Shopping

Let's hit EBAY.

First snag is the bridge cover. Strange place to start, but it was on a cheap Buy-It-Now, so that's the first part I grabbed.

For the body, I found a stripped Squier Precision body for $5. Cost me more to ship it! It's ply, which may look pretty bad, but this is a "beater" anyway, and worst case it gives me something to cut into and screw up.

I picked up a second body - it was fully loaded, so that's a bridge, P-Pickup, and wiring sorted. Plus a spare body just in case (tobacco sunburst - may be good to "relic" it). There's a pickguard but it's white, so it can go in the spares bucket.

The pickup wasn't too tough, but I did have to order it form the USA. It's a generic EB replacement, rather the than the Dimarzio models, which will look the part. The DiMarzio's are black, but we need silver.

The neck turned out to be a toughy. A Tele style neck is out of the question - a real one is crazy cash, and finding a copy isn't going to happen. Even finding a cheap used neck was tough, because of the requirement of the maple fretboard. Loads of cheap rosewood fretboards - in fact I'd have considered just picking up a cheap used P if there was such a thing with a maple fretboard.

I finally found a "slight second" new neck from an ebay parts dealer. It's a P-style headstock, so it'll need reshaping, but other than that it's good. I also picked up most of the odds and ends (extra pot, jack, tuners) etc. At this stage I noticed that Billy's bass may have a brass nut. I could have sourced one of these pretty easily, but it wouldn't fit the neck without some cutting. I decided to go with a plastic nut, and maybe add the brass one later on.

The hipshot was going to be a big hit in the budget - no cheapskating options are available, as there's basically only one manufacturer. Fortunatly one came up on ebay, and I got if for half price.

I also bid on a couple of extra bridges - they were basically free, as no one bid on them. I'm not sure which I'll use. It doesn't really matter as the bridge is hidden by the cover anyway. I did consider a bridge you could hook the strings into rather than threading them, which would make life easier with the bridge cover, but I decided to go with something more classic.

That just leaves the pickguard - should be simple to get, though the red shell finish makes it a bit harder. I'll pick one up soon. There was one on ebay, but I figured I'd get one cheaper.

All of this stuff was ordered over the course of the last week. None of it is here yet though. In the end it added up to a bit more than I expected for a cheapskate project - unavoidable and distinctive features that you wouldn't find on a regular bass, like the EB pickup and the hipshot bumped things up quite a bit.

I just hope it all fits together when it does arrive...