We humans are a subjective lot. While objectivity is often desirable, it’s not completely achievable. Many of us have, however, figured that out, and it’s why there are things like written checklists which airline pilots read aloud to each other before takeoff. You might be having a great day and feel on top of the world, and still miss that little thingy over by the throttles or forget to make sure all the warning lights are working… even if you’ve never missed those things the last 500 times.
So it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that perfectly intelligent, honest, thoughtful people can fail to evaluate information correctly. We all fail, to some degree. It doesn’t help that governments and major media outlets have made mistakes in what they say and report, along with occasionally intentionally misrepresenting things. So people certainly have reason to reject things the government and the media say are true. If we categorically reject those things, though, it’s an example of subjective reasoning prevailing over objectivity. Giving equal weight to a very small number of doctors who reject vaccines as we give to the vast majority of doctors who say vaccines are safe and effective is also an example of subjective reasoning.
We may not be wired for complete objectivity, but if we’re lucky we can figure out how to compensate for it… and maybe come up with some checklists of our own.
I had a parts guitar I took apart to fix my thrift store Fender Stratocaster- the project went well, but the leftover bits and pieces were just sitting around (or maybe laying around, not sure which), and I began to wonder what would happen if, instead of tossing them, I attempted to turn them into a bass guitar (a “Stratobasster”?).
I’ve had short scale basses before, but the scale length of most guitars (including a Strat) is well under even the shortest bass guitar scale… 25.5 inches in this case (my long scale bass is 34 inches, for comparison). OK, whatever- if I wanted to I could probably play a strung 2×4, at least a little… hey- maybe that’s my next project! As for this project, though, it’ll take some doing. Since bass strings are way thicker than guitar strings, intonating (making notes along the neck sound in tune) the Strat copy for bass strings could be “problematic” (unless you’re just interested in playing punk, like my first bass student).
But wait! Those pesky frets on the neck are the main reason it’s hard to intonate guitars, and this thing was so cheap to begin with that it couldn’t be intonated even when it was a functioning guitar (which was fine for that death metal Christmas music I recorded before dismantling it). So there’s probably no way it’ll ever work as a bass… unless I stop and think about how the bass guitar evolved…
Yes, the “guitar” part of the name certainly implies a relationship to that 6 string thing too many people seem to think they should attempt (also, you don’t have to go rock climbing just because it’s become popular), but the other part of the name is the interesting part- it refers to the large violin shaped thing which people, for centuries, have stood next to and played with a bow. That thing doesn’t have frets (but you will if you try to get on a Green Line train in Boston during rush hour with one, like I did in college). And somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that a bass guitar doesn’t really have to have frets either (they actually figured that out in Mexico long before they did here, and it’s called a guitarrón).
OK, so my “Stratobasster” doesn’t really have to have frets, and if I remove them I’ll be able to compensate for the various intonation issues by moving my fingers a bit in one direction or another, which will change the pitch slightly- something not possible with frets (unless you like bending strings every time you play a note). So far, so good- but what about the other stuff? The tuning pegs which were on the guitar won’t accept thicker bass strings, and the nut (the little thing at the end of the fingerboard which the strings run through to keep them in place) won’t either. At the other end (on the body), the bass strings won’t fit through the anchor (bridge/tailpiece assembly) which is meant for guitar strings, and in the case of a Strat, there’s also that whole “whammy bar” setup which allows the bridge to move back and forth a little for various effects. Part of the wood in the body is carved out for that, and I’ll need to factor that in when mounting a bass bridge/tailpiece assembly- my plan is literally full of holes.
Damn- maybe just stringing a 2×4 would be a better idea… I’ll put the bridge up at the end of the neck and the tuners down on the body and call it a “Stokeberger” bass (industry joke there- I knew Ned Steinberger way before he got interested in bass guitars, and he was a pretty good carpenter in the early 1970s). But OK, I have this stuff here, and it was destined for some sort of recycling, so if I screw it up I’m not losing much… ONWARD! POWER TOOLS! … or not.
CHAPTER 1 (in which Doris get her oats): Starting in on the neck and figuring out how and where to mount the bridge… and ordering some cheap bass guitar hardware, like the bridge ($15), tuners ($15 for a set of 4), and a nut ($3). The peghead (where the tuners go) has 6 smaller diameter holes in it, for guitar tuners. I’ll need 4 larger bass tuners, so I’ll have to choose from the 6 existing holes and enlarge 4 of them. POWER TOOLS! And also some hand reaming with a round file.
The existing guitar nut came out by hitting it sideways, and there’s a nice notch there for the new bass nut… which is too narrow. Out comes a flat file, and since I’m a lousy finish carpenter, out comes the Krazy Glue as well, when it’s time to install the new nut. Cutting the plastic pickgaurd to accommodate a larger bridge wasn’t too difficult, and mounting the bridge became a bit easier once I decided to remove the frets from the neck- less concern about intonation, and more concern with finding solid wood to drill into for the mounting screws. I could drill into the body with a regular power drill, but it’s easy to go farther than you’d planned with one of those, so I use a small crank-operated hand drill.
“Stratobasster” project CHAPTER 2 (in which Doris pukes up her oats): Time to attach the pickguard, with the pickups and wiring, and also the output jack for the cord. When I took this thing apart (while scavenging it for parts) I left the pickgaurd/wiring assembly more or less intact, but there was still a bit of soldering to do- the output jack and an extra ground wire, which will go to the bridge for grounding the strings.
Bolting on the neck would seem pretty straightforward, until I realized the angle at which it meets the body will make the action (string height from fingerboard) quite high. Which means it’ll be difficult to play for more than 1 or 2 songs, unless you regularly play a 12 string guitar (which I did, before the arthritis set in). What to do? Go out to the garage for a couple of washers to use as shims, that’s what. Re-attach the neck and the angle looks a bit better. Also, I sanded the fingerboard after removing the frets, so some linseed oil seems in order after cleaning it- brings out the grain in the rosewood, and darkens it.
Almost time to add strings, but there’s a bit of wiring remaining to deal with first- all the wood they carved out of the body for that whammy bar setup makes running the ground wire to the bridge easy. There’s also a fair amount of wood missing from underneath the bridge assembly, so I decided to attach the ground wire on top of it, to one of the mounting screws- black insulation on black finish shouldn’t show too much.
OK, will this thing take a set of bass strings? Guess we’ll find out… a set of round-wound strings came with the fretted bass I acquired last month which I didn’t want on it- I kept them around, so let’s do it! OK, well, the neck is definitely not used to this (especially since I removed the frets and left empty channels in the wood where they were) but nothing has come flying apart yet. One thing I wondered about was how the strings would align with the fingerboard- the guitar bridge/anchor which was on there has a narrower overall width than the bass bridge I installed, and it’s possible the bass strings will be spaced too wide to hit the fingerboard higher up the neck. Turns out it’s not ideal, but they don’t really go “off the rails” until nearly the end of the neck, where I usually don’t play (my playing, however, often goes off the rails).
Adjusting the string height is a bit of a process, because the string tension will likely change the curve in the neck a bit over the next day or two, so I’ll keep the tools handy. Adjusting the pickup height isn’t hard. When I was getting parts off this guitar for my Fender Strat, I took the back plastic cover. Now that I’m attempting to salvage this thing, I should find something to replace that cover… back out to the garage, and hey, look here- an old plastic mud flap from one of my 1980s vintage Toyota trucks! Not perfect, but stiff enough (and close enough for rock & roll)… some quick (and somewhat inept) work with a pair of tin snips and there’s my replacement cover.
Last but not least- I like a thumb-rest when I play bass, and my two good basses have them, so sure, why not? OK, how does it sound through an amplifier? The internet is full of stuff about how you can’t do this kind of conversion because the neck won’t stand the tension and guitar pickups won’t work with bass strings. Both are false (and I knew that, because I’d taken a guitar repair course in college) but that never seems to stop anyone on the internet. The tension bass strings put on a neck isn’t way different from guitar strings, and magnetic pickups work by creating an electric current when metal strings move back and forth above them- the principle works regardless of string diameter. Are bass pickups optimized for bass strings? Yes. But, after running this thing through an amp, I can say all the frequencies that are supposed to be there are there, and some tone control adjustments are all that might be needed- mostly a matter of taste (or lack of it).
Peter Stokes 