NBD Hofner 185 (resto thread)

[Maude]

21 minutes ago, ikay said:

Nice job. I'm still a bit baffled by the lack of an original neck pickup rout!

I know, I can't make sense of it. If you zoom in on the first picture of the body sanded down you can see the brownish filler used to fill all the 'original?' cavities. There was a central one and a matching outlined bridge one which you can just see the edge of below the musicman style later route. But the central pickup doesn't tally with any twin pickup Hofner of this style. The body shape and dimensions seems bang on even the slightly less than average thickness. Also why has the neck been moved? The bridge saddle hasn't been redrilled and from nut to bridge is bang on 30".

I was hoping something would come to light when sanded but I'm still none the wiser. 

There is a route towards the neck so maybe if the neck pickup was surface mounted then that its wire route, and the central pickup route was another mod again. The bass could be over fifty years old so who knows what's happened in its life? 

I might be wrong but I feel sure it's the original body and neck. 

[Maude]

17 minutes ago, Paul S said:

Never mind the build, I'm curious about the room with its industrial raised mesh flooring!

It's a spray booth/oven for painting cars. The floor grid is filtered extraction. 

The entire ceiling is the filtered inlet for heated air. 

The sheeting on the wall is masking sheet to try and keep the overspray at bay, just replace when needed, which was about a month ago 😁. You can get a sticky coating for the walls but it tends to go brown with the heat unless regularly changed. 

There's room in this one for three cars at a time and it'll happily get to a toasty 80 degrees. Not for the bass though, the heat will expand the air in wood and pop little air bubbles in the finish, plus I don't know how hot you can get celluloid inlays before they start to melt, or worse. It just had a lovely 50 degree bask. 

🙂

[ikay]

It's all very mysterious, but I agree it does look original. Does the neck heel show any signs of having been redrilled? Here's a pic of mine for comparison. I'd expect yours to show the holes repositioned towards the heel end with more overhang of the body/neck join.

[Maude]

No redrilling at the heel. Or shortening, which would be the only other reason to fill part of the neck pocket if the bridge hasn't moved. The binding is intact and original. 

The neck has been refinished, albeit I'd say a long time ago as you can just tell the lacquer has been on there a long time. The tuner screw holes have been plugged and new holes for the Schallers drilled but it's all very aged. Even the mark from the sticker at the top of the headstock rear that had a number on, looking at images of others, is still there under the 'new' lacquer. 

I actually don't mind all the visable mods as they're so old they are now part of the bass, it's history if you like. 

It's certainly odd though. 

[Paul S]

3 hours ago, Maude said:

It's a spray booth/oven for painting cars. The floor grid is filtered extraction. 

The entire ceiling is the filtered inlet for heated air. 

The sheeting on the wall is masking sheet to try and keep the overspray at bay, just replace when needed, which was about a month ago 😁. You can get a sticky coating for the walls but it tends to go brown with the heat unless regularly changed. 

There's room in this one for three cars at a time and it'll happily get to a toasty 80 degrees. Not for the bass though, the heat will expand the air in wood and pop little air bubbles in the finish, plus I don't know how hot you can get celluloid inlays before they start to melt, or worse. It just had a lovely 50 degree bask. 

🙂

Aha!  this explains your wonderful past refins.

[ikay]

2 hours ago, Maude said:

No redrilling at the heel. Or shortening, which would be the only other reason to fill part of the neck pocket if the bridge hasn't moved. The binding is intact and original. 

Just a one off then by the look of it! Re the lack of a neck pickup rout, I just found this pic of a Hofner Artist in the process of being restored. The Artist was the Selmer version of the 185. Most of them didn't have the slider switches and ... drumroll ... it looks like the neck pickup was mounted to the pickguard as there's no rout.

Edited December 24, 2020 by ikay

[Maude]

1 hour ago, Paul S said:

Aha!  this explains your wonderful past refins.

That's very kind of you, thanks. 😊

Stupidly though, I do most of my refins at home with all the wrong equipment. 😆 

But yes, the processes and techniques are the same. 

🙂

[Maude]

53 minutes ago, ikay said:

Just a one off then by the look of it! Re the lack of a neck pickup rout, I just found this pic of a Hofner Artist in the process of being restored. The Artist was the Selmer version of the 185. Most of them didn't have the slider switches and ... drumroll ... it looks like the neck pickup was mounted to the pickguard as there's no rout.

You, my friend, are a legend. 🙂👍

That is exactly how mine is routed. 

That info has now allowed me to peice all the puzzle together and place it between 1963 and 1965.

The Artist (Selmer, UK market) was introduced in '62 along with the 185 (Hofner, European market). In '63 they had a couple of changes, different pickups and a string tree added. In '65 the selector switches were added. 

Your picture above is definatly routed the same as mine, apart from the later pickup mods. My headstock has an old hole where the string tree would have been, but no switches making it a '63, '64 or '65, according to this site, which seems pretty reliable and tallies with most other sites but groups all the info together. Scroll right down, the Artist is the bottom section. 

http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/gallery/gallery2/bas.html

The only possible sticking point is that all UK Artist basses were either painted red or had a red vinyl covering. I thought the white under all the paint looked like an original coating by the way it sat on the sealer coat, more of a primer than a top coat through. Now either it was the original coating and the red vinyl went over this, or mine was originally red and all the red was removed years ago. 

The neck pocket does have a red tinge in there but it looked more like aged wood but I'll look more closely. The other place would be in the control cavity, which I just left the purple in, so an exploratory scrape in there wouldn't go amiss. 

Or it was a European market one which was white, but I not sure that's likely at the mo. 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Maude

[Maude]

Looking back at my pictures, the red in the neck pocket is a red primer that was used under the purple paint. As it's only a dusting and you can still see the wood under it, I'm not convinced this was originally bright red. There should be more evidence of it in the neck pocket. 

The layers in order were wood, clear sealer coat, a white primer or topcoat, red primer (red oxide colour, not scarlet like the top coat would've been), the purple basecoat, and then a clear lacquer. 

[Maude]

Hmm, on another page of that vintage Hofner site there is some conflicting information,both from the same person though I think. 

From this page it looks like the Artist bass never got the slider switches, and the Euro 185 got side dots on the neck but not the UK Artist. Mine has side dots. Also UK neck were clear lacquered and Euro necks were predominantly painted black. Mine is clear 

So maybe it's a Euro 185, white body and side dots? 🤔

I don't know because my brain hurts now. I'll do more digging later. Apologies if I'm boring everyone with these ramblings. 🙂

[ikay]

Here's another comparison pic - Artist at top, then yours, then mine (which is a native German model). Yours matches the Artist with the bridge being further away from the endpin and the neck being set correspondingly further out of the body. Add the lack of a neck rout and I think it's pretty conclusive that yours is an Artist. Now all we need to do is get to the bottom of the original paint job being white rather than red 🤔!

[Ricky 4000]

I fink its fascinating. 👌

[Maude]

3 hours ago, ikay said:

Here's another comparison pic - Artist at top, then yours, then mine (which is a native German model). Yours matches the Artist with the bridge being further away from the endpin and the neck being set correspondingly further out of the body. Add the lack of a neck rout and I think it's pretty conclusive that yours is an Artist. Now all we need to do is get to the bottom of the original paint job being white rather than red 🤔!

That's very interesting. 

On yours, everything is pushed towards the end pin, look at the distance from the scratchplate to the neck access cutaways. Very odd why this would be. 

I wonder is it definatly a UK versus Euro thing, or is it just very bad tolerances on machining/production. 

This could be the reason the neck pocket on mine has that infill though. As if the neck pocket was routed for the deeper neck (thus everything else) position, but mounted in the shallower position, along with all the rest of the hardware. 

If the different positions for hardware are a UK/Euro thing, is it possible that my neck pocket was routed for Europe but then built for the UK Market?

Pure speculation but I'd have thought the change in hardware position would be an age thing rather than an area thing. Like they were made like mine up to a certain point where Hofner then moved all the hardware further into the body to reduce the overall length of the instrument, to lesson the reach to the first fret. It's all very intriguing. 

Thanks for your input in this thread @ikay 🙂👍

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Maude

[Richard R]

Could it be a "Hofnerfaker"? Actually made in Terry's Dad's shed in late '66 because the music shop couldn't get hold of the real thing?

Loving this thread, both for the build and the research. 

[ikay]

The more I look at reference pics the more I'm coming to think the variations are just down to the vagiaries of production methods in the 60s. For example, there are plenty of Artist models with the same tailpiece and neck positioning as my German/Euro model (1965 btw). There's even one on the vintagehofner site with the same tailpiece position as mine but the same neck position as yours - a hybrid (pic below)! I think the clear lacquered neck on yours probably does support the idea that it's an Artist model though.

[Shaggy]

Impressive progress Maude, but more importantly - you need to sell me your Ric 4005 replica to fund this project......

[Maude]

I think you're probably right. I'm inclined to think the machining tolerance was probably rather relaxed back then, and as long as it measures 30" between nut and bridge, none of this really matters. 

Everything points to it being an Artist from between 63 and 65, and that'll do. 

I was just trying to rule out reasons it could be something else. 

I'd imagine no real records were kept of any changes to the basses over the years, and the best anyone can do to pin an individual bass year and model down is gather as much info as possible and the model with the most 'hits' wins, so to speak. 

At least I can be virtually certain that the body is genuine, as I did wonder, as @Richard R alluded to, if the body had been made to suit by someone. It wouldn't matter really but it's nice to know it's a genuine Hofner. 

I did wonder if many of these had a gap of varying size in the neck pocket, under the scratchplate, depending on hardware location. And when whoever filled the pickup cavity, they filled the pocket gap as well. 

Pickups, electrics and scratchplate won't be genuine though so why am I worrying 🙄 😄. 

 

 

[Maude]

54 minutes ago, Richard R said:

Could it be a "Hofnerfaker"? Actually made in Terry's Dad's shed in late '66 because the music shop couldn't get hold of the real thing?

Loving this thread, both for the build and the research. 

No chance, Terry's dad was useless on the tools. It was more likely Bob's dad. 😁

[Maude]

5 minutes ago, Shaggy said:

Impressive progress Maude, but more importantly - you need to sell me your Ric 4005 replica to fund this project......

I can't sell the 4005, it's the perfect image for my Mod band............... that hasn't gigged since March and has absolutely nothing in the diary. 😄

[Ricky 4000]

9 minutes ago, Shaggy said:

Impressive progress Maude, but more importantly - you need to sell me your Ric 4005 replica to fund this project......

I was hoping to sneak in there before you, dammit!

[Maude]

9 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I was hoping to sneak in there before you, dammit!

Get back, get back I tell you! 

I'll get the pitchfork! 

😆

 

[Ricky 4000]

11 minutes ago, Maude said:

Get back, get back I tell you! 

I'll get the pitchfork! 

😆

 

Who can afford £28,000 or whatever for a real 4005!?

[Maude]

3 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

Who can afford £28,000 or whatever for a real 4005!?

I know. I'd have loved one and for a bit considered buying Mani's black one that was on Reverb. But the reality is I wouldn't be able to gig a bass of that value, and as an investment it wasn't his John Squire paint splattered one so wouldn't ever be more valuable than a 'normal' one. 

Although it did end up reduced to the rough price of a normal one. 

[Maude]

On the subject of funding this project, my son, who has just started work a couple of months ago, has said he wants to buy me the bits for this bass for Christmas to repay me for all the help we've given him while he was at college, so I'll have something I can keep. Which makes me very proud. 

I wasn't intending on spending a lot to start with and certainly aren't now. 

The pickups and electrics I'm happy not to have original items, just decent mods that suit the style. I've narrowed down the pickups to a choice between three (at the moment). 

The originals would have been a pair of Hofner mini humbucker 'staple' pickups. I found a page on the Seymour Duncan website which interested me. 

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/sd-mini-humbuckers-and-the-hofner-beatle-bass

After looking up prices, the Hofner staples are about £200 a pair, and the Duncans are just over £200 a pair. Too much really, I might stretch to that but I'm not letting my son pay for them. 

Anyway, the Duncans are essentially Gibson Firebird mini humbucker replacements. So there's a starting point for looking up some budget items. 

I found some Warman mini humbucker for £35 a pair. I've got a Warman musicman pickup in another bass and it is fantastic, bought on recommendation from folks on here that I trust, so I'm happy to try another Warman.

Whilst looking on eBay for them I saw two other types of rail pickups, a style Hofner used later on the 185/Artist and will probably get one of these three (well a pair of these three, but that doesn't make sense). 

Chrome mini humbucker. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warman-FireBucker-Pair-of-poleless-Chrome-mini-humbuckers-/164480598945?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

 

A pair of hot rails, different output neck and bridge) 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warman-Warblades-High-output-rail-humbuckers-/184477106915?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

 

And another hot rail type but sold individually, so the same rating for neck and bridge. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Warman-Jazzbar-bass-humbucker-13-31k-8-56-H-4-wire-overwound-/184564330420?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

 

The mini humbuckers look the most original and are probably the closest spec to original. But then I thought do I go for a more modern high output pickup like the rails? The style will work as the twin rails mimick the fret marker inlays. 

The pair of rails don't have casings though, just taped coil and might feel odd as I'd use them as thumb anchor points. 

I'm going to try and find out the specs of the Duncan mini humbuckers before deciding. 

[Shaggy]

11 hours ago, Maude said:

I can't sell the 4005, it's the perfect image for my Mod band............... that hasn't gigged since March and has absolutely nothing in the diary. 😄

To be really authentic, you’d need to play what your typical mid-‘60’s mod bassist would have been playing, which would have been.......let me think.........um.......a Hofner (or Vox / Watkins etc)     Ric semis would have more been the preserve of affluent emerging  West coast psychedelia bands in the US, and you don’t want to be associated with that malarkey........

Seriously; what a star your son is for getting involved with this.    Can’t wait to see the beastie fully restored.