Just kidding: my bass is not a dog and I’m no US governor
So, my Harley Benton MV-4MSB has arrived, and Mary Poppins would say it’s supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Feels great, plays smooth and looks really beautiful!
That can only mean one thing: let’s mod the hell out of it!
But first a little video that shows the bass how it wantonly lolls on satin sheets. Please keep your hands above the covers while viewing ^^
(Unfortunately @sundog was not available for creating a great video, so I just did a quick hack myself )
As it is so cheap, I have bought two basses: one in Burgundy Mist (this bass shall be feared by the name “Pink’s Hot!”) and one in black (which will be known by the name of “Ronin”).
Pink’s Hot will be my main bass for sofa playing. Everything that is not “pink” (I know it’s not pink, but I need to justify it’s name) will be chrome.
Ronin will be my “play under a tree in the park” bass. Everything will be black Maybe I’ll convert it to a fretless one day!?
Planned mods:
New pickups. Either DiMarzio DP126 or EMG GZR PJ. Or one of them in each bass? Tone-wise the DiMarzios seem slightly better, but for installation I prefer the plug&play EMG system.
New electronics. I decided against a blend pot, cause of all the side effect discussions. The pickup selector switch will have to go and I will install two volume pots and one tone pot.
Copper shielding tape
New Gotoh 404BO high mass bridge. Maybe I’ll drill the body for the string-through option.
Schaller S-Locks
Foil on ugly pickguards … or I spray paint them? Oh man, how much I hate tortoise!!! Why does something like that exist in 2024??!
The tuners are better than I thought they would – but the previous model had the Gotoh GB707s, which I really like, so I will buy and install those. Just need to find a way how to install 14mm tuners in 17mm holes.
To get it to stick well to polished chrome I would first sand the chrome with a coarse grit (120-240) and then prime it, hit it with a few thin coats of the black, and then clearcoat over that with a few thin coats.
I would instead look for an actual metal pickguard, you can find chrome and metal ones, but given that that one is a custom shape it would need to be custom made.
Getting a good metallic effect from paint (i.e. to make it actually look like metal and not just silver paint) usually requires pretty toxic and expensive metal-suspension lacquers and airbrushing, in my experience.
You mean like chrome paint, or metallic flake? I’ve never seen chrome paint, and my experience is that metallic flake paint is way harder to make look good.
If you actually want chrome look there’s some good powder coat chrome products now and usually any decent sized city has a few places that will powder coat one offs. It’s probably more expensive than finding the color you want in the first place and buying that though.
Something chrome-ish. Just to have that pink/chrome colour scheme. Does not need to be 100% shiny or mirror. Can be a brush effect or something like that.
It’s really difficult to paint realistic looking finishes that look like actual metal with a large surface area. I would recommend against trying it and instead go with a metallic color instead.
