This is a bit of a weird one, haha.
I had a really messed up ibanez RB from a while back with a very messed up fretboard. The previous owner had attempted to make it fretless and had ruined the radius and filled fret gaps it with glue. Total mess. To add insult to injury the headstock was scratched up to hell with stickers and crap all over it.
I wanted to use it some how, as the truss still worked just fine. I cambered the fretboard as best I could to a 7.5 inch radius, although this couldn't be done consistently to the top frets due to the butchery it suffered. There was also a slight twist in the neck around the 2nd fret but it is negligible and doesn't really cause issues for playability.
The headstock has been veneered in left over curly maple and rosewood. The reverse has been veneered in wenge to cover up other ugly damage!
Anyhow, long story short, I managed to get it to a point where it plays nicely enough after fretting it with small nickel silver frets and dressing them where necessary. It isn't perfect but it now plays at a medium low action of 1.5mm.
The body is strange, I picked it up at an ESP outlet shop bargain bin, so I suppose it's an unfinished trainee luthiers' PJ project or something. It appears to be a combination of poplar and Sen with a mahogany veneer top and back.
I had a fantastic set of Atelier Z pickups that I thought would work really well for this little beast, so I routed the rear cavity to fit the soap bar style humbucker. These pickups are superb quality and sound excellent.
I coupled the pups with a 2 band preamp and three way coil splitter for the humbuckers.
The result is a bass with a killer versatile slap tone, a growly front pup and a versatile rear pup which is actually more akin to a musicman tonally thanks to it's position in relation to the bridge.
The finish on the body is simply oil sanded and waxed. The body had obviously sat in storage for ages as there are some damp stains on the bottom edge which wouldn't sand out.
It's cool though, it's Funky Junk after all!
Body, poplar, sen and mahogany
Neck, rosewood on maple
Scale. 34"
Grip. Thin c
Nut. Ebonite 38mm
Pickups. Atelier Z Alnico P-Hum set
Preamp. 2 band
Controls. vol, bal, treb, bass, 3 way coil tap sw.
Bridge. Gotoh
Tuners. Hipshot ultralite.
Weight. 3.6kg
