RonC

Fantastic job Rob!! I love your "paintwork"!

The 2 MK1’s that are now forever connected!

Haha, that’s mine…(and I didn’t do this!) Long time ago I traded my MK3 fretless 5er for an MK1 fretless plus an extra fretless neck with British bassist Ian. the MK1 had a rosewood fretless fretboard and the extra neck was ebony. I swapped the necks because I prefer ebony for fretless. After the swap I contacted Ian again to ask where this neck came from. He also had the rest of this bass, the demolished body, electronics, pickups and bridge. He got this bass from some punk bassplayer who found it to heavy… so that guy cut it up..😬😳. I finally bought the parts together with the body and in 2011 I send all the parts plus the rosewood neck to Wal and had Paul build me a new body for it and had the rosewoodneck fretted. So now I have 2 MK1 basses. All this time this poor body is lying in my room and i can’t look at it. So i thought I’d give it a try and see if there’s someone brave and crazy enough to buy it and make something out of it… I have no idea if there’s someone who wants to pay for it anyway so I just started high … why not?

Thank you! It was an absolute joy building it!

Walnuts?

Its all a matter of taste i think, I just love the look of the Mk1. There's a Wal with much better ergonomics; the MK3. I've had a MK3 5er for years but eventually traded it for an Mk1, i just like the "old school" looks.. Thanks for your honest opinion!! 👍

Thank you Funkle, you're thread sure helped me finding the right pickups and preamp!!! 👍

That was a damn good Joke!!! 🤣 Shame that they find this offensive.....

Thanks!!!

haha, good idea!

Thank you! I don't take commisions yet, I do 90% of the work in the workplace of the luthier school. sometimes i do some repairwork at the kitchentable 😉. Next year i want to build my own workplace at home. Then i might take commisions... 😀

I dismanteled my fretted MK1, measured everything and took pictures of it. a felllow forumite Patricio (username PLB) drawed the digital plan for me. I have PDF's of it so i'm happy to share it with you if you like. (just send me a PM) Thanks!

Thanks!!!

He told us about his TB10! Thats should be an amazing bass too. He's indeed a very kind person. Around 2020 he bought an Ibanez Musician MC900 from me, he came to visit and we had a great chat! he can talk for hours about his bass and guitar collection and his opinion on basses. Great to hear all his anekdotes from his musical life. And indeed a great player! a small world it is! Thanks for the compliments!!

Thanks! I used Turner multicoil pickups, these PU's come very close to the Wal PU's. Because i also wanted the look of the Wal PU's, Chrtis Turner made me a set with a plain surface.

Everything is to learn, I started this luthier education in 2018 (1 day a week) and before that I had no skills at all. But with a good teacher, patience and trust almost anyone can get there (unless you have two left hands of course.. ) Thank you!

Thanks!!!

A new family picture of my 3 Wals together with a new born Claassen bass which I made myself. if you’re interested, here’s the build diary of my tribute to Wal: Wal tribute build diary

Thank you!!!🙏

Thanks!!😀

Thanks a lot! I wish i could do it all day instead of my normal job! maybe some day part time....

It's finished! https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/510756-wal-mk1-copytribute-bass-claassen-mk1/

Dank je!!!! It was quite hard work, especially to plane the ebony top and back to the right thickness.(sharpening my plane every 15 minutes...) but it was all worth it. I'm very satisfied with the endresult! 😀

Great sound funkle! I used the same combination of electronics and pickups in my recently build Wal copy! (Sorry for hijacking this topic) Here's the build diary: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/510756-wal-mk1-copytribute-bass-claassen-mk1/

Thank you!!!