JIO vintage hybrid bass

JIO

Scott Lives
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Jun 30, 2010
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So... as what often happens with me, a vintage part is inspiring me to build a bass around it. The vintage part in question is a NOS '60s Japanese loaded pg & control-plate/pots/knobs. I bought it for a very reasonable price considering it's NOS condition, and that all the parts when & if they appear sell separately for as much or more than it cost me. This specific set-up was originally installed on short-scale Japanese basses with various brand names like Decca, Silvertone - one of 50 different brands under the Kawai Company. The seller had a number of them - must have bought out a factory close-out stash and they were never installed. The pots are rusted and will be replaced but everything works and in good condition.

1727726900751.jpeg

... as seen on this hard to read (Kay?) ss -
1727727587733.jpeg
1727727603454.jpeg

The control plate chrome once cleaned-up looks like new. (see polished area upper right) The chromed knobs are also somewhat rare - I have black and creme versions but was not aware they also chromed them. Pickguard material is semi-translucent/milky white (like Ric pg's) and in like-new condition, as is the pu chrome.
1727728246913.jpeg

looks brand new!
1727728872810.jpeg

Even the little vintage pointer rings sell seperately for more than you'd think -
1727728928499.jpeg

N-pu has a small corroded section and pole-screws needed lubrication.
1727728493611.jpeg

B-pu is in good shape -
1727728586810.jpeg

NOS pg - never installed
1727728684855.jpeg

You can pay as much for these vintage rocker switches as it cost me all together -
1727728745220.jpeg

For an equally affordable price, I bought this Johnson ('90s? - more recent) 34" scale neck.
1727727793495.jpeg

I like the Vox-like hs shape and large-post ferrules. Once I get it I'll be able to determine how it will be modified to work with the pu pole spacing. As in, I may need to narrow the neck so the strings are spaced evenly.
1727727954900.jpeg

Initial sketch of what a 34"-scale body could look like. Not certain what type of wood I'll use but it will be 1-1/4" thick as many of those '60s MIJ basses were. Jazzmaster/Jaguar-like which was the most copied guitar shapes of the '60s by guitar companies all over the world then. It always works for me!
1727729041237.jpeg

A '60s vintage MIJ tail-piece from my parts-bin. If I incorporate it I'll need a bridge -
1727729212402.jpeg

...like this one I have used before - all (pu-poles/tail-piece/bridge saddles) are narrow (2") spacing so that's why the neck will need to be narrowed.
1727729387442.jpeg
 
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Wow, that is too cool! The jack plate alone is worth building a bass around. Japanese Retro-Futurist stuff is the best. When I was a kid and my Mom took us to Sears to buy school clothes, I just wanted to hang out in the guitar section, where they had all kinds of strange Japanese basses and guitars, most with unplayably high action, but they looked like spaceships. I briefly owned an incredibly strange Japanese Hofner clone that had been future-ised, played like crap, but it looked SO cool. Sub'd
 
Wow, that is too cool! The jack plate alone is worth building a bass around. Japanese Retro-Futurist stuff is the best. When I was a kid and my Mom took us to Sears to buy school clothes, I just wanted to hang out in the guitar section, where they had all kinds of strange Japanese basses and guitars, most with unplayably high action, but they looked like spaceships. I briefly owned an incredibly strange Japanese Hofner clone that had been future-ised, played like crap, but it looked SO cool. Sub'd
I agree - you and I are on the same page! I remember witnessing in person as a kid the Sears Silvertone (Dano) black/silver glitter bodied guitars in their amplified HSC - hooked me then and continue to be hooked now! :bassist:

Here's a past use of similar parts creating a 34" scale hybrid bass - this new one will follow similar but divergent lines ;)

1727737496718.jpeg

It was built using a '60s mahogany Decca ss body & control-plate, Epi T-bird neck, Guild RI Darkstar pu, Hipshot KA bridge and Gotoh tuners. I cut the mint pearl pg to orig specs.
1727737571663.jpeg
 
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I agree - you and I are on the same page! I remember witnessing in person as a kid the Sears Silvertone (Dano) black/silver glitter bodied guitars in their amplified HSC - hooked me then and continue to be hooked now! :bassist:

Here's a past use of similar parts creating a 34" scale hybrid bass - this new one will follow similar but divergent lines ;)

View attachment 7042786
It was built using a '60s mahogany Decca ss body & control-plate, Epi T-bird neck, Guild RI Darkstar pu, Hipshot KA bridge and Gotoh tuners. I cut the mint pearl pg to orig specs.
View attachment 7042787
I don't care for the what is it? the tobacco sunburst of the first guitar. I don't like the color scheme and the white pick guard. But the relic sonic blue with the "face" plate is great. I would buy that guitar.

its a strange Japanese industrial design only they can do (or copy for that matter.)

and as @Gilmourisgod stated about Sears, I was a tad too young to remember much of what when down there other than the hot dogs, the clothing, and the requisite Santa pictures. I wish I had remembered the guitar section. I was unaware they carried Japanese imports. that must have been something back then.

I was more of a JC Penny school clothes kid. Husky jeans and

never the less, either one of the three wouldn't be out of place as a prop in the movie Brazil.
 
I sure remember those cool Japanese department store guitars. I bought my first guitar at Korvette's, an east coast chain. It's Heit brand, which I think is also Teisco? It's a Strat copy with a single single-coil pickup in the middle, $21.95. They also had a two pickup version for $27.95 and a top-line 3 pickup version for the outrageous price of $34.95. I couldn't afford them. I also remember a bass which was more like a Gibson SG for $44.95.

I also bought the matching (smallest) Heit guitar amp for $19.95. It drove 6 thundering watts of power through a 4" x 8" oval speaker. The circuit board was about 1" x 3". But the cabinet was about 14" wide x 18" tall x 6" deep. It looked like a Real Guitar Amp.

This would have been 1972, when I was 16. I was in the marching band (playing trombone), and the band director was a cool young guy. He agreed to help a small group of us get together after school and try to learn songs by that hot new band, Chicago. I proudly took my new Heit guitar and amp combo in and embarrassed myself. I remember trying to pound out the power chords of 25 or 6 to 4, and struggling. My career as a guitar player went mostly downhill from there.

I still have both the guitar and the amp stashed away here, pretty much unmodified.
 
Ha! Corvette's! I forgot about that one. I grew up in the Suburbs of Philly, we used to go to Corvette's. They had a weird assortment of stuff in the Sears music dept, sheet music, organs, etc. I remember they had one of those organs with 100 stops for different sounds and a built in "drum machine" of sorts, just a really crude first generation noise maker, really, with settings like "samba", "tango", and what we found most hilarious, "teen beat" setting. We HAD to switch that on every time we were at Sears, and then gyrate maniacally. Pissed off the salesman. All the guitars were floor models and had been hanging there under general abuse for years, missing parts, rusty strings, 1/2" high action, the works. But damn they looked cool. ALL of them had whammy bars, of course. . You had to order one out of the catalog, and it took 6-8 weeks to show up. A friend bought one of the their Les Paul copies that had "8 Built-In Guitar Effects", which was really just several variations on a bad phase shifter. We used to crank it up and flip the switches to general ridicule. He ripped all that out, the guitar itself was actually pretty well made, mahogany body, ebony board, decent hardware. That was his only guitar all through high school until he cracked the neck by doing the "head stock whammy bar" technique one too many times. The cool part of this project is using the Japanese fever-dream guitar aesthetic, but making it actually playable.
 
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So... as what often happens with me, a vintage part is inspiring me to build a bass around it. The vintage part in question is a NOS '60s Japanese loaded pg & control-plate/pots/knobs. I bought it for a very reasonable price considering it's NOS condition, and that all the parts when & if they appear sell separately for as much or less than it cost me. This specific set-up was originally installed on short-scale Japanese basses with various brand names like Decca, Silvertone - one of 50 different brands under the Kawai Company. The seller had a number of them - must have bought out a factory close-out stash and they were never installed. The pots are rusted and will be replaced but everything works and in good condition.

View attachment 7042635
... as seen on this hard to read (Kay?) ss -
View attachment 7042639 View attachment 7042640
The control plate chrome once cleaned-up looks like new. (see polished area upper right) The chromed knobs are also somewhat rare - I have black and creme versions but was not aware they also chromed them. Pickguard material is semi-translucent/milky white (like Ric pg's) and in like-new condition, as is the pu chrome.
View attachment 7042644
looks brand new!
View attachment 7042654
Even the little vintage pointer rings sell seperately for more than you'd think -
View attachment 7042655
N-pu has a small corroded section and pole-screws needed lubrication.
View attachment 7042646
B-pu is in good shape -
View attachment 7042649
NOS pg - never installed
View attachment 7042651
You can pay as much for these vintage rocker switches as it cost me all together -
View attachment 7042652
For an equally affordable price, I bought this Johnson ('90s? - more recent) 34" scale neck.
View attachment 7042642
I like the Vox-like hs shape and large-post ferrules. Once I get it I'll be able to determine how it will be modified to work with the pu pole spacing. As in, I may need to narrow the neck so the strings are spaced evenly.
View attachment 7042643
Initial sketch of what a 34"-scale body could look like. Not certain what type of wood I'll use but it will be 1-1/4" thick as many of those '60s MIJ basses were. Jazzmaster/Jaguar-like which was the most copied guitar shapes of the '60s by guitar companies all over the world then. It always works for me!
View attachment 7042656
A '60s vintage MIJ tail-piece from my parts-bin. If I incorporate it I'll need a bridge -
View attachment 7042657
...like this one I have used before - all (pu-poles/tail-piece/bridge saddles) are narrow (2") spacing so that's why the neck will need to be narrowed.
View attachment 7042659
Same pickups as on my Silvertone 1490 Dave’s National. They’re nice sounding.
 
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I don't care for the what is it? the tobacco sunburst of the first guitar. I don't like the color scheme and the white pick guard. But the relic sonic blue with the "face" plate is great. I would buy that guitar.

its a strange Japanese industrial design only they can do (or copy for that matter.)

and as @Gilmourisgod stated about Sears, I was a tad too young to remember much of what when down there other than the hot dogs, the clothing, and the requisite Santa pictures. I wish I had remembered the guitar section. I was unaware they carried Japanese imports. that must have been something back then.

I was more of a JC Penny school clothes kid. Husky jeans and

never the less, either one of the three wouldn't be out of place as a prop in the movie Brazil.
Thanks! I sold the blue bass a few years ago. I do these builds as projects that are eventually for sale. It's why I try to keep my costs down, otherwise they end up being more than someone would buy it for. I only want a small profit after adding up parts & labor. Or said another way, I don't want to lose money. :)

I bought my 1st bass in '66 from Woolworths Dept Store in Omaha Nebr. It cost $40. It was 34" scale, which they started to do in the later '60s. Just like the one this guy is playing. :bassist:

1727806168765.jpeg

1967
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I sure remember those cool Japanese department store guitars. I bought my first guitar at Korvette's, an east coast chain. It's Heit brand, which I think is also Teisco? It's a Strat copy with a single single-coil pickup in the middle, $21.95. They also had a two pickup version for $27.95 and a top-line 3 pickup version for the outrageous price of $34.95. I couldn't afford them. I also remember a bass which was more like a Gibson SG for $44.95.

I also bought the matching (smallest) Heit guitar amp for $19.95. It drove 6 thundering watts of power through a 4" x 8" oval speaker. The circuit board was about 1" x 3". But the cabinet was about 14" wide x 18" tall x 6" deep. It looked like a Real Guitar Amp.

This would have been 1972, when I was 16. I was in the marching band (playing trombone), and the band director was a cool young guy. He agreed to help a small group of us get together after school and try to learn songs by that hot new band, Chicago. I proudly took my new Heit guitar and amp combo in and embarrassed myself. I remember trying to pound out the power chords of 25 or 6 to 4, and struggling. My career as a guitar player went mostly downhill from there.

I still have both the guitar and the amp stashed away here, pretty much unmodified.
Thanks again for your input Bruce - peeps of our lineage were on the front-line of the tsunami surge of R&R popularity wanting to be a part of it all. At least that's how it was for me. I was clueless w/no family association of musicians - I just wanted in, and by chance gravitated to a bass. True story; standing in Woolworth's Dept Store in 1966 as a 13yr old staring at the guitars hanging behind the counter on the wall - there was only one bass, the rest were guitars. (all MIJ) I looked up and thought.., that one is bigger (I was tall for my age) and only has 4 strings - I want that one! (fate) I've tried to learn guitar over the years, but I'm a dyed-in-the-wool bass-player.

Amp-wise, it was months later that I finally got an amp - a Heathkit that my dad & I assembled. Solid State - it was "loud" (I was clueless about "tone") and I later cut the head/amp off the "combo" to make it easier to shlep.

1727828995244.jpeg
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I found a cool vintage Heathkit badge on eBay years ago which I planted on my Ashdown 550 Spyder amp (my main gigging amp) - cab is a '76 B15 that I installed a late '60s JBL D140r speaker in. "r" is for Rogers Organ, which along w/Fender "f" loaded that speaker.
1727829323668.jpeg
 
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I gott asK: Did your Woolworth's have parakeets and black velvet paintings, or was that regional to the one in Drexel Hill PA? That's my primary memory of Woolworths, the sound of parakeets.
It was a different world in 1966 - I have a foggy memory but it was a "department store" so I imagine there were parakeets & black velvet painting of sunsets and dogs. And a soda-fountain with stools where you could rest while shopping. Department stores were thee shopping mode then. Woolworths' (started in 1879!) were flat/one level, but others were multi-level. The big shopping malls where I lived began cropping up in the early '60s. ("Crossroads" mall - 1960 to be exact) Even that term "cropping up" could have referenced suburbs & shopping malls as they were built on what was originally crop-fields, at least in Omaha.

Origin of “Crop Up”​

The phrase “crop up” seems to have emerged from the allusion of the crops but its first printed evidence appeared in Mtallum Martis, a record of the mining business in England written by Dud Dudley and published in 1665, but it referred to coal as “cropping up.” Later, it was used extensively in the same sense. Simultaneously, its figurative image emerged in the writings of the Royal Asiatic Society back in 1832 with reference to limestone as cropping up on the oceanic surface.
 
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How’s that bridge-loaded Darkstar sound? Always been curious about that.
That one is a Guild RI Darkstar, so narrow (2" E to G) pole spacing. Novak sells Fender spacing but at over twice the price. I have used both and both sound great! I can't say if Novak's sound better - I think they both sound very much the same. They are among my favorite sounding single-coil pu's. This is my Teiscobird (w/Guild pu) which I use playing w/The Sean Conneries - (mid '60s Teisco Del Rey mahogany body, Hipshot KA bridge, Epi Goth T-bird neck, Gotoh tuners w/HS Drop-D, wired like my '65 Teisco Del Rey Short-scale.

1727897322318.jpeg

I've used it on a few recording of ours including this original by our guitarist Paul -

These are the Novak's - "Gojira" Fenderbird - with my removable strap-peg extension -
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Medium-scale full-custom Super SLX - Marty Bell deep cranberry sparkle finish -
1727897768669.jpeg

...and the "Devil Magnum" that Bruce has seen pics of - stunning finish by Pat Wilkins... this pic doesn't do it justice.
1727897879446.jpeg
 
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Here's an example of what these vintage Teisco parts sell for individually - for a comparison, the combined NOS 'loaded pg' I bought etc was $69.31 shipping & tax included...

I bought a few vintage Teisco V/T knob sets (cream & black) like these not that long ago for under 1/2 this asking price -
And here's a chromed set in poor condition - "no chips"... but Silver Plating/Paint is worn off in multiple areas... o-k...
yeah.., no -
I've bought a few of these pu's not that long ago for $25@
Theses are cool Teisco knobs, but $30@ cool?
I've bought a couple of these rocker-switches for under $25@ not that long ago - I sill have a set
 
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It was a different world in 1966 - I have a foggy memory but it was a "department store" so I imagine there were parakeets & black velvet painting of sunsets and dogs. And a soda-fountain with stools where you could rest while shopping. Department stores were thee shopping mode then. Woolworths' (started in 1879!) were flat/one level, but others were multi-level. The big shopping malls where I lived began cropping up in the early '60s. ("Crossroads" mall - 1960 to be exact) Even that term "cropping up" could have referenced suburbs & shopping malls as they were built on what was originally crop-fields, at least in Omaha.
Sounds familiar, the one in Drexel Hill was one-story, and still had the soda fountain/diner counter with stools. They had a whole range of black velvet paintings like matadors fighting bulls, Spanish Senoritas, and, most memorably, a painting of Elvis, staring soulfully into the far distance, with a single tear rolling down his cheek.
 
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Brother you are a mad scientist can't wait to see what you make it's going to be awesome
Probably right about being mad! ;) Reminded me of an early band pic of ours - this impromptu couple (left & prone) felt compelled to get in the action! FTR, Kirstin's left hand is resting on her own leg, not the reclining woman's... er... posterior! (I'm the one in the middle and it appears I couldn't move my left hand fast enough before she landed!) It's one of my favorite fun pics of our band. (now on our third drummer!)

1727903201357.jpeg

I miss Steve (right) - he & his wife moved to Santa Cruz a couple years ago now. He's a really good drummer - check out the ending on this Dusty Springfield song we play - Steve nails it!
 
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Sounds familiar, the one in Drexel Hill was one-story, and still had the soda fountain/diner counter with stools. They had a whole range of black velvet paintings like matadors fighting bulls, Spanish Senoritas, and, most memorably, a painting of Elvis, staring soulfully into the far distance, with a single tear rolling down his cheek.
~sigh~ I miss those innocent pre-ironic days! :sorry: :)