Iceman

[Czekli]

Hey assembled wisdom of builders of dreams.... I keep seeing Iceman basses that I'm not keen on (white or dark wood) but they still sell in the £200 plus bracket. 

What are the drawbacks of buying a donor bass and having a body made to take the neck and hardware? 

Was thinking of an sr300 4 or 5 string... 

[SpondonBassed]

11 minutes ago, Czekli said:

What are the drawbacks of buying a donor bass and having a body made to take the neck and hardware? 

The main one would be the possibility of making an entirely serviceable bass into a collection of poorly assembled bits.

You should perhaps start with a risk assessment.  If you are happy to take a gamble you would improve your odds by researching the pages here if you have not done so already.  This will help a great deal in focussing on the right suppliers and products.

Unless you have someone competent building for you, your own tooling and skills may be the only things that limit you after that.  Have you done any of this sort of thing before?

[Czekli]

My friend is a luthier, I would be building with him but he has only built guitars this way but not basses. 

 

[SpondonBassed]

I'd say that between you, you'd have a better chance than most of getting something workable and sounding good.  Beware though, you will probably find that you are planning your next one even before you finish your first.

There are already some SR based projects in this part of the forum.  A search pulls up a couple of pages of results.