Fender p-bass lyte with short scale jazz body?

[trainwreck]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum although I've done a couple of warmoth builds in the past. I've come up with an idea for a project that I'm a bit uncertain about and thought you guys might be the people to ask for a sanity check/second opinion.

I have a Japanese Fender Precision Bass Lyte neck that I think I might be able to mate up to one of the new short scale jazz bodies. The heel is the right size for the neck pocket, and by my calculations the distance from the heel to the bridge is also right. I've emailed warmoth to confirm those dimensions. The neck is a 34" neck, but the heel is further up so it needs a shorter body (hence the short scale body).

The tricky bit is the bolt pattern is wrong - see here: http://a1.images.reverb.com/image/upload/a_exif,c_limit,h_588,q_85,w_588/v1380232676/pozmwhrnlmvocproj3kk.jpg - from preliminary measurements it seems like 3 of the 4 holes will line up and I'd have to drill the fourth - but I haven't checked the distance from the heel to the holes so I may have to drill all 4. Has anyone drilled their own holes in a neck before? I intend to get hold of a drill press for the job - first locating the holes by notching with a hand drill through the body holes.

Anyone here undertaken something like this before? I'll be measuring a few more times before dropping the cash, but I figure most problems are going to be solvable. Worst case scenario I end up buying a 32" neck I guess... I've always liked short scale basses too.

 

[Cagey]

I've done it a number of times. It's not a big deal if you have a drill press. It's important that you keep the holes perpendicular to the heel, and that you have a hard stop so you don't drill into the fretboard. That'll ruin your day and force you to invent new cuss words.

I'd be more concerned about the neck scale matching the body. Changing scale is more than just moving the neck mounting point or bridge location. The frets have to be spaced properly, too. Normally, when Warmoth changes scale it's done on the neck, not the body. If they've got a body specifically designed to be short, you may not be able to put a 34" neck on it and have it intonate properly.

 

[trainwreck]

sounds good.

I won't be changing the scale length - the reason for the short scale body is that this neck is coming off a small bodied bass 34" bass, so the neck is longer (heel at a higher fret) and needs a shorter distance from heel to bridge to retain 34" from nut to bridge. I imagine the pickups might be in slightly different spots as a result but I can probably live with that.