1960s Framus Star Bass Hollowbody Electric Bass Guitar

This is a strange version of the early Star Bass body -- fully-hollow, in this case, and with everything "surface-mounted" and hanging off of a pickguard like an old-fashioned jazz guitar.

It arrived here needing love. The neck angle was off (and someone had attempted to sand the top under the neck pickup to get it down farther so the strings wouldn't fret-out on its casing) and the bridge top/saddle had been recut a lot lower because of this.

Work was straight-ahead but tedious. The neck got reset, the frets got a level/dress, I made a new top/saddle for the bridge, fit some vintage-correct tuners (not pictured, sorry), repaired the wiring harness (several connections had gotten loose inside), added a ground wire to the tailpiece, and set it all up.

Post-repairs it's lightweight, has a bouncy and full sound, and plays a treat. The neck is the usual narrow, mid-depth, Framus-feeling thing. In many ways it handles a lot like a "Beatle Bass" of the Hofner variety, but maybe with a slightly clunkier overall build.

The funny thing about Framus products is that they're interesting in build and character but are almost over-engineered. In this case it has a master volume control and a pickup selector but then the tone control (first "lever") allows for switching the cap "on" for different pickup mixes in different positions. I can't think of anyone who would actually use this on the fly all that much because it's confusing to remember what each position does. To boot, the engineers at Framus left-out the quite-important ground to the strings from the circuit, even while putting the whole wiring harness in a grounded "sardine tin."

Last note: the body is made from super-multi-ply maple like they use in their necks -- but cut thin as a veneer plywood instead. It looks cool but it sure is odd.