Sammy Sosa corked his BAT, why not CORK a BASS?

Find a light one.
My Fender P5 weighs 8.6 pounds.

 

Heh. Well, the common solution is even better than corking: it's chambering. Air is even lighter than cork, after all!

Here's a chambered Sadowsky:


And then there are semi-hollow basses... here's a fancy one:

 

There is no string tension on a bat. Plus, if the thing breaks in half, that is actually celebrated. There is nothing cooler in baseball than a broken bat homer (other than possibly knocking the cover off the ball).

Not so much in the bass world. There would only be laughter at a broken neck bass solo.

Again, if it could be done cheaply enough and well enough somebody would have done it. It would think that chambers in the body and switching out all the heavy metal for lightweight stuff would make more of a difference as well.

 

It takes nothing but being more selective with your body and neck blanks to hit 9lbs, or less.
I have 8 active J5's (I know, I have a problem) and all weigh 9lbs or less.

 

Why would you buy a bass sight unseen?
Why would you not ask what it weighs?

 

It may cause some neck dive.

 

Chambering is the way to go. If you want to lighten a heavy bass, and lighter hardware isn't enough, you're going to have to drill some holes in it. I don't think filling those holes with cork will do much for the integrity of the instrument (structurally or sonically) if the chambering was done correctly.

 

Hollowing out the body and replacing it with cork would almost certainly change the way the bass sounded. Unless you are considering it money spent towards an education, you'd be better off just selecting a lighter bass to start with rather than putting in all that work with significant risk of a negative result.

 

This is not true.
Sweetwater even posts weights now.
And, I had in fact asked MF and GC sales people to weigh basses for me, and, they've done it.

If you want to buy a 12lb StingRay or whichever, new, and then wreck it's re-sale chambering it, go ahead.

I'll just ask first.

 

I would guess that, cork being a soft material, it would dampen vibrations. How much effect that would have on the sound, if any, and if it is good or bad, I have no clue.

I wouldn't be surprised if some luthier has tried it though.

 

+1. Sadowsky already does this with great results. His 7.8 lb J5ers aren't made from special trees. No need to fill the gaps with cork.

 

I understand Sadowsky does this. They do it as part of their build process though; not as method to fix a heavy bass you bought online.
They route, then cap the body, and then finish the bass.

 

Bass Central and The Perfect Bass post weights, too.

 

Warmoth and Carvin offer chambered bodies on certain models too.