Making my bass lighter

I’d go with calling the OEM and discussing a lighter body.
If you start carving and chambering the body you run the risk of changing the tone of the bass and losing what you love about it.
Also check Talkbass or eBay for a lightweight body.

 

Just get one of these and play the bass. I use it for my 10lb+ 6 string and it makes it feel like half that. I'm over 60 with a bad back and it works great. Better than butchering up a nice bass.
DuoStrap Signature™

 

I took my 73 4001ric and sanded down the sharp body edges ( cutting into my arms a bit too much for comfort)to get a look that I saw McCartney had done in a modification.It worked and it still looks great 46 years later . However the price I had to pay was the bass becoming a neck-diver. In hind-sight I wish I'd have left it alone, but... I was young.I hope the project works out for you.

 

Ah, but would it have jazz?

 

The neck and tuners are off limits. Realistically that leaves the body and knobs. New body made of roasted alder or roasted swamp ash and use light weight knobs. A lighter aluminum bridge may be a possibility if you’re doing a new body. But, I think that in the end you’re going to find that you’re losing the magic that you love in this bass.

 

I've used this with heavier instruments. Really makes a huge difference!!

Comfort Strapp™ – Comfort Strapp™ Guitar Straps

 

Get light weight tuners maybe (-5 oz). Get rid of the bridge and go bent plate maybe (-6 to 10 oz). Get rid of the knobs and use rubber washers maybe (-3 oz). Get aluminium strap buttons maybe (- .05 oz). Get rid of the metal control plate and cut a plastic one maybe (-3 or 4 oz). Find titanium neck bolt screws.......if they exist (- 1 oz).

What does this add up to in weight reduction? I'm too lazy to do it.

Final solution. Sit on a stool.



DO NOT CHOP UP YOUR BODY!!!!!!!!!!

 

When you get your postal scale, please weigh the stripped body, the stripped neck, and the hardware, and report back. If you concentrate all of your weight reduction tactics on the body alone, you risk ending up with an unbalanced instrument. You can shed up to a half pound by swapping out for lightweight tuners, and a half pound on the end of a long pole can feel like a pound!

 

Sell it and buy a lighter bass.

 

Short of messing up the guitar there's not much. You can replace the tuners and Reduce the weight by 2 oz. Ibanez used to make a all composite bass that was pretty light

 

Be careful....it could effect resale. No doubt this hasn't done well on Reverb....what was he thinking???

 

Sell it and buy a new bass. Butchering a body might loose the tone you like.

 

I have a small herd of basses, all of which are under 8 pounds. Most are under 7.5, and one is 6.6 - all full scale. You don't make a light bass by focusing on one thing - every part counts. I have a kitchen scale that goes up to 11 pounds; I know the weigh of every one of my basses, and they got there partly by me knowing what every part of the bass weighs. All my basses have aluminum hardware - including tuners, bridges, even knobs and the neck attachment plate. They all (except the fretless) have roasted necks - that helps a bit. Most have chambered bodies - the ones that don't are a smaller body style, and I knew the weight when I bought the body (Warmoth will do that for you in their showcase). As to diy chambering, it does work, but probably not as much as you'd think. One of my basses had a body that was a bit heavier than I wanted, so I did this:


That took 1/3rd of a pound out of it. That was enough for what I wanted to do, but if your bass is 3 pounds overweight, you ain't gonna get there by body routing alone. Notice it's more or less solid through the middle of the body - making sure the neck has a stable platform. Even then, one of those holes broke through a bit into the neck pickup route - it's not something you ever notice, but it's something you have to think about when you begin to hog out a body.

 

Those pickups look like they weigh 2 lbs. each. Try some alumitones?

 

I don’t know why you want to avoid changing the tuners. HIPshot ultralights would be my first mod.

 

I would be seriously concerned about removing too much weight from the body and making the bass a neck diver.

One possibility, 90's Peavey Foundations were really light, and the neck profile seems very similar, with similar pickup configuration. Maybe you could pick up one cheap off eBay and see if transferring the pickups, controls, and neck from yours would work. To be honest, I have a beat up old Foundation body in my garage. I'd probably be willing to contribute to see if it would work. I'm sure you'd have to do some pickup routing, but otherwise it might work great.

 

The absolute first thing I'd consider when lightening a bass would be tuners. Lighter tuners will never hurt the balance of a bass, they're always a positive. Plus, if you're going to make other stuff lighter, you'll need lighter tuners to make sure you don't create a neck diver. A neck diver is worse than a heavy bass that balances - it twists your back, rather than just loading it a little more.

 

get out the forstner and go to town

 

The easiest way to reduce weight of a bass is to sell the bass and buy a new lighter bass.

 

Taking advantage of my experience (i've done this a few times. learn from my mistakes), I'd suggest you grab the masking tape and a ruler first, mark out exactly where you want the holes in an evenly spaced array, and then grab the Forstner bit. If you don't plan where they go, they'll end up looking rather....haphazard. It may not make any difference to the sound, but there's more pride in a job done "neatly". And know that you probably want some paint or stain and poly to seal up the holes and make them look "nice".