wrinkleygit

The legend has returned, I like many others on here owe you a great deal, welcome back , I’ve learned a lot from your hardwork, one of my favourites, Dave Hollands “ thieves in the temple “ with Herbie Hancock, thank you for your efforts.

@Dumpystumps Yes it’s me Ian, depending how my wife’s treatment goes, hopefully we can meet up soon, happy for you to PM me through the forum.

I’m assuming you’re tuned BEADG.

A five also better than a short scale, play all your 4 string riffs at the 5th fret to see what I mean, good luck on your new journey !!

Sadly this year hasn’t been the year we planned to have at Wrinkley Towers, so will have miss this one, if there’s any crumble left over, any chance you could pop some in the post !!!! Have a great day everyone.

It’s down on the bridge.

I had to part with my Sei headless 5 when my arthritic fingers struggled with the neck width, I reverted back to 4 strings but couldn’t forget that missing low B. Salvation appeared when I got my hands on a Wilkinson 4+1 conversion kit and transformed my mongrel P bass, the narrow string width won’t suit everyone, but as I swap between guitar and bass the 16.5mm works for me, together with a regular 4 string neck width, I’m back in heaven

Both of my P basses are 1.5 treble, 2.0 bass side at 12th fret, both have a playing card shim in the neck pocket just below the lower screw holes, hope that this helps.

This is similar to what I would suggest, however, I would relocate the lower button, as per the early Warwick Thumb position, this will change the centre of the body “gravity “ and automatically raise the headstock, hopefully my description makes sense .

Take the top off and check all the ribbon connector cables are pushed fully home and secure. A “wiggle test” is always my first check.

Just spotted this, like many I had only met Norm at the basshes, lovely man , please pass on my condolences to his family .

It’s a really well engineered setup, one of Trevor Wilkinson’s early great ideas and sadly discontinued many years ago. I haven’t seen a kit for sale anywhere for quite some time, which is why I bought a complete bass to aquire the necessary parts to fit to my Warmoth P body. The main advantage for me, aside from the string spacing, is that in the trio we play a lot in F and Bflat so I now play mainly around the 6th fret to avoid longer stretches at the first. The only downside is, from the leftovers I’ve now assembled a four string jazz bass that I don’t need !!!

If you can wait until the next bash it will be there to try out or if you’re close to M5 junc 28 anytime, call in and have a play.

Here’s an update, spent some time adjusting pickup height and now the balance across the strings is perfect, also the string width of just under 16mm at the bridge works really well for my aging fingers. With regards to the neck, there does seem to be a lot of smoke and mirrors surrounding the “Signature” brand, all I can say is the quality of fretting is excellent, it’s withstood the pressure of coping with 5 strings for 4-5 years or so, without any issues, also it’s 21 frets with finger board overhang, which seems unusual given its supposed age. Whatever the origin the end result works perfectly for me.

Great news, good that it’s all worked out well for you.

The pickup was my concern when putting this together, at the moment the A string sounds a little more prominent than the other four, at home I only have a little ZT Lunchbox to play through, not the best thing to setup a bass, have a rehearsal on Thursday so I can have a better idea then. As for the string spacing, that works really well for me, I can only pick with my first finger and use my thumb for damping, the other three aren’t much use these days, the width of the neck and narrow spacing were the main attraction for me.

Here’s some more info, Nut width 40mm, string width 32.5mm String width at bridge 62mm Std 34” scale, strung with Labella LT flats As far as I can tell, the Handcrafted company originated from Canada before moving to the USA, before being forced to close by Fender, started by Alex Lifeson and one other, with input from Geddy Lee.

Having played a 5 string for many years, my then bass was a SEI headless that I thought was my forever instrument, sadly as time passed my arthritis worsened and I struggled with the neck width and eventually returned to 4 strings. However I never forgot the advantages of having that low B brought. Fast forward and this week I had the chance to buy an old Status Eclipse only an hour or so away, it turned out to be in a sorry state and while I was mulling over the prospect he mentioned he had several other interested parties, the subject turned to other basses and the advantages of a 5 string, then said, you might be interested in this, I put it together some time ago, producing a jazz bodied bitsa. The body was nothing special “BUT” it had a Wilkinson 4+1 conversion kit, the most incredible neck and a pair of USA emg’s. 24 hours later I had transplanted the neck and hardware onto my Warmoth P that was crying out for a decent neck, and here’s the result

It was only a matter of time !!!! (Merry Christmas to you both)

I have a problem with nickel strings causing blistering, so on guitar it’s either coated or stainless, on bass It’s always stainless, that’s the only way I can overcome the issue.