1960s Teisco/Kawai Violin-Style Hollowbody Electric Bass Guitar

How many of these have I worked on? I've lost count, for sure. This bass, and many variations like it, pass through the doors of the shop at least a few times a year. They're all ok instruments but they all benefit greatly from being overhauled top to bottom. This one came in with a lot of gross on it, but it already had a replacement wiring harness (yay) installed. I just had to swap-out the jack -- but someone went to the trouble to stick a big Switchcraft 3-way in there and CTS pots as well -- how about that?

Like so many other Teisco/Kawai creations from the time, the neck has a mild backbow starting around the 12th fret and running up towards the neck pickup. This means the action "appears" higher at the end of the fretboard but is "on the dot" at the 12th fret -- and if you're an average bassist, are you playing much beyond the octave anyway on a bass like this with its low-end bump sound?

So, after leveling/dressing the frets and giving it a good clean, I also installed a dowel support rod through the middle of the bass to shore-up the bad neck joints on these. It helps the stability a lot as the neck no longer wants to dive into the body when tuning-up or moving-around with the instrument.

I put on the heaviest random "take-off" strings I could find hanging-around the workshop to try to help with the neck backbow issue and it helped bring it closer to true with the truss rod just barely engaged.