OLP MM3 Five-String Bass | Part Three

Related Posts

Part One | Part Two

Repairing the Damage

In Part Two, we looked at the problems plaguing this heavily modified OLP MM3 Five-String Bass. Now, in this post, I'll outline the steps taken to get it back into playing condition.

The first thing I did was remove the unnecessary nut shim and reseat the nut. I then gave the whole body, fretboard, frets and hardware a good clean and polish. Following this, both pickups were reinstalled with fresh high density foam spacers and mounting screws.

I was now able to upgrade the electronics to Alpha A500K pots and a Switchcraft output jack and revert to the stock configuration of Volume/Volume/Tone. With all components wired in, I conducted a test and discovered to my relief that everything was now working as it should.

Now it was time to fix the pickguard. As can be seen in the pictures below, there were three holes that needed to be filled. As luck would have it, the previous owner had left a piece of the pickguard in the neck pickup cavity. He'd cut this piece out to make room for the ESP neck pickup.

Armed with this piece of pickguard, lots of elbow grease, UHU All Plastics glue, super glue, fret nippers and files; I was eventually able to plug these holes. Granted, the repair isn't invisible. However, it's way cheaper than sourcing a replacement pickguard. 

One more issue to be dealt with concerned the pickguard screw nearest to the neck pickup volume pot. The previous hack job had left hardly any wood for the screw to bite into. The solution was to cut a vertical channel into the side wall and glue in a wooden dowel. A new screw hole could now be drilled into the dowel.

With that taken care of, the pickguard was reinstalled, and the bass restrung with a fresh set of Rotosound RB45-5 strings. A full setup followed, and this OLP MM3 Five-String Bass Guitar was ready for a final soundcheck. 

The results of the soundcheck may be heard on SoundCloud. What you hear is this OLP MM3 plugged into a Laney RB2. Audio from the amp's headphones output was then recorded into Audacity 3.1.3. on my workhorse Asus X453M laptop.

Shim Removed and Nut Reseated

After Cleaning and Polishing

Discarded Electronics

Pickups Reinstalled

Upgraded Components Wired In

Switchcraft Output Jack

Holes in the Pickguard

Leftover Piece of Pickguard

Plugging the Holes [Top View]

Plugging the Holes [Bottom View]

Copper Foil Shielding

Wooden Dowel Fix

Pots Reinstalled

Pickguard Reinstalled

Rotosound RB45-5 Strings

Good to Go