LeftyBassist.com

Is a Fender American Standard P5 Lefty. Three-tone burst, tort guard, maple board. Does this make it a "Custom Shop" job? Considering they don't show this config on the Fender site I'm assuming it does. Does anyone know? Anyone have experience ordering custom shop basses?

Yes, that would be a custom shop order. I recently got a quote on a left handed P bass, in natural finish ash body, maple neck/board with black blocks/binding, essentially a bass they offered in Japan a few years back but not in left handed of course. The short of it is it wasn't an exotic bass by any stretch, and the price quote came back for $6600!!!!!!!!!!

Forget Fender, their CS is a very overpriced joke at this point. Beautiful basses, but certainly not worth that kind of money over a Sadowsky or a Lakland. I'm sure there are plenty of luthiers out there who could make you a 5 string P in that configuration for a lot less money.

$6600!!!??? Whoa, I guess I'll hafta' think Sadowsky or Lakland.

Yes, I could understand how the price might creep over $3500 if I asked for fancy woods, active preamp, special pickups, etc. , but other than the neck inlays it was a pretty vanilla bass.

For $6600 you could nearly get both a Lakland and a Sadowsky.

You might want to look at Lull basses too, I believe he has a P5 as well. It might also be worth talking to Rod (aka Rodent) on here from the Blueprinting and Bondo section. He's between shops at the moment, but I bet once he gets set up again he could make you a really nice P5 for a good price.

do you know what string spacing you'd prefer at the bridge, body wood, fretboard wood, and colors?

I suspect you'll find a very interesting post in B&B before too long

all the best,

R

Yeah, I'd like the spacing to match my '78 P, a body wood that'll give a good look with a three-tone burst finish (alder?), maple neck & board, & tort guard. Essentially I want my '78 P (B neck) reproduced in a fiver with a tort guard. Nothing complicated, it's just that it doesn't appear that Fender would even do the slightest variations to their "stock" American Standard P5 without going custom shop.

very doable - I'll post more when I have something official to say

and it can be either Nitro or Poly for the body finish, and add oil to the choices for the neck finish (like a MM bass)

R

do I have these right?

1.875" nut width
2.625" neck width at the 12th fret on a 34" scale
.125" gap between oouter edge of string and edge of neck

thanks for your thoughts!

R