ShortScale.org

So this is a bit of a lost cause - 196x Teisco NB-4 with a damaged neck. The plan is, get the neck sorted out, then decide if I want to convert it to a TB-64 style bass VI (it's a 30" scale and has the same neck / closely similar body).





So the neck has two show-stopping problems. First: someone decided to attach it to the body FROM THE FRONT.

Second, the truss rod has broken:

I'm sure you are all thinking "abandon it" and I was on the verge of making a hybrid with my 30" VI neck from the lets-face-it-never-gonna-happen Mustang VI project. And then I got the metal plate out and found that the rod is threaded all the way down.

So now the plan is, dowel the screw holes and fill the countersinking, pull the frets (which are trashed) and apply rosewood veneer and binding, smooth and refret. Find or make a neckplate (the body holes are slightly closer together than Fender plates). Fix the nut and string it up.
In the meantime, I need to search for two (or six) tuners, and a tailpiece / bridge suitable for VI work. My Mustang VI tailpiece fits in the right place but it's a little awkwardly sized and doesn't quite go with the vibe.

Opinions / advice / parts welcome!

that is really cool, I hope it works out for you. You'll show pics when done of course? Love that headstock

I really like how the tuners look like the keys for wind up tin toys ( I have more than a few of those)

Thanks - I have it set up in my cheap workbench thing and my tiny drill press is ready to hog out the truss rod cavity ... when I can find the chuck key. Dammit.

I really like the body shape- good luck with it.

Either your hand is gigantic, or that neck is really narrow. If it's very narrow, it might be too tight for a 6 string conversion.

That's a pretty big project .
As said the body is nice .. Pretty funky. If you can you should try to convert it to a 6 string . Is the neck more narrow on a tenor ?

Fakir Mustache wrote:Either your hand is gigantic, or that neck is really narrow. If it's very narrow, it might be too tight for a 6 string conversion.

Although people flee from me in terror, it must be some trick of perspective - the neck is about as wide as a normal bass neck. I have a 30" shortscale bass neck which I intended for a Mustang bass, and this is pretty much the same dimensions (maybe a couple of mm narrower). But I had that strung with 6 and it played well, so I think this would be fine too. It's the same neck as the TB-64.
No time to work on it at the moment, so I am just keeping it in the back of my mind. Step 1 will be to restore the 4 string config, and assess from there.

MatthewK wrote:Thanks - I have it set up in my cheap workbench thing and my tiny drill press is ready to hog out the truss rod cavity ... when I can find the chuck key. Dammit.

sounds like me, I can't find shit ever, one of the reasons why it takes me an eternity to finish anything, years. That and I have no clear workspace, it is a crippling disease. Bodies, other projects, piles of crap I don't know what to do with. I need an organizational expert

Welcome back to 2014, no pandemic, when my favourite record was HTRK's Psychic 9-5 Club, favourite film was Under the Skin and a bunch of weird stuff was happening in my life.
This bass has been waiting its turn. Thru Offset I recently found this absolutely badass NB-4 which I prefer to the red trainwreck in every way:

So what to do with the red one? Back to the original plan: refashion it to a TB-64 config. Two more tuners will fit on the headstock, and I need a bridge and tailpiece.
The TB-64 had a TG-64 tailpiece and floating bridge, impossible to find and very expensive:

However I can buy the tailpiece / bridge from a Tomson Splendor Mustang copy, which has the killer advantage of variable string spacing. I have a Splendor so I took pics to see how its tailpiece would work on the NB-4. It's a bit more chrome, but I think it's kind of the right vibe.


I think I'm gonna do it. Might even spraypaint the faded control plate matte black to give it a little more definition.

nicely resurrected!

love that strap button placement.

Whammy bass, YEAH!