Best Place to buy hardware, electronics

[Darkhorse5000]

I'm building my first Bass right now, and although I have been playing for years, it's not until I'm building one do I realize how many different pieces of hardware and electronics actually go into one of these things. Anyway, I can find just about everything I need online, but they're in multiple locations. All of the sites claim that their materials are of the highest quality, but how does one really know? I guess what I would like to know is, Where are the best places to go to get Pickup's/harnesses bridges/nuts/fretwire Machine heads/inlay material etc.... . One thing I have not found at all are those things that screw into pot posts, so the knob can be screwed on (I want to make my own knobs). If I knew what they were called I could probably find them. So, If you have any advice, please chime in. I'll post some pics of my progress as soon as I take some.

 

[mikeyswood]

Electronics, bridges, and tuners are my largest expense. I am lucky enough to be working with a guy that is building his repair business and is a dealer for the parts that I use.

Justin is a dealer for Hipshot, Nordstrand, Fender, AllParts, and a few others. You can email him for prices on parts that you want: [email protected]

Otherwise:

Onlinemetals.com for nut and cover material
LMII.com for fretwire
Beaches of New Zealand for my inlay material
McMaster-Carr for my threaded inserts
A local Ace for my Hillman screws
A plater here in Cincinnati for my plating of those screws

 

[Darkhorse5000]

thanks for the tips, I'll look into those. I see you're in Cincy, so if you know of any more local places, that would be helpful too, as I am in Dayton

 

[mikeyswood]

Aside from Justin, there is nothing that I buy locally; except for domestic woods.

 

[bassmanhamilton]

A couple to add to Mikey's list.
Brian at bestbassgear.com is a great source. Great guy with a lot of knowledge to go along with his products.
Dragonplate for carbon fiber
stewmac

 

[Darkhorse5000]

I've looked around a lot and the best place I can find for the kind of parts a newbie would want is guitarfetish.com , especially for the bridges that they offer. They look very solid and are about $20.

Let me clarify; As a newbie I don't want garbage on there, but since I'm still learning, I dont want top of the line either.

 

[Jason_A]

Lots of good sources already listed. I'll also throw out Grizzly and Guitar Parts Central for lower priced stuff. I think both carry decent quality stuff (probably wouldn't consider it high end, but good) and really good prices. Carvin even has some decent parts (and pretty good string prices).

 

[Rob17]

What about StewMac?
Is that any good?
I 've never bought anything there, due to the high shipping costs overseas.
Don't know how their prices are compared to others, but they do have alot of stuff.

 

[Beej]

Stewmac is good, but can be expensive, and sells a lot of handy tools and devices that can be fairly easily made at home for a lot less money and a bit of ingenuity. And I'll second LMII as many will.

A point of note, many products cannot be shipped by air and therefore might not be available if one lives outside the US - this goes for all of the suppliers in the US that were listed. I find it best to email or call someone at the place rather than just place an online order and find out its been cancelled two weeks later. In addition, shipping costs can be so prohibitive it makes much more sense to find something locally. There are lots of things that I've had to source locally or have found via distributors based in Canada...

 

[tjclem]

"Brian at bestbassgear.com is a great source. Great guy with a lot of knowledge to go along with his products."

 

[Dark Horse]

I'm building my first Bass right now, and although I have been playing for years, it's not until I'm building one do I realize how many different pieces of hardware and electronics actually go into one of these things. Anyway, I can find just about everything I need online, but they're in multiple locations. All of the sites claim that their materials are of the highest quality, but how does one really know? I guess what I would like to know is, Where are the best places to go to get Pickup's/harnesses bridges/nuts/fretwire Machine heads/inlay material etc.... . One thing I have not found at all are those things that screw into pot posts, so the knob can be screwed on (I want to make my own knobs). If I knew what they were called I could probably find them. So, If you have any advice, please chime in. I'll post some pics of my progress as soon as I take some.

Nothing to add except "I like your screen name".