Maude

Goes to look on ebay 🙈

And if you ever find all the odd socks I'll bet all the missing pens and plectrums are inside them, along with the spare car keys and probably a remote control.

My favourites are the Dunlop nylon 1mm ones. They're black and as such pretty much single use.

Thanks @ikay, that's great. Was yours a twin pickup with one by the bridge? I'm just trying to get my head around the cavities and screw holes. The control cavity looks to be the same although appears to have been widened slightly. I think mine is a genuine body, hopefully more clues will appear when I get the paint off.

Funny you should mention the Kay, (not selling yet 😁) as a lot of these had a vinyl covering and some were two tone, ie white front and black back which met in the middle like my Kay, I didn't know this when I did the Kay. Anyway, much as I like the above white/red one as inspiration, I've seen some really nice copper pearl scratchplate material which would pick out the brown in the fret markers, against a very creamy body. Then I thought the original copper brown I used on the Kay on the back would look good, like the Kay but reversed. Even a row of four of the knobs I used on the Kay because, as cheap as they are, I love them and they're a similar style to the Hofner ones. I've also got a couple of other ideas inspired by a Kay (American brand) acoustic that I nearly bought with an almost animal print scratchplate. Time will tell. 🙂 This shows the white and black vinyl.

Woodpecker From Mars (Faith No More)

Yes @Shaggy, most of these would've had a vinyl 'snakeskin' body, and yes, very tight string width, I think about 14mm at the bridge and like you say, practically parallel along the length.

Thanks for the tip. They're one of my favourite bits, once the neck is all cleaned up it'll be lovely. I can't quite work out what the brown stripe is, research say its tortoise shell (colour) but in May photo it looks like the grain of the rosewood is showing through, meaning they're are/were clear. Unless it's just a coincidence that the light and dark tones of the rosewood line up quite well with the tort patterning. I'll look at the others tomorrow.

I've just noticed that the tuners have 'Made on W. Germany' stamped on them, meaning that although they are replacements they must be over thirty years old themselves. Also, although a fair bit has been changed on this bass, it appears to have been done quite well and used extensively in its current form. I wish basses like this could tell their story.

Do you have a link as I'm doing some research at the mo 😉👍

The bass arrived safely, I booked through Eurosender using the forum discount code, £12.50 from North Yorkshire to Cornwall using DPD and it took two days, you can grumble at that. First inspection, Hiscox case in good condition, that has to be a third of the price taken care of. It's got Schaller tuners which once removed felt very light indeed. I'd like the standard ones which are square pearloid ones but the only ones I can find are two for £35 each and a further one for £45 on ebay. The neck is original and also very light and in good condition really but could do with a refret, I should add I played it before stripping and it played really nicely and sounded good. I really like the fret markers which are cream/brown/cream pearl. The brown part is possibly a clear resin that has yellowed with age as I think you can see the rosewood grain below it. The bridge and tailpiece are original and will polish up hopefully. The bridge appears to have a brass top and the tailpiece is possibly aluminium. I'll know more when I work on it. I had no idea what the pickup was going be other than a Musicman style hunbucker, turns out it's a Kent Armstrong HBMN-1 and sounds nice, but ultimately completely wrong for what I want so will either go in my parts drawer or get sold. The electrics? Who knows? But they're going as it should have two volumes and two tones, and possibly a pair of pickup on/off switches depending on model. The scratchplate is homemade and will be going as well, as obviously it won't fit the pickups I'll be fitting. Now onto the body. This was going to be the interesting part as it would hopefully tell me what model, and age, the bass was. There's some history on the Hofner 182/185 here if anyone's interested. http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/hofner2/artb.html Off came the scratchplate and up went the confusion level. Apart from the MM route I was expec a neck pickup route as the 185 had a neck and bridge pickup at both extremes of the body, but it had a central pickup route that had been filled. Also the neck pocket had been shortened with a little infill. The outline of the body looks to be identical to all the pictures of 185's (not the very early ones that were pre offset and had the classic Hofner control plate) and is relatively thin, as I believe the Hofners were, but the pickup and neck route don't make sense. 🤔 If it is a different body I don't mind as it's nice and light and the neck fits perfectly. I also checked the scale length was correct as if the pocket had been filled and the bridge fitted to a different body then I might have problems later on, but no, it's bang on 30". Oh yeah, did I mention it was short scale. It strangely doesn't feel or look it though. I'll see what appears when I start sanding the body and headstock.

Hi all, Whilst browsing eBay I came across a bass I recognised but had been toyed with at some point in the past. The neck markers are what grabbed me. A closer look and the body, bridge, tailpiece and neck looked to be original, with the tuners and scratchplate, pickup and electrics being 'modified'. The seller had it listed as a 'Jamie' bass and wanted £280 including the Hiscox case. Now all original ones seem to go for around the £600-£700 mark, this'll never be worth good money due to the missing parts, and vintage replacements are rare and expensive. I had to decide, do I take a chance unseen? Then I saw this picture of one with a replacement scratchplate and headstock plate, from what I can tell they had a plate covering the headstock, as well as the quirky textured vinyl covered body, anyway my mind was made. I could do a sympathetic restoration with similar, but not necessarily genuine, parts. This is the picture that swung it, I offered £200 and he agreed. 🙂 This thread will be a bit of a project journal (and detective work) as it's not enough to go in the builds section I feel. Next post : Bass arrival and stripping.

In all fairness having three or four new threads posted on the same day, recommending and encouraging purchases of a book, just after the authors thread had been deleted, all being posted by members of 'the other big bass forum', is pretty much the definition of spamming. Although those posters were TB members, it wouldn't take a genius to work out what's going and have a quick look on BC and find this thread, especially given the response by TB to the original thread by the author. Fair play for trying though but I feel to many threads were started in the rush to help. That said it's a shame TB is the way it is, but it is.

Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues or even better, The Dickies)

So starting a thread calling them f**king c**ts for deleting the book recommendations would be frowned upon then. 🤔😄

Nothing really, apart from I really like the look of all the range, retro and quirky. I'm sad and buy with my eyes. 😃

Oh god, don't start showing me Italia basses. I've resisted many times but I can't always be this strong. 😄

But but but everyone on here told me that Ashdown had an indistinct, wooly tone. He can't have got a good tone from it, he just can't have I tell ya!! Disclaimer: I like Ashdown gear 😉.

Sweet Gene Vincent (Ian Dury and The Blockheads)

Sha la la la Lee (Small Faces) Well it had to be didn't it? 😉

The cheek of of it! 😄

Ta daaa!

Has she been wearing a rather fetching pair of orange earrings lately?

On My Radio (The Selecter)

Bullet The Blue Sky (U2)