I coped myself a Brand New SR5006E OL a few months back and I thought that had I died and gone to Heaven. The action is Amazing. The sound is unbelievable. After every practice section, I hand rub it with a fine furniture oil, to help preserve the finish. My wife has commented that, I don’t touch her the way I touch my axe.
I love it so much that, I decided to get a fretless version, but Ibanez does produce one, and they don’t have a custom shop to rework one for me.
So I decided to take on the job myself. I scored a transparent green 1994 SR506 and decided to convert it to a fretless version of the SR5006E OL.
The 1994 SR 506 has the same body style and neck style as the SR5006 does except that there is a little more arch or curve on the body to the SR5006.
The finish on the SR506 was in good shape and did not need much but a good cleaning.
The action of the neck is the same as that of the SR5006 and is a multi-piece neck construction job which offers little or no warpage, just like the SR5006.
To begin with, I removed the frets and installed walnut overlay in the slots where the frets were. If I am not mistaken, I believe the fingerboard on the 1994 SR506 were ebony, it does not appear to be rosewood because it seems to be too hard and brittle for rosewood. I decided to use the black nylon coated string to preserve the fingerboard and I and getting the fretless sound I was looking for (I have an upright acoustic bass which has the black nylon on it).
I change out the one piece bridge and installed 6 - HipShot triple lock bass bridge sections. They are very close to the SR5006 bridge sections and are surface mounted, the SR5006 bridge section are recessed because of the slight arch the body has.
I installed brand new Gotoh Sealed 707E tuners (I wanted to keep the tuner as close to original as possible, Gotoh Sealed turners were original on the 1994 SR506).
The previous owner had all ready change the electronic, they’ll do for now, but I am planning to use the same electronic that are in the SR005E whenever I can get them.
I did change the control knobs which real looks good.
But for now, I have my two basses, “Pride” and “Joy” (that’s their names) to play until…
The one thing I do know is, the craftsmanship of the Ibanez product stand the test of time and my investment into the SR5006 and SR506 were a great choice.
HeNot attached the following image(s):
