Franken Bass... The Bridge of No Return

I took the bass to Guitar Center and talked to their Luthier a while.  He recommended just moving the bridge, which is what I ended up doing.  

I took the bridge off, and moved it up about an inch.  It's right on the J pickup, but that's where it needs to be to get the intonation sounding right.  You can see the five holes where the bridge use to be, and there was an impression left in the finish where the bridge used to be.  I simply lined it up so it was even with the old impressions to line it up.  Drilling through finish sucks, if you don't do it right, the drill will skip along the surface and your hole won't be in the right place.

To get around this, I used a small nail to start the hole.  You just position it where you want it, and then tap it a few times just to get through the finish, then pull it out.  Start with the smallest bit you have, and work your way up to the size you need..

The wood colored splotch just under the bridge is the hole for a ground wire.  This wire must be electrically connected to the bridge, which is electrically connected to the strings.  I don't remember the exact reason for this, but I believe it acts somewhat as a noise shield.

Funny story, in high school I used to play music in Will's basement.  There were metal strips running under the carpet, and if you stood on the strip and touched your strings, you'd get shocked.  If you touched the strings and a microphone at the same time, you'd get shocked.  It was cool though, and it didn't affect me in any way in any way in any way.

Anyway, this is the finished bass...  As expected, the J pickup is not very loud, and it's kinda tinny.  The P pickup sounds great.

Maybe next project can be winding a super hot J pickup with a low pass filter... I dunno.