Hi moderators, I'm not sure how to post a sub topic in the Harley Benton thread so hoping you'll move it there if necessary.
So I bought the JB-75 about a month ago and I'm blown away with the sound and the general quality of the bass, but while it's a really excellent guitar for the price - £149, there were a couple of niggles that I wanted to iron out after receiving it.
Firstly, I wasn't impressed with the machine heads, there was some play in a couple of them and I got the impression that if you're gigging and you just need to touch up during your set you might need to turn one or 2 a bit further than the others, in other words I felt they lacked precision and continuity between all four.
Originally I was going to get Gotoh's but there didn't seem to be any available in the UK of the lollipop chrome and the earliest delivery seems to be in July.
Instead, I bought the Schaller machine heads. And I've go to say, they're mint. As you'd expect from a German manufacturer they're excellent. Precision and quality is consistent, they also feel 'good' in the way that you know that once strung to normal pitch there's just a tiny amount of adjustment to bring back from flat. For gigging this is way better than the supplied machine heads, particularly if you're working with new strings.
The other mod I did was purely cosmetic. The scratchplate supplied with the guitar is single ply only and to be honest, the factory assembly looked a bit hit and miss. One of the screws had been driven in deeper than the others so it distorted around the hole. The material while quite adequate just seemed a little meh compared to the rest of the build quality on the bass. So I snagged a a new 3 ply BWB scratchplate from amazon for a fraction over £10. While looking to purchase, one of the reviewers said he fitted it to the exact same bass, but had to do a little work with a file to get it to fit. This is true, the cut out around the neck is about 1.5 mil (about 60 thou's of an inch) shallower than the Harley Benton scratchplate. This was easily fixed by taping the 2 scratchplates together with masking tape, and using a 3/8" rat tail file and a 3/4" half round file, I made the adjustments in maybe 2 - 3 minutes. I took off a little, then offered up, tried again, offered up etc. I then just used a Stanley knife to clean up the burrs. Holes lined up but I just had a slight adjustment to make where it didn't quite fit next to the the control plate, I just removed the control plate, screwed the scratchplate down then repositioned the control plate (no drilling as screws are small just went in at a slightly different angle) before tightening up. Really happy with it. I'd say the whole operation took 1/2 hour including de-stringing and new 45 - 105 strings on.
Just a note on filing, plastic is much softer than metal, which files are designed for. Do it in baby steps as they'll take off quite a bit more material than you expect. Don't lean or put bodyweight on the file or use sawing motions, just guide it with no pressure and let it do the work, let the forward stroke do the cutting and take the file away once the forward stroke has completed place it back into position for the next forward stroke.
With the radii, keep the outside diameter on the same line as the cut out so all you are doing is deepening the curve and not expanding it out before you take the flat down. Always just do a quarter turn when cutting with a round file with your wrist and just pinching the file end with your finger and thumb so lightly to guide the other end. Hope I'm not teaching folks to suck eggs here, if I am, then I apolgise.
TBH I'm making it sound way more complicated than it needs to be but it doesn't cost anything to throw in a little advice if someone's never used files before. Like I said, it's literally a couple of minutes work.
Oh yeah, leave the plastic film on the new plate until it fits, then trim the burrs and loose film before fitting. I just peeled off the film just before I screwed each hole which meant the screw didn't trap any of the film when you take all it off, but that was just my preference.
There's also a slight noise now that I've noticed it so I'll probalby post on here to get advice for which pots, switches and jack socket might be best. If I mod that area later, I'll let you know. I'll keep the bridge and PUPS for now but who knows in the future.
So I bought the JB-75 about a month ago and I'm blown away with the sound and the general quality of the bass, but while it's a really excellent guitar for the price - £149, there were a couple of niggles that I wanted to iron out after receiving it.
Firstly, I wasn't impressed with the machine heads, there was some play in a couple of them and I got the impression that if you're gigging and you just need to touch up during your set you might need to turn one or 2 a bit further than the others, in other words I felt they lacked precision and continuity between all four.
Originally I was going to get Gotoh's but there didn't seem to be any available in the UK of the lollipop chrome and the earliest delivery seems to be in July.
Instead, I bought the Schaller machine heads. And I've go to say, they're mint. As you'd expect from a German manufacturer they're excellent. Precision and quality is consistent, they also feel 'good' in the way that you know that once strung to normal pitch there's just a tiny amount of adjustment to bring back from flat. For gigging this is way better than the supplied machine heads, particularly if you're working with new strings.
The other mod I did was purely cosmetic. The scratchplate supplied with the guitar is single ply only and to be honest, the factory assembly looked a bit hit and miss. One of the screws had been driven in deeper than the others so it distorted around the hole. The material while quite adequate just seemed a little meh compared to the rest of the build quality on the bass. So I snagged a a new 3 ply BWB scratchplate from amazon for a fraction over £10. While looking to purchase, one of the reviewers said he fitted it to the exact same bass, but had to do a little work with a file to get it to fit. This is true, the cut out around the neck is about 1.5 mil (about 60 thou's of an inch) shallower than the Harley Benton scratchplate. This was easily fixed by taping the 2 scratchplates together with masking tape, and using a 3/8" rat tail file and a 3/4" half round file, I made the adjustments in maybe 2 - 3 minutes. I took off a little, then offered up, tried again, offered up etc. I then just used a Stanley knife to clean up the burrs. Holes lined up but I just had a slight adjustment to make where it didn't quite fit next to the the control plate, I just removed the control plate, screwed the scratchplate down then repositioned the control plate (no drilling as screws are small just went in at a slightly different angle) before tightening up. Really happy with it. I'd say the whole operation took 1/2 hour including de-stringing and new 45 - 105 strings on.
Just a note on filing, plastic is much softer than metal, which files are designed for. Do it in baby steps as they'll take off quite a bit more material than you expect. Don't lean or put bodyweight on the file or use sawing motions, just guide it with no pressure and let it do the work, let the forward stroke do the cutting and take the file away once the forward stroke has completed place it back into position for the next forward stroke.
With the radii, keep the outside diameter on the same line as the cut out so all you are doing is deepening the curve and not expanding it out before you take the flat down. Always just do a quarter turn when cutting with a round file with your wrist and just pinching the file end with your finger and thumb so lightly to guide the other end. Hope I'm not teaching folks to suck eggs here, if I am, then I apolgise.
TBH I'm making it sound way more complicated than it needs to be but it doesn't cost anything to throw in a little advice if someone's never used files before. Like I said, it's literally a couple of minutes work.
Oh yeah, leave the plastic film on the new plate until it fits, then trim the burrs and loose film before fitting. I just peeled off the film just before I screwed each hole which meant the screw didn't trap any of the film when you take all it off, but that was just my preference.
There's also a slight noise now that I've noticed it so I'll probalby post on here to get advice for which pots, switches and jack socket might be best. If I mod that area later, I'll let you know. I'll keep the bridge and PUPS for now but who knows in the future.
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