Hofner 500/1 Violin Bass

[ssstonelover]

I had to work on a Hofner bass guitar and made the following wiring 'tracing' based on the German control circuit I installed on the Ignition version as part of an upgrade.
Hofner's circuit is a bit unusual (Solo/Rhythm gives 100%/70% volume for example by removing/adding a 100K resistor in the load) plus the on/off of the pickups is opposite to what the lettering might suggest (pull up toward the body in the playing position for ON is what you need to do). I'm including the control plate and brass shield in the depiction should someone want to make their own from scratch.

[obade]

Hello ssstonelover,

Could you reply the dimensions of the switch panel, including the copper plate? I want to make such a switch plate from  turloid in the color matching to the pickguard of my old Tellson Guitar.

Thank you.


Peter from Holland.

[ssstonelover]

Sept 27, 2023 0:59:59 GMT -5 obade said:

Hello ssstonelover,
Could you reply the dimensions of the switch panel, including the copper plate? I want to make such a switch plate from  turloid in the color matching to the pickguard of my old Tellson Guitar.

Hi Peter,
Sorry for the delay, I just saw your message. I had created the image in 1:1 scale fortunately in AI (Adobe Illustrator), and then exported it into PNG so the scale information was lost of course.

I still had an AI copy, converted to DXF, then transferred it to SolidWorks and got these dimensions.
This should get you close.

[ssstonelover]

Don Miller just created a video overview of the Hofner control panel wiring.The Illustrated Guide to the Höfner Violin Bass Control Panel Wiring

For sure the "Violin Bass" is quite unusual and counter-intuitive in many respects in its circuit.