$33 Mystery Body

[fender3x]

Here in Miami, while Covid-19 rages, the first named storm of the Atlantic Hurricane season is dropping so much rain on us that I am tempted to stop with the guitar stuff already and begin working on an ark. But my internet connection is stable at least, so I decided to do some other stupid thing instead: I purchased a $33 bass body on ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Unfinished-...72.m2749.l2648

There are a number of things wrong with this presentation, not least that the body is referred to in a number of places as a "barrel." The email that I sent to the seller resulted in no actual new information. Still, there were three things that attracted me to this body. First was the price. Hard to beat $33 with shipping from a US seller. 2nd, the weight, listed as 1150g. That could mean (3rd) that it is made of paulownia, which is what the photos look like.

Of course there is reason to doubt almost all of these things. When I wrote to the seller the email clearly came back from Shenzhen, which is an odd name for a city in New Jersey, which is where the ebay listing says it will ship from.

I think the photos are to show that the body might, or might not, have a fifth hole under the neck plate. What the photos show most clearly, however is that the body may not be accurately represented by the photos. Notice that the woodgrain pattern is identical on both face pics, the only difference being the hole. I have not figured out whether they photoshopped the hole in or out. Also, I get that they side view was to show that the body is 4 cm deep...but I am pretty sure that's a Telecaster body, rather than a p-bass.

Finally, in the description, it says that the body weighs 1150g. This seems close to the shipping weight of 1350g. It also says the body is maple. I am willing to bet that it's not maple. The only kind of wood I can think of that might be that light that has been used in guitars is paulownia. Of course both could be wrong. Or it might be sycamore or something like that that is sometimes sold as maple. But hardly anything would be that light.

Should have a better idea in about a week... it may be that I will be out some shipping charges to send it back.

[jugglindan]

balsa? It's nice and buoyant, so might be good in the ark.

[fender3x]

balsa? It's nice and buoyant, so might be good in the ark.

And barrels float too, right?

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[jugglindan]

And barrels float too, right?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Sure do. So it should work out no matter what you get

[king casey]

1 kilo is going to be too light I reckon.

I'm currently building a guitar out of discarded parts.

The body is the one that featured my first 'Trem-King' attempt.
It only weighs 1.5 kg and would be neck-diving like crazy.

I went to Bunnings and got a 45cm square sheet of lead flashing.
Cut it up and fitted it into an extension of the tremolo cavity.

The body now weighs almost 3 kilo.

Not much you could do with a P bass body to increase the weight though.


cheers, Mark.

[Simon Barden]

You could have bought 5 bodies and saved 2.4% on the bundle!

I also wonder how they manage to get all the bodies the same weight, when wood varies in weight considerably. If it weights 1101g or 1099g, can you get a refund?

[Joe Garfield]

The wood grain reminds me a lot of poplar.

[Simon Barden]

You'll often find a hole in the neck pocket on quite a few guitars. Occasionally I've seen them go al the way through, but it's normally just one-sided. I think it's either where they drill a hole to mount a routing template, or to fix a rod to allow for spraying, especially if the same bodies are made in a factory where they produce finished guitars as well.

[fender3x]

You could have bought 5 bodies and saved 2.4% on the bundle!

I also wonder how they manage to get all the bodies the same weight, when wood varies in weight considerably. If it weights 1101g or 1099g, can you get a refund?

Ha! If it weighs 1099 I'll be very pleased, even if it has the dreaded neck dive as Mark suggests. Alas, I suspect that will not be the case. They give two different package weights in the ebay ad. One is 1300g the other is 1350g. This morning I got tracking info from Fedex and notice that that the reported packing weight was 3.75 Kg. The notice said FexEx had not yet picked it up, so I sent a message to the seller saying that I will just be sending it back to them if it is that heavy. I asked them to cancel it...but I suspect it is too late. If so, I will take a look at it, and then most likely send it back. eBay guarantees a refund if the item is different than what was ordered. I would say 3x the weight qualifies.

I agree with Joe, BTW, that it looks like poplar. I realized recently that I actually have some paulownia, because it is used in Taekwondo to make the thin breaking boards. My children have left quite a few of those boards, mostly in halves. They look a lot like poplar with two differences. Paulownia is MUCH more porous, and the streaks tend to be a bit more toward the gray end, and never yellow/green like you get with poplar. Poplar is, however, much more dense than paulownia...and might explain the weight...

If it comes, I'll report. In the meantime, I may take a look at some Youtube on chambering... maybe that's a better way to get the weight off... I have a week or so to think about it, anyway.

[Simon Barden]

To chamber, you need a guitar made in two halves before the parts are stuck together (unless you want to saw it in half the difficult way). Or be prepared to remove a lot of wood, chamber it, then stick another bit back on.

Or you could simply cut round holes through it. I've seen a few Strat bodies modified that way. Russ Ballard (of Argent) had one.



Or simply rout/drill out wood that's covered by the pickguard.