Maude

The scratchplate could open downwards on two small chains to reveal a couple of shot glasses and a selection of miniatures in extended pickup cavities. 😄 It would be like Lemmy's bass case with JD bottle recess. Dont get me thinking. 🤔

Thank you both. 🙂 It makes you wonder why more manufacturers don't do it. It's like a colour matched headstock taken to the next level.

Feel free to doubt me, I do it myself enough. 😉 I wasn't sure myself to be honest. When it isn't on there the bass just looks more 'familiar', if that makes sense, like basses always look. And there was the issue, overfamilarity. I've got lots of basses with either wooden heads or painted heads, but nothing like this. It looks like they all had a plate which was normally black, so not too noticeable, but then I saw some like the red one with matching sparkle/pearl scratchplates and head plates. So I thought just do it. It's quirky and more in keeping with how it should be than not having one, and I reckon one it gets a 3D Hofner badge and stings it'll look even better. On similar note I've always liked the Yamaha RBX with the half head plate.

I wonder if one of these scammers has tried buying a Mason edition Sansamp pedal?

Just as an aside, it's always good to have an email address that you use for this sort of thing, shop receipts, manager at work, etc. One you don't monitor that will get all the spam.

If you're bored reply and say that the pedal is worth more than you thought, and you've had an offer of £250. Ask if he's willing to better that offer. If he will then say you'll only accept friends and family payment, or gift or whatever PP call it now. Just keep stringing him along.

Any message to an ad which says, "I am ready to purchase", or similar would just get ignored.

A little bit more progress today. I drilled the holes for the tuners in the headstock plate. Seems easy enough but with my limited tools at home nothing is ever straight forward. 😄 The ferrules are just over 12mm and the biggest drill bit I have at home is 10mm, apart from some step cutter type bits. Also marking the position of the four holes proved trickier than you'd imagine as they'd have to be bang on or I wouldn't be able to get all four in. The inner diameter of the ferrules was 8mm though so I hatched a plan, yes Baldrick, a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel. Well nearly. It taped the plate into position on the front and popped the ferrules in from behind. I could then use an 8mm drill bit and the ferrule would act as a guide to stop it wandering and keep things aligned. I then ran a step drill through until the 12mm section and tried the ferrules, and they fit, but were they in exactly the right place? Tried to slot it all together and as if by magic, it actually fits. The neck is now on and I can pop a pair of strings on and line up the pickups tomorrow. The badge I mentioned further back is hopefully being sorted. @Dad3353 & @BigRedXhave teamed up and most kindly offered to design and 3D print one and it should be just the ticket. Massive thanks fellas. 🙂👍

😎

Hofners have very narrow string spacing. Spacing at the nut and the bridge are two different things and can make the playing experience drastically different. In general people quote nut width but not bridge width. Stadard Fender spacing at the bridge is, I think, 19mm (between each string). The Squier Bronco is 17mm. Hofners are 14mm from memory, with parallel strings, as in they don't get any further apart from nut to bridge and as such feel very different to play.

The pins can be any diameter as I will be drilling the locating holes. Length, again fairly unimportant as I will probably just drill the headstock plate I have made and fix to that, so won't need to drill the headstock wood. About 4 or 5mm long would be fine as I'll probably wick a tiny amount of CA down the hole from the back and trim flush with a razor. Thank you for any help/file you can give @Dad3353. 🙂👍

It's not falling off is it. 😁 I love it, how will you fix the strap, carabiner type hooks?

Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits

I undestand (kind of) what you're saying and it's interesting learning how these things are done, until now I knew nothing about the process, and still know very little. Which is why I'm letting @Dad3353do what he feels is best. Thanks for the input though as it's all interesting. 🙂

I Think We're Alone Now - Tommy James & The Shondells

@Dad3353, I would like to pay you for this, but from reading your posts on here I doubt you'll let me. If they are to be free then that is most generous of you. You don't need to wait for a smile though, it's already there. When things like this happen on this forum I love it and it proves there's far more good folk out there willing to help out in whatever way they can, than there are ne'erdowells as seems to be general concensus. This does more for me than just make me smile. 😊 While I agree with @BigRedXthat the sides could possibly taper slightly and the badge not be as tall as the blue one in the image, I have not wanted to be picky as I don't know what's involved in changing it, and it might not need changing anyway as they will be painted. I can easily sand the top down a touch with some wet'n'dry and a block to keep it flat if need be, maybe round the edges ever so slightly. As to the tapered sides, when spray painting something this small and intricate the paint will have a tendency to flow towards the bottom and also not sit as thick on any sharp edges. The result of this would be for the sides to appear tapered and the edges slightly rounded, as if worn with age. The way I'm looking at it is it might not look totally genuine, as it isn't, but it will look a lot better than a decal.

My guess is it got walked on. I've seen them do it when they've delivered to work. 'The big green parcel machine', Tuffnells used to deliver a lot of our stuff and the driver would be in the back walking on parcels to get to the ones he wanted. The vans have got 'The people who care' on them as well.

One thing to consider though is that, if yours is all original, they make quite good money. While hunting around for parts I've seen them for sale up to four figures, whether any have sold for anywhere near that is another matter. I'd guess a decent one would get £6-700 though judging by the listings. Mine was too far gone to make finding all the original parts economical, hence why I'm doing what I am.

Any idea what strings you'll use to get a reasonable tension. I don't what scale length yours is but imagine putting a capo on the 5th fret (to get your scale length) and then down tuning so that it becomes B E A D G at the capo, the strings will be very loose. Won't they? 🤔 I'm intrigued to see how it works though. 🙂👍

Thanks for those @Happy Jack, I've seen a few similar but they're all way too big. I need about 45mm, those are all 110mm. The best of seen are these at 48mm but still not right. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hofner-guitar-sticker-headstock-neck-decal-PREMIUM-QUALITY-26-/373406594886?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 @Silvia Bluejay, as far as I'm aware, VAT on items under £135 will be collected at point of sale so there shouldn't be any extra fees to pay as the courier won't be dealing with the VAT on my behalf. We'll see soon as I've accidently bought a £2 item from china, I filtered the ebay results to UK only and bought something, only realised when the delivery date was in a months time. One thing I have noticed though is that even if sending a gift from the EU into the UK, a customs declaration will need to be filled out. How we go about buying these from @Dad3353 is anyone's guess. But there's plenty of other B word threads going on so let's leave it there. 🙂

Cool, as you've seen I've made mine smaller but I might make a full size one to go right to the edge. I just wanted to know that it is like a pickguard. 👍

They probably thought it was a Les Paul neck. 😄 Sorry, that is absolutely shocking. 🙁

Is that a black plate, or something else? I've been trying to work out what they fitted.

You Sir, are an absolute legend. Thank you. Yes I'd paint it, and you're bang on with the colour scheme. The bass is cream with pearl copper scratchplate and headstock plate, a lot of the chrome on the hardware has worn away to reveal the brass underneath, which I've polished up. I'd possibly even paint the badge the same cream as the body and headstock and then the pick out the lettering in gold so as to match perfectly. It's the little details............. .......... that make me a dull lad. 😄

Whilst hunting around the webternet for any badges I came across a Hofner forum where I recognised a moderators name, @Dad3353. 🙂