Weird idea coming together: Pino Sklar on a Hoppus body

This is what my brain does when I'm sick as a dog and cannot sleep.

OK, who am I kidding, my brain does this all the time

My friend Dave planted this idea to build a Leland Sklar inspired reverse P-bass in my head. Which is cool, but I really like the classic fiesta red / tort / rosewood (Pino P bass) color combo.

I love the idea of a double P pickup, always have, and the inverted P is intriguing. So then I was thinking, where can I get a Fender body that will fit a tort guard with inverted P pickup rout? Well, the Fender Mark Hoppus signature bass of course! I could honestly care less about Blink 182 but this bass has some features I like: inverted P, string through body bridge, etc.

So...see the attached TERRIBLE mockup and try to envision it in fiesta red with EMGs instead of Duncans.

So here is the tentative plan and associated costs:

-Obtain Hoppus body - either get a beat used one and sell everything until it's "just the wood" or find an unloaded body: $100-$200
-Have finish professionally stripped: $50ish
-MJT professional nitro faded fiesta red/coral/salmon finish $275
-MIJ RI '62 Fender Jazz neck, vint tint & rosewood: $225 (already have)
-Hoppus multi ply tort pickguard from WD or Chandler: $100
-Side Jack rout $25
-Pickup routing $90
-Battery box routing $45
-Active EMGs $125 (already have)
-Hoppus string through body bridge $45 - assuming one does not come with the body
-Misc other stuff - shipping, small pats, etc: $100 - $150
-Fender case $125

Total $1305 to $1455

Pricy, yes, but this is estimating everything on the high side, and I had budgeted about $1800 for my next weird idea.

And before anyone says it, no, it would not be cheaper to do everything from Warmoth - I already priced that out.

And no, I am not going to strip/finish myself - been there done that, ReRanch has a lot of my money and I spent many hours failing at that whole process and quickly learned you can pay other people to do a better job.

 

OK I lied, I could maybe get a Warmoth ash body for $200 with no pickup routs and save myself the cost of the stripping charge, battery box routing, and side input jack drilling.

 

OK a little over $1400 with Warmoth body, but I also threw in an EMG BTC system preamp.

 

The original pickup rout or control cavity?

I am actually thinking Warmoth ash now. Just emailed them to see if they can custom rout. But they would need to use the Hoppus pickguard as a cookie cutter template.

 

I now see what Dave (bassvirtuoso) is saying - this whole inception was planted in my brain by him anyway, lol.

See the attached crude mockup I cannibalized from Warmoth's site. I very crudely took MS Paint and made a P and J body the same picture size. Flipped the pickups, figured out where on the J body a traditional P rout would be, and then put one flipped pickup above it and one directly below it. The bottom one is close, but it's gonna run into the J pickguard/control plate unless it is moved down a little bit and/or the pickguard is modified. My "bridge pickup" is even a little hair too far to the right, but even moving it left a bit...bam, pickguard/control plate

 

The best solution may to be to do a rear routed body, STILL do a pickguard though it would have to be heavily customized and be something like an Alleva Coppolo Jazz.. see below. Some people hate that kind of free-floating knob train, but I kinda dig it.

 

At this point, it may be too complicated.

I'd need a rear-routed ash Warmoth J body, MJT fiesta red finish, Alleva Coppolo style tort guard, a bunch of money, and a lot of patience. Lol.

 

It's true. I'm trying to cram as many bass ideas into one bass as possible while simultaneously keep it uncomplicated and use as many stock parts as possible. Mission: impossible.

 

Yeah I've pretty much abandoned the "Hoppus" part of this equation. Still considering the rest. Maybe.

 

Ideally both pickups should be inverted.

This may work yet, though, might have scored a super cheap Squier on Craigslist just to test this out on. Already have a nice MIJ reissue neck on the way.

 

Flipped the pickups, figured out where on the J body a traditional P rout would be, and then put one flipped pickup above it and one directly below it.