A while back [Michael] inherited a broken bass guitar from a friend. The headstock for this bass was cracked right down the middle, and the friend attempted a repair with a bolt and a couple of washers. After trying to figure out what the addition of a bolt was trying to accomplish, [Michael] set to work repairing this bass and ended up doing a headless conversion.
A headless bass, just as the name implies, does away with the headstock and moves the tuners to the other side of the guitar – in [Michael]’s case, right below the bridge. After sawing off the broken headstock above the truss rod, [Michael] made a string retainer and bolted it on to the remainder of the neck.
The tuners had to be moved, of course, so [Michael] routed out a section of the body below the bridge. Four holes were drilled and the original tuners slipped right in. The result is a perfectly functional bass that would fit right in to the tour van of an 80’s metal band.
You can check out [Michael]’s bass down in the pocket.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O83FpFXnynU&w=580]
Nice work!
cool man nice riff too.
For those of us that have an attention span of more than 25 seconds. I do wish that there was a proper write up.
Depending on the breakage point, some cheapo wood glue and a vice grip would have probably fixed it. I’ve fixed a bass and a guitar, both with completely snapped off headstocks, with glue and 20 years later still holding strong. Maybe his friend’s ‘bolt idea’ ruined it beyond repair, though.
Anyway, good job on the conversion.
Full write-up and build tutorial is here: http://blog.makezine.com/2013/01/10/how-to-guitar-or-bass-headless-conversion/