First Bass Build

[Monkee]

Hey all, not so much a player, more of a roadie/general band gopher. Looking at building a bass for my wife who plays in a tribute band, I'm looking at a Thunderbird style kit from Pit Bull, but was wondering about removing some material from the body and also from the headstock.

So a couple of questions, 1. Would it effect the strength of either the body or headstock were I to remove some material (custom sort of shape)
and 2. How well do the parts fit together? Is the neck a snug fit into the body etc. Not too worried about the quality of the pickups, bridge etc. will be looking to replace with aftermarket.

Thanks in advance.

[JimC]

A1. It depends how much material and where from, but you'd have to try very hard. If you don't touch anything between the tuners and the fingerboard you'll be pretty safe.

A2. They vary as far as I can see. There's sometimes some mileage in scraping some wood off or making a little shim from veneer.

[Monkee]

Thanks JimC, I was looking at making the headstock into more of a point, and shaving the sides left and right hand sides of the pickups, obviously leave material where the pots are.