$100 Saddle on a $10 Horse? Sure!

[HaphAsSard]

I had thought about going BEAD but as it seems to not have a rod, I may defer from that. Even though it has a big strong looking neck.

It's weird how often this comes up, the misconception that BEAD>EADG in tension.
How large is the G the bass is currently wearing? .040? Well, a .130 B from the same make and model is about that tension, give or take a pound or two. Is the G a .045? Rejoice: no gauge of B string, up to and including .145, exceeds the tension of the G you would swap out!

 

[bholder]

I took an SX fretless I wasn't playing and did the following to it:

- Replaced the neck with a fretted SX neck (and I bought a couple of them to get one that felt right!)

- Replaced the stock pickups with Nordstrand NJ5S pickups

- Added an Audere 4-band preamp and replaced the stock knobs with chrome Audere knobs

- Replaced the stock white pickguard with a custom cut WD Music 4-ply tort pick guard

- Replaced the stock strap locks with Ernie Ball strap locks

- Replaced the stock bridge with a Hipshot "A" style bridge

- Replaced the stock tuners with Hipshot Ultralite tuners

- Added a roller-style string tree to the headstock

- Had a professional luthier do all of the assembly and also cut a new side jack since the Audere preamp used all four holes on the control plate.

Even buying all but the preamp and the pickguard used, I still spent probably 4-5 times what the original bass cost on parts and labor. Was it cost effective? Hell no! This was probably one of the stupidest financial decisions I've ever made! But I had fun learning some things about basses, I have a unique instrument that is tailored to me and valuable only to me, I have a bass that sounds FANTASTIC in a band setting, and it's a great dive bar bass that would never get the attention of anyone considering stealing it simply because of the SX label on the headstock.

It took me a while to finally bring it out to play with the band but I did that recently and, even though they gave me some strange looks when I took it out of the case, they loved how it sounded. So did I!

The "dive bar stealth bomber" approach!

 

[RedVee]

It's weird how often this comes up, the misconception that BEAD>EADG in tension.
How large is the G the bass is currently wearing? .040? Well, a .130 B from the same make and model is about that tension, give or take a pound or two. Is the G a .045? Rejoice: no gauge of B string, up to and including .145, exceeds the tension of the G you would swap out!

Ok. The strings currently are of that popular brand and type 'unknown' .
I figure that the music I intend for it probably doesn't need a B.
I have a couple of sets of 'near new' DR Hi Beams from a Stingray owner that I'm going to try next. I'm hoping the shorter G will fit as this is 33 'and a bit' " scale rather than 34.
But I also have a few B strings around.

This will be a try things out bass, thanks for the reply re the BEAD possibilities.

 

[bassbenj]

Sometimes when you bolt on a bunch of hot rod parts, the instrument looses its’ soul and becomes generic.
Sometimes not.

And sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I picked up this 60's shortscale Welson bass that was sort of a relic. Decide to restore it for both look and later I found out it had a very interesting tone. But to make it play well enough to play out (not particularly to play a whole gig but to play a few numbers for the look and make a statement) it needed some "adjustments". One thing was the tuners. The original used GUITAR tuners! Retch! Well that had to go especially since someone else had swapped them out years ago. But half the replacements were missing too. So I had to pick out something decently vintage and make them fit the head stock. Took a bit of doing and scrounging through a couple guitar repair guy's junk boxes but did get a nice looking/working set of tuners.

My bridge looks like yours too, but is missing it's cover (Has this cool huge W on it). So I cleaned and fixed the bridge hoping to find a vintage cover for it someday. But I can see swapping out the bridge to make it play right too. I used to play short scale a lot back when I played 4 strings, and now whipping out the Welson is just a blast. But I wouldn't want to play a whole evening on it like the old days!