Cracked pickup surround on Hofner contemporary, how easy to fix?

S

shoulderpet

Sep 24, 2015
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#1
Hi
Have been offered a Hofner Contemporary Club bass in a trade , bass looks lovely apart from a big crack in the pickup surround, just wanted to find out how easy or hard this is going to be to fix , thanks
 

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#2
Not difficult to replace, but you going to have do do a setup again and that's a PITA. Here's the part.
Genuine Hofner Replacement Parts for Hofner Contemporary Beatle Basses

Tip: mark the bridge location with painters tape BEFORE you loosen the strings. and mark the treble/bass side of the bridge (both halves).

FYI they have terrible neck dive. I don't know how Sir Paul does it.
 
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#3
Because the Contemporary models have a center block, the added weight counteracts neck dive. I find my (violin-shaped) Contemporary very comfy.

Replacing the surround is easy--loosen the strings enough to pop out the pickup (assuming it's the neck pickup--the bridge pickup may require removing the strings), unscrew the old surround, screw in the new one (see the two little tabs at the bottom in the linked photo?), and pop in the pickup (mark the height with a piece of tape before you remove it from the old surround).
 
#4
Have received the bass and thankfully the crack looks much worse in the picture, i loosened the screws slightly pushed the 2 sides of the pickup surround together and they stayed in place, i put a tiny drop of glue on just to make sure they stay in place.

Now to sort out the junky tuners, this bass has the much maligned Wilkinson tuners ,
does anyone know of any replacement tuners that will fit a Hofner Contemporary without modification?
I know the tuners on the newer models are different from the Wilkinsons, are they much better? And equally importantly will they fit?
 
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#6
fermata said:
Congrats on the bass! I think these are the tuners I've seen referenced in other threads: http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and...r_181_Sta-Tite_97-18_Series_3and3_Tuners.html
(Not cheap, though!)
The stock tuners on my 2013 Contemporary are just fine, whatever they are.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I have found a website that sells Hofner replacement parts (Project Guitar Parts - For Hofner guitar parts, Hofner bass guitar parts, Vintage replacement scratch plates, Eko, Watkins, Colorama) and they recommend the rugby ball tuners for contemporary basses, am hoping they are a direct drop in replacement, if not I will get someone more skilled than me to fit them
 
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#7
Ok, an update, the cracked pickup ring was annoying me so I swapped it out for a new one, not a difficult task but fiddly enough that it is a job I never want to have to do again, I sellotaped the bridge in place to keep it from shifting when I removed the strings, seemed to do the job ok, also had a moment where I thought the pickup ring was slightly too small and I was gonna have to screw the old one back in but turns out I just had to use a little force and push the pickup inside the ring, makes sense since Hofners do not use foam or springs to raise the pickup to the required height.

Replaced the tuning keys with a set of the rugby ball tuners , tuners where pretty much a drop in replacement apart from the holes where lined up very very slightly different so I had to angle the bottom screws very slightly but once screwed in it all looked fine and the new tuners are much more solid and accurate than the awful Wilkinson tuners.
 
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