Upgrades for Hof Icon

[RonChase]

I own 2 Hofner Icons 1 green one blk cherry I use them often and the tuners strip out,I did identical mods to both but with a mind towards returning to stock,(my wife owns the even more rare#7 of 40 Pink Icons) which she chose to leave untouched other than the fact she used my 2 for a year and when hers came in she asked me to swap the rounds for flat.But my 2 I went from stock rounds to Flatwounds I removed the pickguards I put strap locks and I removed the stock pegs for some metal pegs oh and I swapped the knobs(not the tea cup type)this has made these instruments more to my liking and I would be curious to hear from other Icon owners

 

[Rob Martinez]

I put tea cup knobs on my Icon bass, and took the pick guard off the black one for a cool, sleek look! I also turned the truss rod around on one so it is white and it looks kind of old school cool!

 

[RonChase]

and here is the other Icon it has the same treatment to the tuners and straplocks and PG removal but I went with black Fender knobs to make them somewhat different

 

[RonChase]

I posted this due to seeing a little more than average Hofner activity today and again I stress that these both have all the stock pieces put away

 

[RonChase]

thanks for the tip Rob Im turning the truss covers on mine right now

 

[SamanthaCay]

I’ve got a friend who owns one of theses and was too talking about how crappy the stock tuners where.
I had totally forgot about that until I read this.
So now I’m wondering what kind of tuners did you use, where they a direct fit replacement or did you have to drill for new holes?
It’s not so much a problem to modify it, it’s that he wants to keep it so that it can be returned to stock if need be.
Thanks in advance,
Samantha.

 

[RonChase]

I had a bunch of regular steel tuners strat type I unscrewed the gear and removed the peg then I loosened hofner strings one at a time unscrew the gear remove peg place strat peg in turn slightly till gear falls into place put the retaining screw back in tune string then go to next string till all 4 were replaced,We actually covered this on a cable access TV show at a music store,my next show Im getting a killer speaker put into my Carvin cab but I recomend this swap to all Hofner players and if originality is that important its easy to put everything back.It was only the E string on the green bass that went twice the other 3 pegs and the 4 pegs on the red one were fine,The Hofner rep even gave me 2 free replacements but after the last peg stripped I thought this can happen at a gig so I just did it and am glad I did