I had a friend that made a baritone from a reissue Music Master bass from a Pawn shop. He put dowels in the holes at the headstock and re drilled 6 smaller holes for guitar sized keys and replaced the bridge with a gibson style thing he got on ebay for 20 bucks. He also replaced the nut. It felt like a professionally made baritone after that and looked great. Round trip I think it cost him about $400 though. It was nice.

I just realized that those squier broncos and epi EB-Os are going super cheap right now and are 30" scales. I think this aftermarket bridge and doweled/redrilled peghead idea would be great on either of those. I guess you'd need a new nut as well, but those are cheap.
Is a 30" scale a better fit than a 25.5" The only scale I've seen for factory bari's is 28...

Hey Jodi

My friend Chris in Austin has his TB500 set up as a baritone. He uses thick strings anyway and gradually moved to such thickness he got a new nut made and it plays so much better than mine did set up normally...

chris jury wrote:I just realized that those squier broncos and epi EB-Os are going super cheap right now and are 30" scales. I think this aftermarket bridge and doweled/redrilled peghead idea would be great on either of those. I guess you'd need a new nut as well, but those are cheap.
Is a 30" scale a better fit than a 25.5" The only scale I've seen for factory bari's is 28...

Yeah, those bronco's were going for like $275 (AUS) brand new not long ago.

I wouldn't go an Epiphone, purely because of the weak Gibson necks.

chris jury wrote: Is a 30" scale a better fit than a 25.5" The only scale I've seen for factory bari's is 28...

yeah, the longer scale would accomodate the lower tunings better, plus a 30" scale is a shortscale bass length so going down to low E would be doable.

Verbs and Nouns wrote:

chris jury wrote:I just realized that those squier broncos and epi EB-Os are going super cheap right now and are 30" scales. I think this aftermarket bridge and doweled/redrilled peghead idea would be great on either of those. I guess you'd need a new nut as well, but those are cheap.
Is a 30" scale a better fit than a 25.5" The only scale I've seen for factory bari's is 28...

Yeah, those bronco's were going for like $275 (AUS) brand new not long ago.

I wouldn't go an Epiphone, purely because of the weak Gibson necks.

I've got one of these Broncos too. They're extremely comfortable to play. I got mine as a gift, but pretty sure it was around 200 dollars new. The pickup sounds okay, but its had a grounding problem the entire time I've had it. Not sure if that is Fender's fault or mine.

something to watch for if you're gonna convert a bass to a baritone... bass necks aren't particularly wide. make sure you've got enough for six strings, which you will probably want spaced at one of two standard spacings: fender or gibson. when you buy your pickups, you'll likely buy pickups with one of those two spacings. if the strings are actually at that spacing, that's good. if the neck is wide enough to accommodate that string spacing, that's really good. the neck on my baritone is wider than a 5-string bass, which is part of why it's so comfortable and easy to play.

Broncos are only 38mm at the nut so not really suitable.

My thing is 43mm at nut and 55mm at bridge, the same as a fender 6 string guitar.

It now has 6 strings and temporary cardbooard pickguard:


I need a guitar bridge that'll take bass strings, i'll probably use a 3 saddle telecaster bridge with the pickup bit chopped off.

benjaminbunny wrote:Broncos are only 38mm at the nut so not really suitable.

My thing is 43mm at nut and 55mm at bridge, the same as a fender 6 string guitar.

It now has 6 strings and temporary cardbooard pickguard:

I need a guitar bridge that'll take bass strings, i'll probably use a 3 saddle telecaster bridge with the pickup bit chopped off.

I like how it kinda looks like a Burns now. A gold pick guard would look amazing.

Very, very nice.

Word to your mom, sir.