Major body mod/refinishing my Hamer SB4f - Project Thread

[diablo_man]

And it's back together!!!

And from the front for a size comparison, to my 25.5" scale Carvin dc727

 

[diablo_man]

Sorry, only indoor shots today.

Some minor hardware stuff will be switched out when it arrives(black screws on plate and neckjoint, a abalone knob to match for the Tone, black jackplate), and Im sure I'll be doing some fiddling with the bridge set up(currently at 20mm spacing, original bass was 18mm), but otherwise its about as complete as its gonna get for a while.

Im just glad to have finally broken through the wall on the finishing, (which looks great up close), achieved a pretty decent gloss. Not as clear and shiny as my carvins/kiesels, but thats no surprise for a homebrew job.

The main goal(Comfort) has been achieved. I can now easily reach every fret on the neck, it rests easy against my torso especially when standing, and most importantly the arm bevel is a godsend. Huge improvement.

It never was particularly poorly balanced, but with a good leather strap/schaller straplocks, and probably the extra tail weight of the Hipshot badass bridge, there is really not much neck dive to speak of. Do wish the upper horn was a inch or two longer and it would be perfect, but this is totally useable.
Since it seems like some earlier pics in this thread have died, I'll repost a couple Before shots for comparison.

pretty big change front and back!

 

[diablo_man]

Its pretty overcast out, but outdoor pictures beat indoor any day.

For a closer look at the bellycut/arm contour intersection. All the work was worth it just for how much nicer that makes it to play, never mind the aesthetics.

 

[diablo_man]

Plan to play it a while as is, maybe assess doing new pickups down the road. Lace Alumitones and Nordstrands seem like they would fit nice, any one else have suggestions for passive soapbar style Pickups that would fit (4" x 1 3/8th")? Not being crazy expensive would be a plus, be neat to have them coil splittable if humbuckers, dont really know if that is a thing on bass.

It is undoubtably "My Bass" now, since its not like any of these mods have really added value I might as well work on it more as I see fit.

Even brought up doing a new neck to fit it, since the red gloss clashes aesthetically, dont like the slammer logo up top and refinishing the neck would likely both ruin it and be crazy expensive/time consuming. Gloss is nice but tung is better as well. A somewhat smaller more triangular shaped headstock with straight string pull like this one would be super cool.


Luthier friend said somewhere in the 250-300 CAD range if we did a multi lam neck which seems pretty reasonable, I'd be joining in on the labour where possible.

Might be a bit ridiculous to spend this much effort and money on a pawn shop bass, but I do love it, and I'd end up with essentially a new custom bass, with only the basswood of the original body being left over. Idle thoughts for a later time!

 

[diablo_man]

Here's a short video I took outside(probably as good sunlight as we can expect for a while, sadly)

 

[ColonelZulu]

Here's a short video I took outside(probably as good sunlight as we can expect for a while, sadly)

Amazing

 

[diablo_man]

Got some good sunny pictures! Minor changes in these, some major ones incoming I'll list below.

So far: A new Graphtec Nut, which is amazing. Original plastic nut looked like poopie, had super uneven string spacing(like several mm out). New one was a night and day difference for playability. Cant speak for it being any better sounding, who knows.

Got the neck ferrules sitting straight, they had some of the gloss finish pooled in the holes, caused the ferrules to sit all wonky, easy to see in some older pics.

Got all the hardware matching, nice black plate screws, neck screws, jack plate and a third abalone knob to match.

 

[diablo_man]

Incoming, ordered a pair of Bartolini Original M44C soapbars off reverb, will be wiring them up for series, parallel and split coil with 2 small 3 way toggles. Feel i got a decent price on them, really not much out there for soapbars that are even close in dimensions to these odd ducks(hamer pickups are 4 x 1 3/8th inches, which is super uncommon. Bartolinis are slightly wider at 4x1.5

May need slight routing, but should be very close. Looking forward to the new sounds!

And its only a matter of time before I go whole hog on a new neck for it too. Been chatting with luthier friend, he says about 250-300 canadian for a stainless steel fretted multilam 5pc neck. Thinking Caribbean rosewood board, possibly extending it to 22 or 24 fret just for the hell of it. Even if just for tapping the odd high note. Would love ziricote but price and difficulty to work killed that.

Would be nice to get rid of the red gloss, have a proper tung oiled set up, smaller headstock and straight stringpull. Fully aware this is not a efficient way to end up with a custom bass, but what the hell.

 

[diablo_man]

Oh, never posted updates with the new pickups and wiring!

Took a little routing to clean up the pickup routes and slightly widen them for the Barts, i think we also sunk dowels in under where the screws went to lift em up more and have a bit more meat for the screws.

electronics, big switch is a three way for pickup selecting(im a guitarist at heart, really dislike using blend knobs and double volumes, prefer a nice switch), Volume and Tone knob, the 2 microswitches are both 3 position, doing humbucking series, humbucking parallel and split coil for each respective pickup. So i get 9 distinct sounds to fiddle with just out of the center position. Really great tone from this bass now imo.

 

[ejaggers]

Super Sexy!!!!!

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