Maude

Woodpecker From Mars - Faith No More

The best pop song ever written. Perfection from start to finish. John Peel had Teenage Kicks, this is mine. As you were 😁.

Log - Ren & Stimpy

One got away a couple of weeks ago. It's a long story though. There was a thread on here earlier in the year titled 'Impossible desires', or something like that. I posted on there about a Peavey T40 I'd seen in The Bass Gallery, and how I'd absolutely fallen for it, but the price was crazy. The seller saw my post and contacted me and offered to sell it privately at a very discounted price, but at the time it was still more than I wanted to spend. Fast forward a couple of months and I couldn't get that bass out of my mind. I decided to sell a bit of gear so the money didn't have to come out of the bank, just to justify it to myself. If I raised enough I'd contact the seller. The first item up for sale was a Yamaha BB1024X. A buyer contacted me and asked if I was interest in trades. I explained that I was raising funds for a T40, so no. He replied, "Yeah I've got that bug." and sent a picture of four T40s lined up. We chatted back and fourth and he reckoned the one I was after was priced right and said he'd snap it up if it was an '82, he was trying to collect every finish from his birth year! Well if you believe in fate then that must've been a sign. I'd been keeping an eye on The Bass Gallery and it was still there. I sold the BB a couple of days later so half the funds were there and decided to contact the seller. "Yeah I've decided to keep it, I've asked the Gallery to take it down." Well you could've heard the air coming out of me I deflated so rapidly. All that build up. Oh well, you snooze you lose! As they say.

Dunno, I'll let you know next year. 😋

The only thing that's tripped me up a couple of times is that the fretboard feels very flat. But I'll soon get used to that. One thing I'll ask you as it strikes me as odd. The control switch is held on with a nut and the washer between the nut and control plate looks more like it should be below the plate, between the actual switch and the plate, if you see what I mean. It has a little tab which is usually there to dig into the reverse of the plate to grip on other basses. Is yours like this or is it a mistake on mine.

I'll be be completely honest, the looks aren't doing it for me at all. It's in the style of the Hacienda club but the mish-mash of patterns doesn't appeal to me. The blue is nice enough, but the mix of yellow & black hazard tape, aluminium checker plate, odd knobs and the red/black striped TRC look like a child has been let loose with the crayons. I'll probably make a new scratchplate, control plate and TRC which will serve two purposes. 1, make it look better (in my eyes) and 2, save the originals from getting scratched in case I sell it, as it is a collectors bass really. Any light plectrum scratches around the playing area can be polished if and when the time comes. The fly is under the lacquer so will have to stay. Also some new knobs.

Canoe Feel It - Jackson Five

I'm the same. When I first saw it I thought, ooh a nice little project. But a combination of you expressing an interest, my having too many unfinished projects, and that I've just bought a bass vi meant I saw sense. It would be cool though once done.

Did you go for it in the end?

The new nut and thumbrest made an enormous difference. After I'd sorted these, this was my sole gigging bass in the Mod band up until Covid put a stop to it all. As of yet, we haven't got going again due to a few reasons. I'm going out of my mind not gigging.

I've heard very good things about the Vintage Tony Butler, and it's a looker too.

I don't want to hijack this thread so here's a link to the thread about mine.

Yes, it looks far more like an early Rickenbacker 360 Capri, or dare I say it, a more accurate copy of the Shaftsbury Rick copy bass than an actual 4005. I've just been trying to find the thread where it was discussed when it was released, but I can't find it. Maybe it was removed, I can't remember if things where heading the wrong way in it. The other even better option is a certain luthier who makes extremely accurate tributes to Rickenbackers, but with even better attention to detail than Rickenbacker themselves can manage. See my avatar. 😉

Black Magic Woman - Fleetwood Mac

They came out a while ago, and to be honest not much like a 4005. Still lovely though. Worryingly, at the eye watering price tag I've seen complaints about build quality, up close the tailpiece looks terrible. More like it's designed to cut strings rather than anchor them. I'm not a Rick hater BTW, wait 'til they get going. 😁 If someone wanted to gift me one I'd take my chances with it. 😎👍

Well that's a mouthful! 😁 I've had a Squier Bass VI since they released them but, like many, have never really got on with the string spacing, it's fine if you played it like a guitar. The Eastwood is much more like an actual bass. I'd been keeping an eye open for a used Eastwood but they just never seem to come up for sale. This one had been on facebook for a while but was too expensive for me, £300 more than new as it's one of the limited edition Fac51 Hacienda ones, so I'd kind of been toying with ordering a new one. I was selling stuff to buy the Peavey T40 I'd mentioned in other threads (I won't bore you) but the seller has decided to keep it. Feeling a little deflated I looked up the Eastwood ad and the seller had reduced it substantially. I made an offer and we struck up a deal. Now, I wasn't after the Hacienda one, it's kind of tacky, and being only 51 made is more of a collectable than a player, but I got it for a couple of hundred less than a new standard one so what does it matter? And being a huge Joy Division/New Order fan helps. It'll sit nicely with my Yamaha BBPH. It's never been played, just bought then squirelled away, so is absolutely mint condition. It's actually way nicer in the flesh than the pictures online make it look. Well built, lovely finish (I'm a fussy git) and really nice neck wood with quite a bit of quilting and grain, it looks really 3d as you move it in the light. It feels so much better than the Squier to play, the stock strings are fine and the spacing feels much better for me. Although wide, the neck is very shallow so feels very comfortable. It sounds fantastic, of course I had to put it through my EHX Bass Clone and play some New Order. 😁 It was bought as a 'let's see' kind of bass, which is why I was after second hand. But after a few hours of playing I can already tell it's a keeper, it just feels right where every other Bass VI I've tried doesn't. Anyway you must be bored by now so here's some pictures. 😉

Wow! That's in fantastic condition. What a find. 😎👍

I love the selector switch titles. Split Sound Jazz Treble Wild Dog Oh yeah!

Flour in the Dessert - The Cult

If only you'd put 'Flaky Bakey Tart'. You'd have won the thread. 😁

Jenny Don't Be Pastry - Paulo Nutini

It was your posts that turned me onto the Tonerider Lozz. You know your Precisions and if you thought it was close to the customshop 62 then that was good enough reason to try one, especially at the price they are. I put it in a £50 Encore I picked up, did some serious fretwork and a set up and put some old chromes on it. When I play it I genuinely wonder why I've bothered with expensive gear. It sounds, and feels fantastic.

I wasn't sure at first but then saw the picture. If a second pickup replaces that sticker then go for it! 😉 Don't overlook cheaper pickups. May I suggest moving the original to the neck and putting a Warman in the bridge position. The Warman, although cheap is a great authentic sounding pickup.

The cost for a repair probably won't be any different than a full respray. The prep is the time consuming part. Once ready for paint the quickest, cheapest option is to do an entire refinish. It will be a blue basecoat and clear topcoat. The damage is extensive enough that a small 'spot repair', while possible, isn't worth the extra effort involved in blending the blue, then fading out the lacquer and polishing the lacquer edges. You also risk the blue not matching. The next option is repair, then blend the blue over the repair and lacquer the entire body. Again, doable but there's the risk of a halo around the blended blue and the blue being a different shade. Lots of things will change the shade of a colour but get ten different LPBs from ten different suppliers and they will all be different, even different batches from the same supplier. The area left after repair will be about the same area needed to blend the blue satisfactorily, so pointless really attempting a blend. The only option I'd go for if asked to paint it would be full blue basecoat respray and full lacquer. Far less time consuming and guaranteed results. If you've got a bodyshop local to you they will be able to scan the body (before you do any repair) and mix the colour to match. This will probably be cheaper than buying your own paint from a guitar supplier as they will only have to mix what they need, plus they will be using paint they're used to and set up for. If you can look up the paint code or RAL number online they probably won't even need to scan the bass. LPB is afterall just an old car colour, Cadillac I seem to remember, probably late fifties. If you do the prep yourself, just take the lacquer and the blue basecoat off. There's no need to remove the sealer coat, it's an absolute pig to remove normally and once off you/your painters will only need to replace it. If the damage is through the sealer coat I'd look to repair those small areas rather than remove all of it, then prime. Good luck 🙂👍