Happy Jack

OK, things have moved along pretty smartly and the Kolstein is now GONE. I was contacted by a long-time lurker, a pro bassist who prefers to keep a very low profile so I'll mention neither his name nor that of his luthier, and his plan is to do as near a complete restoration to original as possible. He can then consider what mods - if any - he wants to make. I've given him the bass (as in no money changing hands, although he did offer) on the agreement that he'll keep a photographic record of his work, what he discovers, what needs to be done. Since he doesn't post here, the plan is that he'll send his photos to me, and I'll post them here. Sad to relate, his very first photo is desperately unhelpful ... I had no idea that chunk/shard/splinter was missing and Thwaites didn't mention it when they inspected the bass. ☹️ I can only assume that it went 'ping' at the gig and was swept up by the cleaners the next next morning. Ah well ...

I took the debris back to Thwaites in Bushey. When they'd finished laughing, they said their preliminary estimate for repairs would be £2000 but that might well increase depending on what they found. At which point I went off in a different direction. So here I am with all the parts I need to make a broken, unplayable Kolstein Busetto. What to do ... what to do ... I see three choices: Chuck the whole lot in a skip and walk away quickly, whistling tunelessly and looking unconcerned; Break for parts and sell them individually - there's some good stuff there for them's as wants it; Try and be at least a little imaginative. So here's my Starter For 10. Everything you see in those photos (and nothing you don't see) is free to any Basschatter who has a genuine use for some/all of the parts, perhaps for the repair of DBs, perhaps for some weird EUB project (who knows?), but above all someone who will make sensible, constructive use of all this stuff. I don't have a Jiffy bag large enough to take all this, so we're talking either collection from Harrow HA1 or a sociable beer somewhere not too, too far from here.

Once upon a time there was a bass, a happy bass, a bass that enjoyed being owned by Basschatters such as @bassace and @Clarky. It was a fragile wee thing and needed a reasonable amount of upkeep and maintenance, because it always looked as if it was about to collapse into (as @Owen puts it) a bunch of matchsticks. But I loved it to bits, played hundreds of gigs with it, and asked myself, "What's the worst that could happen?". And then, one day, the worst happened. Are you familiar with the expression an exploded diagram? You are? Excellent! Here are some exploded photographs ...

That is some serious string spacing ...

Yup, that's exactly it. However, it is surprisingly easy to get the string routing wrong and end up with randomly turning tuners. 🙄

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/weezer-bassists-wife-shot-by-l-a-cops-booked-for-attempted-murder/ File under "couldn't make it up".

Has anyone started a thread about Tone Formica?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2v0l38mgro

My strategy? Buy nothing, sell nothing, wait and see. I suspect that whatever you do for the next year, you'll end up later wondering if you'd have been better off doing the opposite. When in doubt, do nowt.

A-a-a-a-a-and ... goodbye eBay for private vendors. Just walk away.

Not sure I agree. The point made by the OP is arithmtically correct; yes, you're still out of tune but - for a given finger placement - you're less out of tune on a longer-scale instrument (which helps). Unfortunately there's a quid pro quo in that the movement required to go from being badly intonated to hitting exacty the right note will be correspondingly larger. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Pah! You know NOTHING! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/355982559774?var=0&shprz=EBAY_GB_220&_ul=GB&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&toolid=20006&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338986375&customid=Cj0KCQjwkZm_BhDrARIsAAEbX1EmZox7L4Ql3upieiOm6fBvtDVEylGwzXbARnJJqT8Hbxh6A85CvCIaAsAgEALw_wcB&gbraid=0AAAAADcddnZ0Hle4bcnvb3ceAofK6gbeR&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkZm_BhDrARIsAAEbX1EmZox7L4Ql3upieiOm6fBvtDVEylGwzXbARnJJqT8Hbxh6A85CvCIaAsAgEALw_wcB

Sorry @jonnybass, I only had that bass for a couple of years so I never had a need to replace the strings - the ones on there now were there when I bought it. Worse, I'm pretty sure that I didn't buy it from a Basschatter; I've just waded back through five years of PMs and there's no sign of it.

Is it too late to warn the OP that he has probably invalidated his warranty? 😉

Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein.

Just over two years later the band has changed, the technology has improved, and my playing is unrecognisable ...

29th May 2008 at The Luminaire (Kilburn), my first ever gig with my first ever gigging band singing my first live vocal. My daughter forgot to switch on the recorder until halfway through the song. A bit pitchy but could have been a whole lot worse. The guitarist was going through massive back trouble and was totally zonked out on heavy-duty painkillers, but that's a pretty creditable solo. 02 Looking For My Baby.mp3

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Backdated-Melody-Maker-Seventies/dp/1915858224 Following a post by Joel McIver I bought this, and I've just finished reading it. It is comfortably the best read I've had in years ... and I read a LOT. Can't remember the last time a book had me laughing out loud (and I don't mean a bloody emoticon) so much or so often and, as a child of the 70s (I'm 68) every single bloody page meant something to me. The book is so well written that I didn't even feel jealous; I just felt like I was there with him. Trust me, you won't regret buying this.

You mean the bit where he shoots himself off like an arrow?

I stomped so hard that my pedal went through the floor.

That appears identical to mine as it was when I bought it, about 15 years ago. I recognise that vendor name, pretty sure he is/was a Basschatter. The price isn't outrageous but it's more than I'd be interested in paying, especially if the original electronics are in as poor a state as those on mine were.