Grangur

The neck is now twisted back to about the right position. If I can, I'll get a picture looking down the length, so you can see. Really, I'd like to get a bit more of an over-twist going, so when the clamp is relaxed, I have capacity for the twist to turn back just a little. What I've got now is the back of the tuning head is about 1mm from touching the worktop. So I can get a tiny bit more twist going, but not quite as much as I'd like to get. So, what I've learned here is I should have put the neck resting points up on blocks or spacers. This would have given the added clearance. What I've also been doing here, that I didn't mention, is I've been applying heat to the neck. Heat helps the glue in the neck relax and helps the neck twist. I've done this by putting a cloth over the frets and heating using a clothes iron. By using the iron the neck gets quite warm. Another thing I didn't mention is, when clamped I also checked the motion of the truss rod. All is working perfectly. Well, that is to say I can loosen it. I've not yet tightened it. When fixing other necks with a ski-jump, I've always tightened the TR before releasing the clamp. My plan is to do this on this one too. For now though, it's early days. This will be taken slowly with more heating later.

This is something that has come out of a bit of a challenge that came up in another thread. @Bassmingo has a nice Squier and described the neck as "classic ski jump". Well, I've fixed a few of those so I said, "That's fixable" etc, etc... So as a result the neck arrived here today. After unpacking it seems the truss rod works fine. I can get it straight and to back-bow with the truss rod. What's not so clever is the twist in the neck. The twist must be something like 4-5 degrees. Well, have to say, I know How these can be fixed, but I've never done one yet. So here we go. As it is @Bassmingo was expecting this neck is a write-off, so nothing to loose here. Conveniently I've got a nice chunk of kitchen worktop as a bench for this. So I've clamped the neck to the worktop. Put a block under the neck, near the nut, and after fitting a tuner head I've connected a string to apply the twisting tension.

Hmm.. I now sell LED lighting, so I guess my boss would like to think I still know a fair bit about some aspects of it.

Yes, @ikay, I stand corrected - post corrected. On the video... is it me or when he uses the tone control, does it also lose volume? This wouldn't surprise me from the circuit.

Here's something that gives his view on Fender: https://www.vintageguitar.com/21549/stanley-clarke/ Which other companies have approached you about endorsement deals? They all have – every company that’s been out there. And I’ve actually liked a few. I’m not a big Fender fan, but I have a few Fender basses. Marcus [Miller] gave me one of his signature basses, and I used it on a few movies and the new Al Jarreau record. I really like how Warwick makes basses, they’re very nice. So, here you have it.... if Fender pay a good royalty on sig models there's no limit to those who'll suck it up and take the money. It seems he used the Marcus Miller bass on "Last Train to Sanity".

my knowledge is rusty. I was in electronics about 20 years ago.

I reserve the right to be totally wrong... 1 - Yes, they're the ones I was thinking of. Yes that is interesting. 2 - Agreed.

What we don't know is if the capacitors are electrolytic. If they are, then the current flow is directional. At the time of posting I was in a bit of a rush and didn't want to get into the finer detail of, then, what does an electrolytic capacitor look like. Electrolytics have a "+" on one leg. However, as at all times, I reserve the right to be proved wrong by someone more knowledgeable than I. Maybe you do, @rmorris ? (not having a swipe, merely asking) The other thought is, if the pups are out of sync - one outputting +ive as the other goes -ive, then between them, the 2 voltages could maybe create a form of DC?

If you put the @ sign in front of @Twincam's name he might get an alert that you asked a question.

Hi @ikay, What you have are 2 pickups with on/off switches. Then the 2 tone controls. The signal then goes through coupling capacitors. These are invisible to an alternating current , but will stop any dc voltage. Then it goes through the 2 volume controls. The reason for the coupling capacitor is because, although we humans think of these as 2 separate circuits feeding a jack socket, electric current doesn't see it this way. If one volume is turned up and the other turned down, current from 1 pickup can feed back through the volume of the other pup and interfere with the signal from the other pickup.

Hey @Jimothey, somewhere I've got a really nice P-bass split coil pup. It's an American make. It sounds really good. The footprint is the same as a 4 string one, but it works with 4 or 5 string basses. If I can find it I'll let you know.

The Stones are well experienced at this. Ian Stewart was the original keys player with the Stones. He was a founding member but was told "Stewart, you've got a good face for radio, so we won't be wanting you on stage. But you're still a Rollin' Stone, you're still in the band". He never got the payments the others got and was, I believe, missed out on credits. Mick, Brian, and Keef lived together in a house and were the "in-crowd". Bill and Charlie were family men and never were on the same footing as the others in the band either. Today Ronny has taken Brian's roll in the centre. Charlie is still an outsider. But I guess this happens a lot. I've seen it in bands too. Watch John "Rhino" Edwards on stage with Status Quo, and you can see he's still 2nd division.

Yes, @Jimothey, that's about it, but you need to disconnect one leg of the pup from the circuit, otherwise you would be measuring the resistance of the volume pot. Or, do my other suggestion and connect the existing pup to a jack, and see if that works. This way you, at least find out if the pup is the issue, or if it's the circuit

Yes, @Dad3353. Undeniably so, in fact. OK, so that's what happened here in the case of @Dood's parcel. What can have happened is if you only use 1 label, and that label gets damaged or falls off, is you have no other identifying information, then you're up a gumtree. So, the thing to do is have 2 labels and 1 further one inside the packaging. It's a pain you can't stick tape over the bar-code to make the label stronger against being rubbed or scratched. I honestly don't think UPS are any worse than any other courier. In all organisations All ( or most) workers want to do a good job., but stinky poo happens sometimes.

I've not read much of this thread, but I've sent LOADS of basses by UPS through Interparcel. They're great. Never had a problem. I've Never had to claim, never any damage. But I always pack anything with the idea that I'm expecting: it will get dropped from a modest height. It will get slid across the floor of a truck for the next guy to stack. In a stack it could be at the bottom of the pile with other stuff on top Yet, I also use tape round it that says "Fragile". Billy Connolly says, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes". I guess too many get damaged goods and blame couriers, when it's really down to bad packaging. When you think about the vast volume of goods handled by any courier, they do an amazing job for the price; getting stuff from one end of the country to the other end for £15 + insurance. If any of you want to take that on, good luck to you coming from your place of abode to Hertfordshire, to take a bass to Wales/Scotland/Manchester for £20.. good luck to you.

it's possible that a good way to move forward next is to check the pup by removing the pup from the volume pot and connect it straight to a jack socket and find out if you get output then,

That all makes sense. Thanks for that. You're clearly Red-Green colour blind, but we can work with that and it doesn't matter here. For your info; cable "3" is green. The other cables are red. So it's done in a logical-ish way. On that basis, it's not impossible that your up has gone open circuit. Do you have another pup you can connect?

Or is the black from the pot going to the jack and the green going to the bridge? Also, where the white/hot connection from the pup goes to the volume pot, the tag looks bent. Is there anything there touching the foil on the back of the pickguard?

Seems to me you are getting an output, but maybe something is short-circuiting the pickup. Go over everything. Look for things like a long wire soldered to a pot touching the can of the pot. Also, if you've screened the cavity, take the pickguard off, connect up the bass, with the PG dangling off. Then see if it works. It's possible screening is touching something and shorting it to earth.

Really sorry to see this has happened, Tom. Terry at TJC Guitars has made a speciality of fixing things just like this. www.tjcguitars.com

I've dome this a few times, as has @gary mac I'm sure. It's pretty easy. The main thing is let the glue set before drilling so you have less chance of the screweek going off into the old path, and use a sharp blade to cut the cocktail stick.