Modded Road Worn P-Bass - is it an upgrade?
 

Bass isn't my first instrument, so I'm not that up on technical specs (I'm a drummer, please don't hate! lol), but I have a Fender Road Worn Tele and Strat, and I love them. I decided to add a Road Worn P-Bass to the collection. I bought one used sight unseen from a Guitar Center online and had it shipped to my local store. I didn't even notice till I got home, but the neck has been replaced with a newer (not road worn) US P bass neck with an ebony board instead of the maple one it would have come with. Would this be considered an upgrade? The neck has a serial of US10 so I did the research and it's from 2010 when they used that system for a while. So what would you guys do? Keep it and maybe distress the neck or return it? The neck feels good except for the lacquer on it, so that's why I wanna distress it. Thanks for the help!

edit (I actually think it's rosewood and not ebony)

Is the bass the same as it was pictured in the ad from GC online, neck and all? If not, I'd have them send me another one.

I'm not sure anymore cause the picture isn't up. I'm wondering if that's why it was only $550.

It said in the description that it had a highway one neck.

There you go.

i saw that very bass on GC's website last week.
Looked like a Hwy 1 rosewood

Man, I missed that. So would you guys consider it an upgrade? How would it change the sound?

To me, just my humble opinion here, it's un upgrade
 

It's MIA (unlike RoadWorn) nitro finished neck (like RoadWorn)

Ok, maybe not that faithful to the '50s RoadWorn styling, infact it's a way more '70s oriented neck, but shops (and sometimes owners) tend to swap necks to a proficient logic...

For that price I must say it would be the only RoadWorn I'd buy (I'm not a fake wear n'tear thing fan)

I really think you got a one of a kind beautifully resoundin' instrument and if it's a Fiesta Red one (I'm not watchin' pics) it's the closest you can get to a Pino Palladino's and not unmatchin' with a 2TS finishin', that could (I said "could") appear to be incoherent with a rosewood fingerboard:hmm:

Cheers,
Wallace

I'm not sure I can agree with Wallace. IMO, the neck on the Road Worns are probably the best part of them with the rolled edges and broken-in feel. Very comfortable necks.

Besides that the nut width is different. Road Worns P's have the 1.75" nut and 7.25" radius and the HW1s (or HWOnes, depending on which era Highway it is) have the 1.625" nut and 9.5" radius.

I agree 100%
I would take the RW neck any day.

Road Worn or not... do you like it? If so then no need to go any further. If the finish on the neck is bugging you, you can always remove it.

It could be as the guy's hinted at above, that your bass might have been part of a parts swap bass build where the owner took the Road Worn neck and stuck it on the Highway One bass which he kept, and sold the "left overs" being your Road Worn body with the Highway neck.

Without pics, I can't believe that this bass even exists.

:cool:

First the price was a tip-off.
Second did add, or pictures say bass had non-original neck?
Third, are you happy with neck?
To me I would prefer Roadworn neck. I like feel, and tone better.
Also, non-original neck will effect price if you ever sell it.

If you only paid $550 for it you got a good deal. But, if you would prefer the original neck I'd return it and keep looking.

its not an upgrade per say, but not exactly a downgrade either.

I've been playing around on it, and the neck is bugging me big time. I now see that it said it had that neck. I just didn't know what "hw1" neck meant, being a drummer! I really wanted the whole thing to be road worn so I took it back, and just ordered a full one on ebay. And yes, the price should have tipped me off, I was hoping I just got lucky. Thanks for the help everyone.

I wouldn't have gone near it for that price. Whatever you think about the necks, the thing's a FrankenP and should have been a bit cheaper. Mix 'n' Match stuff like this is usually hard to get rid of because knowledgeable buyers rightfully suspect that something's possibly wrong with the components or otherwise fishy.

I think I'd prefer the Highway ONE neck over the original, but a Highway 1 neck I wouldn't want. Lacking pictures we don't know which it is. It seems that a Highway ONE neck would have nuisance trussrod adjustment access on a RW body/PG.

The Highway One is like the AS neck, but built with a different production routine which is sometimes problematic, particularly with the cheaper long-caul fretting which sometimes results in badly-seated frets down most or all of the fingerboard, like this 2011 abortion, on a Highway One Precision:



If the HO neck is good, it's a relatively simple thing to do a light roll on the edge on a rosewood fretboard if you know what you're doing. If it's not good, I'd make them take it back.