Jump to content
Hamer Fan Club Message Center

Looking for options on 51 Precision/Tele style bass- what is out there?


Recommended Posts

I’ve been looking for a 51/Tele style Precision Bass and the options seem to be:

1) sub $500 Squier……no thanks.

2) $3700 Custom Shop……no thanks

3) $1300 Fender Japan….interested but afraid of import fees cause I’m a virgin here.

4) Partscaster- not out of the question but I’m lazy.

5) used. Would rather not there is one on eBay and reverb for about $900 bucks but would rather not have black for body color.

anybody know of any other options.  Did Fender make an FSR run I’m not aware of.  The Dirnt is out…wrong pickup and rout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some assembly required but the following is on its way and all together came in about the price of a MIM P Bass.

Fender 51 P Bass neck, Warmoth body-Mary Kaye white, SD 1/4 pounder pickup, Schaller tuners, gotoh bridge. Warmoth Pick guard, control plates, electrostatic jack, CTS pots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/5/2021 at 12:43 PM, tomteriffic said:

Fender did a run of Sting signature basses a while back, MIM IIRC.  They seemed OK, had the original style single coil a-la Dusty Hill.  Not my cuppa hemlock but not bad.

Yep, they got good reviews if you can live with the 12th-fret inlay.

But this MIJ looks particularly nice:

https://reverb.com/item/43322903-fender-classic-series-51-precision-bass-mij-2003-2009

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's my old MIM '06 Fender Mike Dirnt (pre-'Road Worn' model, a previous owner had stripped the original black poly finish from the body), just before I got it from DGS about three or four years ago (pre-Pandemic, pre-Inflation, those were the days!).  The only semi-major things I've done to it since is put a coat of  'Tried & True' beeswax/linseed oil finish on the body to protect the wood, and put a 3-ply B/W/B pickguard from a 'Road Worn' Dirnt model bass on it in place of the original parchment-color pickguard:

https://davesguitar.com/products/fender/mike-dirnt-precision-bass-06/

Here's a later model from 2019 (no affiliation, it was apparently sold at least a couple of months ago to someone else anyway):

https://davesguitar.com/products/fender/mike-dirnt-road-worn-precision-bass-19/

The deal about the MIM factory 'Road Worn' Fenders, is that the finish is thin 'factory relic'd' Nitro, not the earlier/standard 'regular' Poly.  I also have a mutt MIM Jazz Bass with a Nitro 'Road Worn' 3TSB body mated to a MIM Standard Jazz Bass Fretless neck (lined rosewood fingerboard, satin finish on the back of the neck, not Nitro but probably Urethane), and I love it!  I only wish that Fender would do the thin Nitro 'Road Worn' finish without the missing areas of paint.  I also noticed that the newer Dirnt bass has a slightly slimmer neck than my '06, but I don't know if that was by design or by accident.  Regardless, would I get another one, even a recent used model?  Sure, if they dropped current prices considerably. B)

Edited to add:  The current Dirnt P-Bass uses a Fender version of a Quan Badass II bass bridge (early model Fender Dirnts like my '06 had original Badass II bridges until the makers of the Badass bridges went out of business...but apparently the bridge maker is back to making them, dunno if they will be or are making them for Fender, though).  The screw pattern for mounting these bridges appears to me to be the same as for 'vintage' style Fender bridges, but I'm not 100% sure about that.  Anybody here know for sure?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, crunchee said:

The screw pattern for mounting these bridges appears to me to be the same as for 'vintage' style Fender bridges, but I'm not 100% sure about that.  Anybody here know for sure?

Why wouldn’t they be the same? Kinda negates the value of a replacement bridge upgrade, now don’t it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Love it, Bob!

I’m pulling a few cool basses together now…might be a few years before I’m wrapped up, but they’re cool!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...