled soldering iron, magnifier light thingy) and well, it's his job so he's less likely to make an arris of it than me.

 

As for me, I've dismantled the tuners and put them in a cola bath to try to clean them up, remove tarnishing etc.

 

 

I've made a start at polishing up the tuner bushings (E string done in the photo).  Going to do them in situ rather than pop them out - I dislike press fit bushings at the best of times and these old things are in there nice and tight.  If I pop them out then there's no guarantee they'll go back in as nicely, so they're just getting polished as best I can where they are.

 

[Jono Bolton]

17 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

Wishaw, aye?

Correctamundo

[neepheid]

1 minute ago, Jono Bolton said:

Correctamundo

 

I think I've bought a bass from the guy before - the Burny LP shaped confection which I put lipstick pickups in.  He's a sound bloke, got a pretty nifty collection of instruments, had a fine yap with him when I was picking up the Burny.

 

Should have just bought his one (as it looks minty fresh if I recall correctly), but then what fun would that have been?