1950s Kay Archtop Rubber Bridge Electric Bass Conversion

Overview: This is a funky old '50s Kay jumbo archtop guitar that I've modified into a rubber bridge bass. I've done this to a good number of instruments, now, and it's a great way to get extra mileage out of a guitar that's not quite interesting or too funky to use as-normal. This one had a lot of funky repairs when it came in via trade and it's come out of surgery a useful, excellent-sounding bass with a look and vibe all its own.

Interesting features: Aside from the huge amount of old repairs, the coolest bit about it is the pure funkiness. It has a completely-resprayed body, for starters. Someone preserved the neck binding's color and the cream details at the headstock but they sprayed-over the tortoise-colored highlights underneath the headstock veneer's black. I scraped some of that off to leave a tortoise border up there. The neck itself has a great feel for bass playing -- it has a bigger back profile but a very-curvy board radius and a narrower nut width that makes it feel cozy as a boom-de-boom player. This same profile might drive me crazy if it were a guitar! I'm also very happy with the "center" placement of the pickup -- it has good mwah and thump but there's also a good attack to the sound that one loses a bit when you fit it directly at the end of the fretboard like I usually do for rubber bridge mods.

Repairs included: I reset the neck, leveled/dressed the frets, added side dots cleaned-up the headstock a bit, modified the headstock to have 4 Schaller tuners instead of 6, cut the top and fit a lipstick pickup and fit a wiring harness, modified the endblock/top area to make an "integral tailpiece" mod, and made a new adjustable bridge with a rubber saddle topper. It's playing spot-on and is fit for service.

• Weight: 4 lbs 11 oz
• Scale length: 25 3/4"
• Nut width: 1 5/8"
• Neck shape: medium-bigger C
• Board radius: ~9"
• Body width: 17"
• Body depth: 3 1/2"
• Body wood: solid spruce over ply maple
• Bridge: adjustable w/rubber saddle
• Fretboard: rosewood (painted black)
• Neck wood: maple
• Pickups: 1x Alnico lipstick-style single coil
• Action height at 12th fret: 3/32" bass to 1/16" treble (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 95w-35w extra light nickel-wound bass strings
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: wider/lower

Condition notes: Curiously-enough, this guy had a repaired heel when it arrived (it's split around the halfway mark) and the whole body, fretboard, and headstock had been painted black. I could tell there were a number of old crack repairs to the top (they're good to go) and, for some reason the tortoise binding that would have been original to the body was replaced with black binding so the body is black-on-black. Odd! There's wear in evidence throughout, the paintjob is not good and so it shows all sorts of amateurish marks and definitely shows some scratches all over, and the dang fools sprayed-over the rosewood fretboard to boot! Let's also not forget

It comes with: It actually has a good, hard case of the TKL variety (if I'm not mistaken) to go with it.

Consignor tag: JW