Removing Material Under Pickguard To Reduce Weight

[BobKos]

I wanted to remove some weight on one of my jazz bass so I ordered a precision body with jazz pickups routings.

I will no longer need a control plate and will also remove the pickguard.

There is also a very large cavity on the back again, to save some weight and I asked Warmoth to use their lightest piece of alder to make it.

Should solve my problem of overweight jazz bass !

You didn't order chambered body while in the process? HUGE improvement IMO.

 

[Gervais Cote]

You didn't order chambered body while in the process? HUGE improvement IMO.

I just assembled the neck with the body and I have a light neck dive. I guess it will be pretty well balanced once the electronics will be installed……….

 

[The Ruiner]

Why not route out the wood that will be hidden under a pickguard to shave weight off the body?

I tried this on a tele and I swear it got heavier

All kidding aside, I drilled the crap out of the area under the pickguard, and anywhere else I could find to make hidden holes, and it barely made a difference. My conclusion was: It's not worth it. Destroys the value of the instrument while not significantly reducing weight. Just buy a lighter instrument next time. My two cents.

 

[Grinderman]

I make bodies thinner front-to-back instead. It makes a difference.

I don't know why Warmoth chambers bodies for an upcharge instead of making their bodies 1-5/8" or 1-1/2" thick front-to-back, not 1-3/4".

 

[Fender_Bender]

People do it but I consider it to be not best practice to remove material along the neck to bridge highway.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

Just consider the density of the specific piece of wood (I mean, the very piece you're drilling out - every piece is different) and the ratio of volume that you're actually removing and you can figure out if you're really gaining anything for the trouble. My guess is that you'll save ~5% weight.

If the body weighs 5lb, you might save .25lb, or 4oz., and end up with a 4.75lb body. Not enough to worry about, IMO.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

I make bodies thinner front-to-back instead. It makes a difference.

I don't know why Warmoth chambers bodies for an upcharge instead of making their bodies 1-5/8" or 1-1/2" thick front-to-back, not 1-3/4".

Years ago, I bought a 3lb Gecko Medium 5 body and then planed 1/4" off the back, re-shaped the upper horn and lower cutaway, and re-rounded the edges to blend it all in. The weight came down to about 2.75lb for the body. Overall, it was a very cool project and I have a very unique Gecko that weighs very little (8lb-ish) and still has great balance, despite the steel rods in the neck.

 

[Grinderman]

Years ago, I bought a 3lb Gecko Medium 5 body and then planed 1/4" off the back, re-shaped the upper horn and lower cutaway, and re-rounded the edges to blend it all in. The weight came down to about 2.75lb for the body. Overall, it was a very cool project and I have a very unique Gecko that weighs very little (8lb-ish) and still has great balance, despite the steel rods in the neck.

The last P bass I built for myself has a 1-1/2" thick alder body. The assembled bass weighs 7 pounds, 10 ounces.

Olinto makes their bodies 1-1/2" thick.

 

[sikamikanico]

In short: it works. Barely. On a 5 pound ash precision body, I shaved about half a pound by drilling holes. I went for a honeycomb pattern (eyeballed) with a 1/2” forstner bit (or maybe a little larger, cannot remember). I think I left the center beam intact (between neck and pickup). I could probably shave a few more ounces with more work.

but this was on a cheap defect body off eBay that I oil-finished myself. I’d never do it on a nice bass. As others have said, target metal hardware: lightweight tuners and bridges, neck plates, knobs, etc… it all adds up. Or get a new lightweight body.

 

[Ggaa]

You have to take away LOTS of wood to get noticeable improvement, and possibly compromise balance (as important as weight, for ergonomics IMO).
My advice is to aim for better balance. IE if you have 5-string bass and heavy tuners, install light-weght ones. Center of mass will shift from your left shoulder closer to your body center (spine) and same weight will be MUCH more manageable. Add very wide strap with heavy padding and you have solution. And it's reversible.
Just think, when you carry backpack with weight in the center of your back, you can probably carry much more than typical bass weight. But sling it on one shoulder and it gets tiresome quickly.
Having said that, if bass guitar balance is already very good or it is VERY heavy, just let it go. IME you will not be able to change much. Just get another one that fits you better.

Gotoh Resolites made a noticeable difference on a Corvette.

 

[ardgedee]

I don't know why Warmoth chambers bodies for an upcharge instead of making their bodies 1-5/8" or 1-1/2" thick front-to-back, not 1-3/4".

Warmoth is a Fender licensee and probably has to stick to all dimensions. Even if that didn't matter, I suspect most of their customers want as little change as possible anyway.

 

[KellyC]

Any downside?

Neck dive, and creates a resonance (which might be good or bad for the tone quality, depending)

 

[john_g]

Yeah, for me it's not so much the weight as the balance. I'd rather have a heavy, well balanced bsss than a light neck diver. The original Steinberger L2's, for instance were relatively heavy (around 9lb IIRC), but the center pivot and double shoulder strap made them feel light and balance perfectly....

I LOVED my Steinberger for the boomerang pivot plate. Made it so comfortable IMO.

 

[Grinderman]

Warmoth is a Fender licensee and probably has to stick to all dimensions. Even if that didn't matter, I suspect most of their customers want as little change as possible anyway.

Licensed by Fender replacement necks and bodies only must support interchangeability with Fender necks and bodies. Warmoth's Fender licensed bodies, ostensibly replacement bodies for Fenders, are 1-3/4" thick. Fender bodies as originally designed and produced are only 1-5/8" to 1-1/2" thick.

It's Warmoth's prerogative to make their bodies 1-1/2", 1-5/8", 1-3/4", 1-7/8", or 2" if they want to because there are no adverse implications concerning standard Fender parts interchangeability. It's all about Fender dimensional standards for neck heels and neck pockets, considering string alignment between a neck and a bridge. Warmoth bodies are thicker than needed to service that interchangeability.

Neck dive, and creates a resonance (which might be good or bad for the tone quality, depending)

I have had multiple 8-pound and sub-8-pound P basses with sub-4-pound bodies that balance perfectly; no neck dive. They sound great.

Olinto with Mas Hino wouldn't make lightweight basses with 1-1/2" thick bodies if that made a problem with resonance or tone. Plenty of pre-CBS P basses weight 8 pounds or less.

 

[Max Bogosity]

Let's do a back of the envelope calculation. The density of alder is reported as 26.2 - 42.5 lb/ft^3, so an average of 34.4 lb/ft^3. That's 0.020 lb/in^3. If we remove a generous 10 cubic inches from under the pick guard, the weight has gone down by 0.20 lb.

 

[rudy4444]

I've been doing these super-light guitars made by chambering both sides to a 3/4" top and 3/4" back and joining them together. I've had great fun doing several of these and the body ends up about half the weight of whatever the unchambered body would be. These are made with ultra-cheap box store pine, but no reason why other woods and traditional bass shapes couldn't be done in the same fashion.

Finished weight of 4 pounds 6 ounces:

CAD drawing to make mirror image top / bottom:

 

[JIO]

I've done "chambering" a number of times, sometimes extensively. Maybe there is 'science' behind it... but I personally refer to it simply as "making a heavy body lighter". And if that bass is well designed overall - "neck dive" is not an issue regardless of what the body weighs. So far it never has been detrimental to the sound/tone and helps make a bass lighter in weight. YOMV...

 

[Bruce Johnson]

Yes, if you are designing and building a new bass body, the most efficient way to do chambering is like what Rudy has done; drill and/or rout the chambering into the inside surface of top and back halves. Then glue them together.

That's how I build my Scroll Bass bodies:

 

[Chops on Chops]

Years ago, I bought a 3lb Gecko Medium 5 body and then planed 1/4" off the back, re-shaped the upper horn and lower cutaway, and re-rounded the edges to blend it all in. The weight came down to about 2.75lb for the body. Overall, it was a very cool project and I have a very unique Gecko that weighs very little (8lb-ish) and still has great balance, despite the steel rods in the neck.

 

[Chops on Chops]

How's the B? Mine is awful. Hoping it is something to do with the integrity of connection of bridge to body (screw) or nut to neck (glue), mine have both been compromised but functional because of redundancy. I wonder if it is affecting the B, which is so incredibly bad I am almost embarrassed on having spent what I did on this instrument.