Bill's Hofner 5000/1B Bass Rebuild

 

 

Doctor Restuffin'

 

I had a "dead" humbucker on a junked guitar I bought back in February. I also had a box of miscellaneous pickups I've been hoarding since last century. I found ONE that has the screw pole pieces in almost the right configuration, so I pulled the shell apart and did my best to re-stuff it with the new coils.

You can see how the screws are just a bit off, but I'm going with it.

The coils came from a unit that had a threaded bottom plate, while the new housing didn't. My solution was to scrounge up some nuts to hold them in place. I also managed to add a strain relief for the cable.

I could not get the ground to solder to the case, so I added a bit of braid as a grounding strap and soldered to that. (Visible in the lower-left of the photo.)

I had bought a new set of humbuckers, but they did not fit the over-sized frames or routing in the guitar, so I had to "Frankenstein" this half-assed solution.

Here's the guitar in question. The problematic pickup is the one in the bridge position.

Collecting

I've collected various items over the course of my misspent life; records, sound equipment, films, health issues to name a few.  

These two comic panels pretty much lay it all out:

Bill's Build - Part Final!

 Bill has finished his Silvertone 1484 project!

Grill cloth has been added.  

Speakers have been installed and wired up. 

The amp is in the cabinet.

Let's take a look, shall we?

Front view with home-brew footswitch.

Rear view with those vintage 10" speakers.

Amp head tucked into the speaker cabinet.

Wing nut on bottom holds amp in place!

Pretty awesome, don't you think?

Bravo, Bill!

Summer Project

 I finally slapped everything together yesterday, so let's take a look, shall we?

Front View

Sexy Angled View

I managed to staple the burlap to the baffle board with my new stapler.   The next step was to mount the speakers. I decided to use the original screws from the P.A. column baffle board. They were wood screws, so I drilled pilot holes for them. Can you see where the drill went right through the plywood and snagged the burlap? (Note to self: Next time, get actual speaker cloth, maybe? If there even is a next time!)

Rear View

Sunday morning I was back at my buddy Bill's house to install the 1/4" jack on the rear panel. (Thanks for the jack, Bill!)  Somehow I ended up with a 1/32" inch miscalculation when I installed the cleats for the panel.

Speaking of cleats, I was at a loss as to how to install the speaker board.  I had a couple scraps pieces of 1" x 2", so... I might want to paint them flat black to match the rest of the interior.

The last step will be to wire up the jack and I'll be good-to-go.

And that's how I spent my summer vacation. 

Well, my summer; there was no vacation.

Bill's Build - part 2

Here's an update on my buddy Bill's Silvertone twin-twelve project.

Looks like he had the amp and speaker cabinets all covered:

Wowzers!

Impressive from any angle!

He's ordered some grill cloth.  Actual grill cloth, not the burlap I'm using:

Looks like he'll be ready to put the grille cloth on the speaker baffle when it comes in. Then all he has to do is mount the speakers & wire up the output jack.

Once the amp is mounted in the case he'll be ready to rock out, just like Lenny from The Wonders!

Taking Shape!

 Update on the speaker project.

My goal is to end up with a facsimile of this:

An actual Silvertone 1484 cabinet.

Bill and I managed to glue on the remaining vinyl covering last week.  He was kind enough to give me a handle he scavenged off a Cordovox tone generator unit. Here it is with the speaker baffle:

Baffle in box, y'all.

I took a shot at putting on the burlap I bought for the grill cloth, but...

Not done, but I wanted to see how it would look.

I found my crappy, old staple gun and some 1/4" staples that wouldn't fit!  I had a handful of 5/16" staples that would, so I took a stab at it.  The staples are sticking up too far and I don't have enough to finish the job properly.  I went to Harbor Freight this morning and picked up a new stapler that will  theoretically take the 1/4" staples (T50 Style).  I'll take another shot at it... later.