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hotrodperlmutter wrote:i'm sure you'll find some white electrical tape or white out and just do it anyways.

i prefer to use acrylic paints, thanks.

I took some bronco/mustang bass mashup pics today. I used Japanese RI bits, I figure these would most likely what you would be using since they would be cheaper than vintage parts.

Here's the inside of the Musicmasterized Bronco Bass. Note that at the control cavity near the jack, I had to chisel away two little struts of wood that were there to hold two pickguard screws. I had to chisel them out in order to be able to fit the pots under the Musicmaster bass pickguard, since the ones on the OG Bronco guard were much closer towards the pickup and not in the way of the struts . You might have to do the same, your mileage may vary.



Here's the Mustang Bass bits on the Bronco Bass body. The pickup route needs to be enlarge on the neck side of the body if you want the Mustang bass pickup to fit. Not a big deal, but the control plate cavity poses a bigger problem. The cavity is just a little longer, and is slightly more towards the bridge than on a Mustang bass. This could be easily fixed with a wood fill but would require a refin in order to become an invisible fix. However, since the discrepancy is small, you could probably get away with just painting the wood fill a matching red, and it would most likely only be really noticeable from up close.



Here's a close-up.



Here is my idea for an easier solution: move everything closer to the bridge. This way both the pickup and the control plate fit correctly over their respective cavities, no wood filling nor painting required. However, the pickguard is then too short for the neck cavity. But this would be easy to fix with a custom pickguard. You could probably just get someone to make you a Mustang bass pickguard with no neck pocket cut out, that way you could position it to taste and make a custom neck pocket cut yourself.

Hmm, you could trace the pickguard onto a piece of MDF, but instead of cutting a neck pocket, leave it. Then cut the MDF so you have a template, get a sheet of plastic and make your own pickguard. Just a thought.

"I still have 2 Fender Musicmaster Bass (early 70's type) decals if anyone needs one"

Could I have one of your decals for my Bronco to Musicmaster conversion?
Obviously I will pay for it & the postage costs. I live in the UK but I wouldn't think that airmail would be too costly.

Cheers
Steve

P.S.
My plan is to change the pickguard to a Musicmaster one & I already have a single coil size blade humbucker in black which I'm planning to wire with a three position on/on/on switch to give series/parallel phasing & also a Fender TBX tone control. I may also refinish the neck with a tinted varnish to give an aged look to it.

hmm, i have one of these, maybe I should do something like this to it

Yeah, any updates? This is a good idea...

I'm currently doing this to my Badtz Maru bass. I stripped the paint on it and filled in the through-body control rout. I have no pics because my wife is away with the kids for a week and she brought the camera with her.

Astro is kindly providing me with traces for the pickguard and control plate. Once I get that I'll make the PG and plate and route the cavities in the body accordingly.

Tom_B wrote:Yeah, any updates? This is a good idea...

not as of yet I've been busy with some other stuff
but the plan is still in the works

Shaguar wrote:I'm currently doing this to my Badtz Maru bass. I stripped the paint on it and filled in the through-body control rout. I have no pics because my wife is away with the kids for a week and she brought the camera with her.

Do you have any plans for the Badtz Maru pickguard? I would gladly take it off your hands if you still have it.

PM me your details Asher.

Shaguar wrote: Astro is kindly providing me with traces for the pickguard and control plate.

OH SHIT!

I totally forgot about this

I'll try and mail you the tracings tomorrow!

No sweat dude, I'm not in any hurry really.

Sorry to bump/thread jack, but I felt this was worthy

I was cruising google and I found a FSR Bronco that looked interesting.


Link


And I was having a crazy idea for a bronco project somewhere down the road. Basically, a Bronco with a hotrail in the stock pickup position, and Duncan jazz bass pup closer to the bridge. 2 volumes and a tone, with an assjack like a tele or a les paul.

Seems simple/complicated enough.

EDOT: Apparently they issued a FSR Shell Pank Bronco as well.

Why does the Japanese market get all the good color combos

Hace a look at this one. Its a Squire Bronco £40 off ebay. Its got Jazz bass overwound pickups, Mustang Guitar control plate plus i made the pickguard. Total price about £98. It sounds beautiful.

feedback band wrote:Hace a look at this one. Its a Squire Bronco £40 off ebay. Its got Jazz bass overwound pickups, Mustang Guitar control plate plus i made the pickguard. Total price about £98. It sounds beautiful.

Hey, could you post more pics of this bass? I'm pretty intrigued. Great price!

I've totally thought about getting a used bronco bass to modify the hell out of like this, but I haven't seen any pop up cheap enough. For a while it seemed like every week there was 2 or 3 popping up on craigslist around here for cheap, and now nothing. If I could get one around the $50 -$75 range I would get it just to have some fun with it.

Just finished my conversion. This was a Badtz Maru Bronco, so the control cavity on the back had to be filled and a new cavity had to be routed for the control plate. Photos are from my phone, sorry for the quality:













I blew up an image of a Mustang bass to make a template for the pickguard and the plate. The pg is GFS white 3 ply, and the plate I made out of aircraft aluminum we have laying around the shop. This was my first time doing any type of guitar work. I learned that routers are really cool little tools and template making really isnt that hard.

Next thing I'd like to do is gloss coat the neck. But I think I'll play this thing for now.

that's fuckin hot shag.



i just ordered the 4 saddle, string thru bridge and ferrules for mine. should be finished this summer.

I was going to do that too, but decided to wait. I've had this thing apart for over a month and have been wanting to play it really bad ever since I started painting it. The blue is Rustoleum Carribean Blue. It needs a white pearl guard, but I didnt want to spend the money on the pearl blank, seeing as this might have been something I could have f'kced up. There are imperfections in the cut, but it still looks ok.

I put the 10k GFS little killer pickup in there just like yours and you were right, it sounds ace. I only tried it on my ss practice amp, need to try it through my tube amp tonight.

that looks amazing! Great job, I'm seriously wanting a bronco project now!