kodiakblair

Folks on TalkBass have been playing the OP's game for a while now 🤣 https://www.talkbass.com/threads/i-have-an-old-bass-its-was-my-very-first-bass.1541590/#post-25917484

Aye , you'd be scunnered finding this on your MIA Fender 🤣

? After the factory change in 2018, some owners reported the hook up wire from the single coil being visible under the scratchplate. The channel was formed by drilling from the top , one hole angled into the pickup cavity while another went towards the control cavity. PB-50 FR belongs to friend, burst is one of mine.

Always a good shout. Try a vinyl film/wrap from eBay for starters , cheaper and easier to do than a spray can. Not a problem. I've talked quite a few folk through the process using the barest minimum of tools. I'll message you 🙂

Those are pretty big compared to a 51 style plate ; 1/4" wider and 1 1/4" longer. I've a hazy memory of seeing blank 51 plates someplace ; probably was drunk 😃 Quickest and easiest fix would be keep the control plate but hide the holes with dome caps.

£5 is a small price to see if you want it that bright 🙂 Opened the first one near at hand. B/Linear 250k Vol A/Log 250k Tone. Cap is 683/0.068uf

Pretty sure they are 250k. Will be home in an hour or so, I'll double check and report back.

Good choice , the PB-50 is a great bass. Not much of a platform for modding. Peghead reshape and change of strings are pretty much the main things folk do. Roswell pickup is basically a Duncan SCPB-3 wound to 9.5k instead of 13k ; fairly high output but you don't lose some mids 👍 I fitted 2 saddle bridges to a few but that was purely a visual decision. Stock pots/cap and jack sockets are still going strong after 4 to 8 years. Tuners benefit from a dab of grease. Plenty folk dislike the black scratchplate , or the white one if buying the red model. Brian Pillans in Glasgow has the solution there. Having owned at least 6 of them my advice is play it stock for a while , most mods are done just for the sake of it rather than for any real improvement 🙂

Bought a set of TIs from Neil last week. Top fella , whole process was done and dusted in no time 🙂

Check the delivered item against the photo and don't tick the "item accepted box" unless you're happy. That said , keep in mind you've paid £60 inc delivery. Warmoth,Fender,WD and Allparts charge £200 and £400 up to cover their QC scrap pile ; these £60 sellers don't have that luxury. Small cosmetic flaws will get passed . Also as I mentioned the big names all warn you not to expect an alteration-free drop in , same goes for the £60 necks. The CNC instructions for cutting neck pockets vary across factories and even vary within those factories , it depends on how often they recalibrate the machines. Heavy gloss finish might mean a too tight fit needing a bit sanding. Matt finish could be slightly smaller , scratchplate hides that 🙂 That's the thing with replacement necks. Aye , they're meant for a certain type of body but it's a type of body made in different places over a long period of time. The best the replacement neck folk can hope for is "near enough" 👍 I'll keep an eye out to see what path you take 🙂

Freeing up money is good but for me time was more important. Maple blank, truss rod and fret wire come to around £35 ; then there's my time to shape and sand it. Was well worth paying the extra £20 for somebody else to do the work 🙂 £50 odd for a blocked/binding reverse Tele peghead with square heel , it was no contest 👍

Bought and used necks sold by "wang guitar store 1980" on Ali-Ex , their eBay presence is "Jinwan" https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/bass-neck/5615246_517813061.html?spm=a2g0o.store_pc_home.pcShopHead_902313684.1_0_1 They've been great , rock solid with no fret work required. Bit of a surprise that since Warmoth, Allparts and Fender all tell you to expect doing fretwork on their necks 🤣 I'm not the only one happy with these necks , spotted a few builds over on TalkBS using them 👍 A mate over in Kenya has also reported good experiences with them.

Hi Adam. Transparent Purple was a stock colour option , natural was the other. More than 12 made 🙂 In the years since my initial post , a few trans purple versions have come up for sale. None made more than £130. Here's the 2 page brochure. Aberdeen Bass 2002.pdf

Who cares about the logo , you certainly shouldn't. You've got yourself a nice wee bass and its brought a bit pleasure into your life 🙂

Nice wee bass. Had the pleasure of owning one sold on here a few year back.

Given the volume of purchases by factories there is little to no difference between material costs. 6 alnico slugs from Axesrus cost £10.50. 1000 alnico slugs from Rongchang Magnets* will cost £20 , 8 slugs make a pickup so 16p. Ceramic pickups not only require iron slugs they also need a bar magnet. Again Rongchang sell 1000 for £20 , 4p + cost of slugs for a split-P. * Rongchang Magnets chosen at random for prices Alnico pickups generally use more copper wire but there's no way I could give the cost increase for a single pickup , maybe 0.001 p 🤣 The Encore likely does have a ceramic magnet pickup , with JHS banking on consumers shelling out £20 more for the same bass but with the "more expensive" alnico pickup. Guitar companies make a killing from what the public are prepared to pay for so-called better materials.

It's dead easy to tell if your Encore has ceramic or not , there will be a magnet glued to the underside 🙂 BTW the final years of Encore overlap with the other JHS brand "Vintage".

The young lad I bought my Thunder III from is a guitar player (The Jackdaws, Hull area). He's your typical Fender/Gibson type but he's also on the lookout for a Westone Prestige 🙂

Davie is 20 odd year younger than me , about 7 ft tall , has ability miles beyond mine and makes a bloody good living playing bass at home. He annoys me too 🤣

Bloody scary pickups , good luck taming them 😆

@MichaelDean Looks great. I deeply regret selling my RPBX ☹️

Never had the chance to play a Chinese Dingwall but I don't recall seeing many complaints about them. Bamboo wing Sarzo Cirrus was pretty nifty. Over in the classical guitar world Yulong Guo has a good name ,start around £3k 🙂

@Tegs Makes sense to build sig models in Japan or Mexico, the lower labour costs help towards the artist kickback. Peavey did the same for the Ellefson Zodiac and Sarzo Cirrus.

No idea. Not really. Guitars and basses are simple things to build. St Leo's business model was ditch luthiers for semi-skilled factory workers. Hartley Peavey went one better, machines + unskilled labour. The only thing limiting factories are as @BigRedX said , the conditions set by the clients. Fender are a good example here. Fender Japan instruments for export are built to lower standards than the ones sold in the Japanese market. The same " build to lower standard" conditions apply to Fender Mexico and Fender China.