rubis

Hat tipping stuff Mottlefeeder, I'd be very happy if I could have produced that out in the garage (or kitchen)!

WOW, that's a fabulous looking neck! It looks like the burl is a veneer, is that right? What are those two things that look like string ferrules on the rear cover, are they 'easy access' trim pots for the electronics? Beautiful looking bass.

What a beautiful thing, is that a round laminate fingerboard too? A very tidy collection

If you already have an Ampeg PF50t, and like it, have you considered slaving it up with something like a Baby Sumo? That's what I'd do with my PF20t if I ever gigged again.

Great news Sam, best of luck to you Have a great Christmas

I have a Bare Knuckles '60's style' pickup in mine and it's awesome, with round or flats, but I particularly like the sound with flats. if it's of any help, I swapped out a Delano pickup for a Nordstrand in my Blingray and the difference was huge, I see no reason why a Nordstrand P style pickup wouldn 't give you the same difference in your Sandberg (which looks lovely, by the way) In fact I bought a Nordstrand NP5 for my new build project, and I'm even considering making a PJ bass, well worth a look and if the staggered poles bother you, they do a traditional looking one too!

I agree with the previous comments, I think the design is much more elegant without the headstock

Coolest thing I've ever seen

What a great project, I love following stuff like this, enjoy yourself Maude, and keep us updated when you can!

Best wishes to you Sam, I hope you can keep playing, don't give up on it

Fantastic Thank you very kindly orangepeelneil

A bit of guidance and advice is needed now, if anyone wouldn't mind answering a couple of questions please, as electronics is not one of my strong points. I had a speaker cable lying around unemployed, and it's decent quality, so it seemed a shame not to use it for this rig. The problem is that it's got Speakon plugs at each end, and the PF20t has jack plugs for speaker outs. The cable looks to be 2 core, I can see a blue and a red wire inside the plug. So, I got a Neutrik jack plug, and assumed that I can just cut one of the Speakon plugs off, and weld 😖 solder the jack in its place, but the question is - does it matter which way round the red and blue wires go onto the jack. I assume the two cores are to be soldered to A and B in the photo above, but is A red or blue? Second question, if I may! I couldn't find the same kind of speaker socket that Ampeg use on their cabs, but I'm not at all bothered about that to be honest, because I found a nice retro looking Neutrik socket. Now, same kind of question, really, the speaker has two wires, one marked + and one marked - On the back of the Neutrik socket there are 4 poles which are marked 1+, 1-, 2+ and 2- So again, which pole would the + wire from the speaker go to, and which pole would the -wire go to? Once more, thanks in advance for any advice

Had I known about them I would have!

Me too, but I'd keep both necks, fit the fretless one, and start growing a mullet!

Got a bit more progress to show on this today. I was a bit concerned about getting the speaker mounting bolts properly square so that the speaker located easily. I opted to use M6 bolts mounted from the outside of the speaker baffle, into Tee nuts which are recessed into the speaker baffle, so that they don't come into contact with the grille baffle (hope that makes sense). Now, as I want to use eight of these bolts, rather than 4 long pointed bolts as on the original, this means they all have to be square to the baffle face, there would be less room for error because the M6 bolts are quite a snug fit through the 8 mounting holes on the speaker. I placed the speaker onto a scrap sheet of plywood and drilled holes through, to make a sort of fitting jig. Then I placed the speaker baffle over the top, lined the holes up and used this to help keep the bolts square whilst I hammered them into the recesses. I also put a bit of Loctite Threadlock on the top of the bolts, before tightening the Tee nut up into position, hoping to keep them from working loose, might be overkill but I had it available, so why not! The speaker baffle was then glued into place and clamped up, I also added 4 of the little gluing blocks on the inside, like the original ones and then went round with some blackboard paint and some sealant. I will recheck the sealant tomorrow in proper daylight and go over any areas which need attention, as the light was fading when I did it. Anyway, the process seems to have worked, as the speaker plopped straight into place on the mounting bolts. Next jobs will be the back panel and the speaker grille.

Very nice indeed

Hi Neil that's brilliant, thank you kindly for replying, I'm not very 'au fait' with all of this side of things, and I'm not very confident with anything to do with wiring or electronics. Thanks again Harry

I'm trying to think ahead to things like cabinet fittings and wiring in the speaker. Now, the speaker socket on the side of the reproductions made by Fliptops and Vintage Blue are quite authentic and original looking, like this However, I can't find any that look like that in Europe, does anyone know of a good supplier of cabinet parts? I have a spare speaker cable lying around with nothing to do, and it's decent quality......Van Damme cable and Speakon connectors, so I could use that and fit a suitable Speakon socket...…….I'd have to put a jack plug on the amp end though) Or would I be better off going jack to jack and find a retro looking jack socket for the cab? Are Speakons better than jacks? Any recommendations or advice would be most welcome.

Got the speaker baffle done today, it went quite well, if not a bit noisey for a Sunday afternoon, what with all the routing involved! I need to drill the holes for the front baffle to locate and hang, and I need to get some of those T-nut things for fitting the speaker, as that's what the bloke at Vintage Blue does, I thought I'd follow his example, he looks like he knows! http://vintage-blue.com/products.html

What a cool project Maude, I'll be watching with great interest