Longwheelbass

Yo Steve, Just came across your post. Did you ever get a solution? I ask because I am just ordering a 35" four string neck for P Bass (well it's going on an old Jazz Bass body) through Musikraft in the US because I hate five strings but love the low B. You are on the right path with your original musings, the extra inch in scale will give you a better B fundamental. Two options - order a 35" "conversion neck" from someone like Musikraft, which would mean in effect you'd have a P Bass with a slightly brighter treble tone as you don't move the bridge - and the pickups are effectively what move in the scale length, or order a full 35" scale and move the bridge back half an inch on your P body to get the full 35" scale. Which will still be the beefy P Bass tone but without the silly 5th string and ridiculoussly wide neck to accommodate said silly 5th string. I'm not sure how the doom guys get the low B sounding good on Rics, probably by using a lighter gauge string, but if you've ever played a 34" Musicman fiver they're pretty loose and muffled when you hit the low B. The extra inch in scale gives a much better fundamental note. Weird bridge bizzo to get a good sounding low B on 34" doesn't seem to make any sense. There's a reason why so many of the expensive five string basses are 35's. Anyways

Years ago I had a 64 P Bass - one year older than me, and recently the closest I could manage without mortgaging anything was a 66 Jazz that has had the paint played off of it...the neck came from a different bass as did the pickguard. But it's great. I cannot imagine ever ending up with a 1965 Fender, even scraping up the parts one by one is price-prohibitive these days. And a BYB shouldn't loom so large in my tiny brain - scientists have confirmed it will not make me play any better 😆

Jazzmasters got the larger headstock in 67, along with a new logo and different tuners with F stamps on the back gear cover.

Huge gaps

I've had two Mocha or Walnut finish 74 P Basses since I moved over here in 2018. Both were killer, and instant regrets when the bills came a knocking. But the second one came back a few weeks ago after doing a bit of a tour of the countryside from South to North and back again after I covid-sold it... At almost 8 lb 8 oz with a B neck and that lovely tone that drips out of the factory windings, it's cool to get a second chance at keeping it.

Water damage.

It's a 74, but no-one likes to be 86'd...

All original except for the £10 Chinese made pickguard. The link above says 1986 but the ad actually lists it reasonably accurately as a 78 - but the S8 serial numbers could be found on headstocks up to 1981.

The dude is a frickin conman. It's a 74 neck. The body MIGHT be earlier than 74 due to the stamps in the neck pocket which were definitely not in any 1974 neck pocket but more likely 1968/69/70, in fact I have owned a couple of 1968 Telecaster Basses with the 42909 stamp in the neck pocket, and the almost totally faded out red band being very common in the 68-72 P basses, attributable to a specific paint supplier - by 72 Fender had sourced a much more UV resistant red paint which was less susceptible to fading from exposure to sunlight. As a parts bass maybe 2.5k max.

No problem Paul, will do.

No hum, no faint blue glow in output tubes. Thank you Sandy. And yes I should check my total upload count. I'll bet that's it...

Doggoes are family! I can't get any images to upload on this site any more for some reason, no matter how small I shrink my images to I keep getting "too big" notices, but anyways, the tubes are all glowing normal, they're all new and all look good but there's zero signal getting through to the cabs.

Sorry dude I've been out of town for three days - our vet is over an hour's drive from us and one of our dogs has just had a massive surgery, we had to stay closer to the vet and we've just got her home with a 10 inch long scar in her belly. The amp issue has gone on the backburner, but I will have a closer look at it tomorrow. I appreciate your offers of assistance, I'll fire it up tomorrow morning and check the visuals on the tubes. I did fire it up a few days ago after you initially asked and noticed that there is zero signal of any kind getting through to the two 15's. No hum, nothing. But did not look at the tubes. From memory last time it ship itself the tubes were a-glowing.