Lightening heavy basses

[lownote]

I have a Harley Benton JB which is great but very heavy.  Too heavy to be practical for gigging.  Is there any way to lighten my load?

Edited March 5, 2022 by lownote

[ikay]

Swap in lightweight tuners and aluminium bridge. If that's not enough drill holes in the body under the pickguard. If that's not enough, remove more wood, make the holes a design feature 🙂

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by ikay

[Dan Dare]

Get a wider strap?

[itu]

There's a neat story here about Overwater. Use find.

[Downunderwonder]

Heavy applications of cash usually does the trick.

[Andyjr1515]

I lightened an HB a few years back.  You do have to remove a LOT of wood, but it can make the difference between being an 'occasional play' and an 'all-night gigger'  

 

I'll see if I can find the thread.

[Andyjr1515]

The thread is here:

 

[chris_b]

If a heavy bass is bothering you now it will only get worse. IMO modding this bass is money down the drain. Sell it to someone who doesn't mind heavy, and find yourself the bass that fits your requirements out of the box.

[Munurmunuh]

On 10/03/2022 at 15:40, Andyjr1515 said:

I lightened an HB a few years back.  You do have to remove a LOT of wood, but it can make the difference between being an 'occasional play' and an 'all-night gigger'  

 

I'll see if I can find the thread.

 

If you've a bass which is heavy and yet still on the cusp of having neckdive, is it possible to remove the wood from the body in a way that would avoid worsening the balance? 

 

As I try to think it through, I'm imagining that thinning down the upper horn and removing the lower horn entirely would be taking weight away from the neck's side of the bass, thus actually improving the balance and allowing more wood to be removed from elsewhere (eg more contouring around the top)

[Andyjr1515]

8 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 

If you've a bass which is heavy and yet still on the cusp of having neckdive, is it possible to remove the wood from the body in a way that would avoid worsening the balance? 

 

As I try to think it through, I'm imagining that thinning down the upper horn and removing the lower horn entirely would be taking weight away from the neck's side of the bass, thus actually improving the balance and allowing more wood to be removed from elsewhere (eg more contouring around the top)

The leverage resulting from the length of a bass neck certainly means that you get a disproportionate advantage from removing weight at the headstock.  Lightweight tuners make a big difference but yes - you can also take wood out also as long as it remains strong enough for the tuners to hold the tension of the strings with nothing breaking, moving or bending.

 

As an example, I did a Jack Bruce Warwick Thumb 'tribute' for our bands bassist.  Plays great, but as you say, always on the edge of neck dive, not helped by the very rearward top horn strap button.  But loved playing his so much, I did another one for myself that has the same timbers and dimensions but different shape - and a much smaller headstock:

 

And it balances fine

 

[Munurmunuh]

8 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The leverage resulting from the length of a bass neck certainly means that you get a disproportionate advantage from removing weight at the headstock.  Lightweight tuners make a big difference but yes - you can also take wood out also as long as it remains strong enough for the tuners to hold the tension of the strings with nothing breaking, moving or bending

 

I've a Yamaha BB that weighs far too much for me. The neck is perfect and I wouldn't want to touch it at all.

 

 

I'm trying to work out if a replacement body could be designed that would be significantly lighter, without the chunky neck plunging south. Hence my asking about where on the body meat could be lost from.

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by Ricky Rioli

[Andyjr1515]

45 minutes ago, Ricky Rioli said:

 

I've a Yamaha BB that weighs far too much for me. The neck is perfect and I wouldn't want to touch it at all.

 

 

I'm trying to work out if a replacement body could be designed that would be significantly lighter, without the chunky neck plunging south. Hence my asking about where on the body meat could be lost from.

 

 

Well, certainly on the strap, you are not likely to have a problem with this.  There is a 'goldilocks zone' for the position of the top horn strap button which is around the 12th/13th fret.  When the button is here, then the neck would need to be massively top heavy (I've never come across one that heavy) for it not to balance OK. 

 

You can see the difference of the position with my fretless...I still get a double-take, but the two basses are exactly the same scale length and width...where the strap button is closer to the 16/17th fret (as with the Warwick Thumbs) and where the body has to be therefore very heavy to counteract the dive.  Which is why Thumbs tend to be very heavy basses.  I love them - but it is a fundamentally flawed design from a practicality point of view.

[Andyjr1515]

This maybe illustrates the point:

 

 

It is unlikely that your body is heavier than a Thumbs so it gives an indication of how much weight you could take out and still not affect the balance (and remember that much of the weight comes off the neck side of the body, not the very back)

[Downunderwonder]

The lighter the body the more you give the upper horn the 'boner' treatment.

[Munurmunuh]

1 minute ago, Downunderwonder said:

The lighter the body the more you give the upper horn the 'boner' treatment.

 

This should keep you giggling until bedtime

🙄

[Munurmunuh]

On 26/03/2022 at 12:18, Andyjr1515 said:

This maybe illustrates the point:

 

 

It is unlikely that your body is heavier than a Thumbs so it gives an indication of how much weight you could take out and still not affect the balance (and remember that much of the weight comes off the neck side of the body, not the very back)

 

Five minutes dabbing at my phone screen with my finger gets me this....

 

 

 

....which reassures me that slightly slimming down the body and creating two large cavities in the wings wouldn't make a dogs dinner of the design.

 

Replace the pickups with a G&L MFD humbucker in the [s]L-1500[/s] Stingray spot. Add a 2 band cut/boost eq and a series/parallel switch. Paint it black.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Ricky Rioli