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Light Weight P Bass - Where and How?
- Thread starter bjornkom
- Start date
Once upon a time I wanted to see just how light I could assemble a single coil P bass from available parts so I bought a very lightweight slab body made of Paulownia from Guitar Mill, an Allparts neck, a Lace Sensor Alumitone Strat pickup, small potentiometers, standard control plate, plastic pickguard, Gotoh Res-O-Lite tuners, aluminum strap buttons, plastic knobs, threaded saddle bent plate bridge, standard neck plate and neck screws, and an Electrosocket.
It weighed just under 6lbs.
I've since switched to shortscales so I recently replaced the Allparts neck with a shortscale SX neck with no noticeable change in weight.
It weighed just under 6lbs.
I've since switched to shortscales so I recently replaced the Allparts neck with a shortscale SX neck with no noticeable change in weight.
Maruszczyk Jakes with chambered swamp ash bodies and Hipshot Ultralite hardware are 7 pounds or so.
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Nothing "geezer" about it, I've been a fan of light easy to play basses since I was about 20.
That was just one of many I've assembled in the decades since.
Yeah, but now there's a market. You see the same posts and "weight" threads that I do. Light basses aren't outliers anymore.
Tell me about Paulownia wood for bass? Any impressions/experiences to share? Pine might be another option. I have a few pine guitars that I quite like.
The context with which we began was slab basses/solidbodies like Precisions. If we shift to hollows, then heavy basses would be the outliers.
I've used Paulownia for 3 basses, a J, the SCPB and a Mustang. The Mustang body is quite soft but the J and SCPB bodies are not as soft. The SCPB body is my favorite.
Hofner produced solidbodies as well. The couple I have, and to which I was referring, would be considered lighter at a bit over 7 lbs.
Paulownia is a very light, very resonant wood long used in Chinese luthierie and other wood industries. I bought one body to mate with a Fender Jazz 24 neck. By itself on a digital bathroom scale, the body weighs 2.5 pounds.
It also is a very soft wood. Absent a hard finish, set it on a crumb and you will get a dent.
Guitar Fetish (GFS) sells Paulownia bodies as well as bodies made from more traditional, heavier woods. For about the cost of one of these you can buy an entire bass off the web, Glarry being an example. There are a number of threads on TB discussing these uber-light basses, which quite often come in at below six pounds.
You are right; I had quite forgotten those solid body Hofners. Never owned one or knew anyone who did, but I did see a few on shop walls when I was much, much younger.
