Converting a Kingston Violin Bass to a regular 6 string archtop???

[Jeff Daugherty]

Hi All, Been a while since I've been on. 1st time on new site, Looks Good. A friend gave me this Kingston Hollowbody Violin Bass with a bolt on neck. It's missing the bridge, the fretboard has a pretty deep gash in it & the finish is in pretty bad shape too. I know restored it's probably not going to be worth, the parts & effort it will take to get it back to usable shape. So... I got the idea of maybe converting into a regular 6-string archtop.
Any one have any input on doing this task? Any suggestions as far as finding pickups that will fit? Was thinkin' maybe mini-humbuckers.
Only problem I can foresee is finding a bolt-on neck that will not only look right, but had the correct scale spacing so the bridge doesn't need to to be right where the bridge pick-up is located. Here's a couple a pics:

[Jeff Daugherty]

Here's a pic with the neck off:

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

If you just wanted to repurpose the instrument, I might look into a baritone guitar neck. The warmoth necks have a 28 5/8" scale, which might be workable. The "perfect" fit would be a Fender VI or Danelectro 6 string bass neck, both of which which have a 30" scale like the neck you're trying to replace. Personally, I would take the path of least resistance and restore it back to being a bass. Bridges are available. You haven't shown the damage to the fingerboard, but unless ittttttt's righ down to the neck, superglue and rosewood dust is your friend. A Hofner style bridge retails for 68.00 from Allparts. A good replacement neck (which doesn't fit) will be a lot more.

This thing is not unlike my first bass, a Sekova. I would find a matching pair of cheesy knobs, rewire it with US parts (maybe keeping the toggle switch, maybe not), patch that gash, put a set of GHS Brite flats on and get to thumping.

But that's just my opinion.

Joshua

[Mark Swanson]

Figure out what kind of replacement neck you are going to use, and what the scale of that neck would be and how many frets it will have. Then make yourself a cardboard model of the fretboard, with the frets drawn on it. Then you can use that model to place on the body and see where your bridge and pickups end up, that will tell you if you can do it or not.

[Mark Wybierala]

Funny enough, I have quite a simlar situation. One of my clients has donated to me a Kimberly that is probably the exact same bass as the one you have with a different name on the headstock. It has a 30" scale length. I believe these were probably made by Kay. Mine is complete. The neck on my bass has a forward bow that is bent enough to give you vertigo. I will be pulling the bound fretboard and am going to install a Hotrod trussrod from stewmac and replacing the fretboard with something from LMI. With the fretboard removed, if the neck still looks like it doesn't want to be a bass neck any more, I'll just make another neck.

[Jeff Daugherty]

Was recently told by a local shop owner that Kingstons were made by Hagstrom & that I'd be cRazY to change it to 6-string. Is this true?
The conversion I'm doing will not change or damage the body. The bass neck, tailpiece & bridge will be able to be put right back on. I just want a unique instrument that's a challenge to assemble...
The entire top layer of the back's finish & veneer has been peeled of by the previous owner. So I'm thinking the value has dropped tremendously.