FrankensteinBass...your thoughts?

this grey Kramer sucks but for 70 bucks I couldnt say no and bought it why?..
it plays perfectly fine has a minimal wear maple fretboard - but way too heavy and plywood resonates at that certain frequency that you can't eq out like the cheap junk it is.


SO I'm bored and wanted to check if that nice maple neck would fit perfectly in the pocket on this
and what do you know...it does . I have to measure out the total height of each neck out of the pocket to make sure the saddles can compensate for the different string height, but I'll beltsand that kramer neck cause that's what cheap toys are all about.


here's some more pics....




HUGE difference in construction on the backsides of the necks!!!!



heres the 6 foot bass and the 5foot 7 guitar what a difference when they are side by side...

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yeah ... thats gonna need some work.

you say minimal wear ... but i see those frets and go ugg. these are the reasons i'm slowly collecting the tools and info to do fretjobs myself.

beltsander you say ... one of my favoriter tools. i've always found ... the cheaper the stuff i'm working on, the less concern i have for it, the more agressive i am with cutting / grinding / sanding, the more accurate i am with getting it done perfect in one shot.

yeah ... i still need to figure out how to do that crackle finish. i've been all wrapped up and obsessed with cabinet design lately. i want to build a 2X15 reflex LF for my bi - amp system that i havent been using. i'm almost done building the prototype ... gotta test it with some LF, high output speakers.

this thingll look cool tho ... i have the appreciation for fans comming up to the satge after a set and asking ... "what the heck is that?!?!"

madmike wrote:

yeah ... thats gonna need some work.

you say minimal wear ... but i see those frets and go ugg. these are the reasons i'm slowly collecting the tools and info to do fretjobs myself.

beltsander you say ... one of my favoriter tools. i've always found ... the cheaper the stuff i'm working on, the less concern i have for it, the more agressive i am with cutting / grinding / sanding, the more accurate i am with getting it done perfect in one shot.

The frets don't bother me as much as the shadows on the fretboard....

Hah. Sounds like the time I wanted to figure out how to scallop the fretboard, so I went at my Ibanez BTB with some files and sandpaper.

ya the picture really shows the wear on the charvel neck..it did play before I took it off, but they are toast...the Kramer frets are not as nasty as the Charvel neck, but again it played still with low action as I like it before I pulled the neck....

and those shadows CB are the remnants of block inlay stickers that were on the thing when I got it...
MM I wanted to do something like you did, but with existing parts. You have that P-bass with the different neck and it looks great, this one will be a showpiece mostly since I have enough basses, but just to have a Kramer maple neck on the 2B Charvel body will give it "character", and not only that allow me to have a bass to post in the TB frankenbass topic...lol

Now this is the sort of thing I really dig. Taking parts from different basses, and marrying them together to make an even better instrument.

EricHaven wrote:

Now this is the sort of thing I really dig. Taking parts from different basses, and marrying them together to make an even better instrument.

different yep, better? perhaps as a cheap one of a kind throw together

before i do anything permanent, I'll throw the bridge on, drill the pilot holes for the new screw locations and bolt it up as is and use the strings that came off the thing in the first place so they are already cut for that head--ill toss a p pickup in it wire it up straight cause ya never know if I get lucky or not -- I'll take some progress pics this week if I can cause our band is playing this sat.

I'll post a video with it soon cause it sounds shockingly very good tonal wise...thank you Kramer Japan for ripping off the Charvel Dinky body neck pocket --hahahaha

so I turned this ugly piece of heavy plywood Kramer ZX70 Jap Junk:


into this poplar bodied Charvel 2BK ( k for the Kramer neck )


no problem with intonation, string height is "ok", a smidge higher than I like it with the saddles all the way down but if I shimmed the neck it would be perfectly playable as I like it for a gig bass.

i really dig the neck warmoth made for me for the p.

remember ... warmoth only makes necks to fit basses set up with fender spec pockets and scale. they'll make something custom ... but do you want to spend $600 - $800 on a neck for a plank bass?

i spent the money because of the work that i put into this p body ... but this hunk o wood truely just wasnt worth it except for that work i did. i didnt wanna use a prestigious valuable wood body to practice on ... one slip of the router and ... DOH! ... there goes a $300 piece of wood.

so next time i use a warmoth neck will be when i buy a warmoth body (i still dig the explorer) or carve out my own from a beautiful piece of body blank (that i havent found yet).

you hit the nail square MM, noone want's to "play" with expensive parts and have an oopsie and say, oh well I didn't need that 500.00 anyway
just like when I did the neck swap on my lefty/righty basses, if there was any "cost" involved, I probably wouldn't have done it.

so now my big question is:

give you the red body to mount the Kahler on, ( yes that was going to be my contribution for the BTF bass ).
get you to try to paint it black with gold crackle to match the Kahler.

OR just say F it and keep it as is and play the heck out of it because I'm very impressed and happy how it sounds now...damn these decisions are hurting my brain --lolol

I forgot to post this pic...here's the "other 1/2" of my guitar project...

GOD IS IT UGLY OR WHAT with that body --blech!!


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Yeesh! That does tend to lean towards the ugly side of things!

someone in the jackson board where I posted the "name the mutt" question told me the difference in the 2 is like ladyGAGA and Raquel Welsh..the red bass has "larger more sexy horns" ...lol

Hah...man that Kramer body is gross looking.

Poor thing. I almost feel sorry fot it.

The Charvel neck is the best thing that's happened to it.

Chowderboots wrote:

The Charvel neck is the best thing that's happened to it.

This. The second best will be Amim putting it out of its misery

The only thing that could be better would be if the body were replaced with a Charvel body

I used "RAQUEL" last night at practice. I think all my bandmates are used to the fact I will pull out "whatever" to jam, and I don't even think they noticed what it is or even cared --hahaha We have 3 shows this month on the 13th/17th and 20th..I'm gonna use this thing for sure....
I can't say I'm surprised at what it sounds like since I am still using all the jackson electronics.

the grey body and that junk fret neck will stay as parts as I have no intentions of wasting a set of strings on that POS.....

and tekken, I assume that picture is supposed to bring on the "aww poor thing" or "aww cute little deer"?

amimbari wrote:

and tekken, I assume that picture is supposed to bring on the "aww poor thing" or "aww cute little deer"?

well it's an image from a movie called the yearling, it's a syrupy annoying piece of american film making history, it's about a kid who finds a baby deer, raises it, finds that it keeps eating all their crop, so his dad makes him kill it.

haha well let's kill a deer then, show me a dead deer ( in a PM )....and maybe I will get frisky and make a video of me lighting that ugly plywood body on fire for you...

amimbari wrote:

haha well let's kill a deer then, show me a dead deer ( in a PM )....and maybe I will get frisky and make a video of me lighting that ugly plywood body on fire for you...

It's very hard to send a deer through the internet, it won't fit in the cable....

I didnt say "send" me a dead deer, ( remember I live in Pennsylvania ), and not that Pennsylvania would mean anything to you, but there are a lot of roadkill animals around..lol

you need to PM me a pic of a dead deer with blood and guts all over, and I'll make a video with me burning the bass body in my "metal" gear with a huge fireball as the result....

haha in your area are there even deer or just dead kawala bears?

amimbari wrote:

I didnt say "send" me a dead deer, ( remember I live in Pennsylvania ), and not that Pennsylvania would mean anything to you, but there are a lot of roadkill animals around..lol

you need to PM me a pic of a dead deer with blood and guts all over, and I'll make a video with me burning the bass body in my "metal" gear with a huge fireball as the result....

haha in your area are there even deer or just dead kawala bears?

haha, i know

koala's are pretty rare actually, i've seen maybe 5-6 in my life, we do have a lot of kangaroo's though...they put big dents in the front of your car.

PM'ing deers now, just make sure you put mr. kramer off in a viking ship, for a truly metal sendoff.

hey tekk, did you see the jackson concert desert crackle (that will probably hit 700-800), AND the white concert c5 on ebay this week? ( What people don't understand is that every USA concert like that was made from a JAP Charvel 3b. The only difference is they put the jackson finboard on it here in the USA, jacked up the price but everything about them UNLESS they say customShop on the head is a Jap 3b )


WELL SHOOT, I CAN'T AFFORD TO TOSS OUT 800.00 FOR A "TOY" BUT:
I bought THIS for 149.95 AS A BEST OFFER:
"THE POOR MAN'S DESERT-CRACKLE"




if it plays...awesome!
if it has the same neck pocket and will allow me to put a Charvie neck on it ...perfect FRANKENBASS!

THANKS MADMIKE FOR THE VOTE OF "THAT'S COOL LOOKING" PEER PRESSURE

and I posted too quick before...I meant kangaroos cause down there they are as common as deers here, I said koala bears cause kangaroos are butt-ugly, deer and koalas are cute and cuddly....

Wow! I love those crackle finishes!

I hope that cheapo one you snagged plays well for you Mike!

That bass is hot and i don't check American ebay much because most of the time they don't ship out of the USA

thanks gang, I hope it was worth it and it don't have to sit in the corner.

I ABSOLUTELY must sell something now, because I just won this one which I never expected to win with a low best offer from the same seller......

TO MARTIN --can you believe I found one!!!

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he had it listed at 469.95, I lowballed him at 435.00, and he took it. Case included so that's at least 75.00 towards the total.

nobody ever has the old c5-pro's for sale, so the thing will be added to the collection.

Man, you know how to score some nice basses.

tekkentool wrote:

That bass is hot and i don't check American ebay much because most of the time they don't ship out of the USA

here's a super rare charvel listed on the USA ebay so you should look because there is a lot of stuff that originates over there, and the sellers put it on the usa edition of ebay because they will ship up here, but since your there already---:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180480537248&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Wow, Mike! Great snag! I love the look of that bass!

Is that a rare fixed Kahler bridge I see on that thing?

EricHaven wrote:

Wow, Mike! Great snag! I love the look of that bass!

Is that a rare fixed Kahler bridge I see on that thing?

I believe it is

So amim, are you planning on putting a different sort of Kahler bridge on it?

yes indeed the c5's got the 2450's on them back when this series was made ( 92-95 ). They probably did that because Jackson didn't have their own 5string bridge yet.

here's young Dave holding a couple of "his" favorites from the 93 catalog

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Kugelspot wrote:

So amim, are you planning on putting a different sort of Kahler bridge on it?

no...this one will stay stock as not to change the value if I go and sell it. the gold 7410 I got will go on the white 2b I have when MadMike figure out how to paint black crackle over the white, and we already know the trem won't need recessed and then someday I will find a black one again, and sell the gold one off.

although the crackle series 10 bass has an unusual shaped body all the stuff works on it, but it is old and strings that look like it has been sitting in the closet uncased for at least 10 years....ok I probably will never know "ecactly" what year any of those series 10's I got but they only had em from 86-89/90 anyway. This is the pro model and I took the controlcover off, and it is not plywood and very light.

but his one is UBER HEAVY I don't think I could use it for a full 3 hours without a wide strap like my TBX..when I get the bathroom scale in the basement I'll weight it compared to the TBX. It seems as heavy as that thing.

the standard 4string necks are 1-5/8. this one is only 1-3/4..lol very narrow neck p.s. that's the same as my old epiphone 4string tbird@ 1-3/4...

the pic makes the 2450 look a little bigger than it really is, but wow would a black 7410 look good on this or what

it's a 92 and VERY yellowed out....

Wow that's a looker. It's in great condition. The one I played was a little chewed up.