Jean-Luc Pickguard

When I put together my fretless precision bitzer I didn't want to spend a fiver on a nut blank I was probably going to ruin, so I went to the nearest Chinese food wholesaler, Wing Yip in Croydon, who supply restaurants & takeaways, but is open to everyone, and I bought a box of fake ivory plastic chopsticks for about a quid. I cut a few down to the length of a nut, filed them to the width of a nut and cut the slots using a variety of needle files and wet & dry paper wrapped around things. I ended up with a perfect nut on my first attempt and no elephants were killed. The material the chopsticks were made of was perfect s it is quite a dense plastic which files very well.

I'd second this advice. I recently acquired a secondhand PB-50 for £50 and have reshaped the headstock & applied a new decal, made a loom with CTS pots, puretone socket & orange drop capacitor, fitted super-knurly domed knobs, squier tuners, a Fender HiMass Bridge, chrome pickup cover, and a well worn-in set of thomastik flats. I'm so knocked out by the tone with the stock Roswell pickup that there's no way I'd consider changing it - it punches well above its weight.

Richlite - looks like ebony, feels like ebony, not affected by seasonal heat & humidity changes.

Next year it will be as old as the basses it was based on were when it was built. I'm not normally one for jazzes, but this looks fantastic.

I use these: https://amzn.to/38x8cVS

I always assumed he was miming to a sequencer while trying to look as cool as possible despite having a pink shaztree growing out of the top of his head.

Nah! Its only naughty if I sell it. It told me that it identifies as a Fender due to the Fender pickup cover and Fender HiMass bridge which together cost me more than the bass.

Before and after pics of the headstock on my PB50

I usually fill a saucepan with petrol, bring it to the boil, throw the strings in and simmer for a couple of hours.

The best cheap(er) flatwounds I have found are the ones sold by status graphite. These are stainless steel flats made for status by picato who no longer make them so there is a finite supply. They still have short & medium scale in stock, but no long scale flats. I use the medium (32") scale ones on my guild starfire and for £22 delivered they are unbeatable. I can't link to the specific page on status-graphite.com as their retro 90s style website uses a frameset.

My favourite Nick Drake song is 'Poor boy'

Mine would be the same as Mr Meldal-Johnson’s signature mustang in Daphne blue, but made to replicate how a 1966 bass would have come off the production line - ie the colour would be brighter and there would be no roadworn malarkey. If that’s not allowed due to it being based on someone else’s signature bass, I’d get a Fender version of my Squier short scale jaguar bass in candy apple red with rolled fingerboard edges, Fender hi mass bridge, Fender yosemite PJ pickups with CTS/ switchcraft bits inc a greasebucket circuit and more substantial tuners.

JHS make the packrat which is a load of different flavours of rar in one box. Josh Scott also make this video:

Surely if it was originally a solid colour it would have been alder?

I have ‘em on a few basses. My JMJ mustang even came with one in the right place. I also fitted them to some basses on the treble side, but that’s more an affectation to be vintage correct rather than for practical use as I never use those as a tug bar. Can anyone briefly outline the finer points of the floating thumb technique? Or is it just a fancy name for playing without a thumb rest?

I don't have a preference.

I doubt the 40% sale nonsense will fool anyone

Looks like they were going for a sadowsky vibe—except for the bridge/tailpiece combo which seems a weird choice for a jazz bass.

Damn! mucked it up. I tried to get the angles right on the tuners but they seem to have come out in alignment. I couldnt find the angle grinder or my biro so I couldn't do the scrotal tuner reshape and had to put on a voodoo-decals logo.

Depends on the bass. My favourite tuners are the ones I have fitted to my thunderbird vintage pros - Gotoh res-o-lite GB640 (non-reverse) in a nickel finish, but they probably wouldn't look right on a short scale bass

The tuners are reversable! Not sure this is in keeping with the spirit of the project though as it takes a job away from the angle grinder. Maybe if I use the angle grinder to carve the tuner ears into a scrotal shape it'll get back on track. This will of course have to be done freehand so they all end up different sizes.

Added to the to-do list

Perfect! I'll just need to get the angle grinder out. Then it'll be time to flip it over to handwrite a logo & today's date with a biro.

Good idea!

Now that the headstock has been reshaped its time to put my PB50 back together. I found a spare set of squier (ping?) tuners in one of my miscellaneous bits boxes. These seem to be a slight upgrade from the stock HB ones. The holes don't match so I've filled the original ones and now need to make some new ones. Then I had an idea that will help me to be able to tune up when I'm wearing mittens. What do we all think? Should I do it?