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Bassassin

⭐Supporting Member⭐
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Everything posted by Bassassin

  1. I approve. As you probably know, it's a very rare, high-end bass that was only made for a few years, and was technically Japan-only. I don't think Grecos were officially exported anywhere, so the number of these in the UK is likely in single figures. In other words, you're a proper lucky sod!
  2. Did a project P based on an Axl acrylic body a few years ago. Original scratchplate but different everything else, so required plenty of drilling for bridge & pickups, plus filling existing holes if they were close to where I was drilling. I used a hand drill, after marking/starting each hole with an awl. The material removed from the holes came out in nice little spirals, and there was no cracking around the tops. Old holes I filled with superglue, which was left to harden. It did a reasonable job of making them a bit less obvious too, but they were all hidden under hardware anyway. Weighed a metric f*cktonne and the neck was awful, but it looked awesome.
  3. For B2A etc but it's the same hardware: http://www.hohner-cshop.de/en/Guitar/Headless-Bass-Series/Basses-Bass-Headless-BB/Hohner-B2A-Headless/
  4. I would not replace anything on that unless the component was completely unusable.
  5. I'm not convinced it looks in any way upmarket enough to be a custom build. That ugly, mismatched, cheapo scarf joint is the worst offender, and those tuners appear to be generic & unbranded rather than Gotoh - there would be a visible name or symbol otherwise. Not familiar with Basstec puckups but a quick Goog seems to suggest that some Fernandes basses were factory-fitted with these. Fernandes is predominantly a Japanese home-market brand & they have made a bewildering range of sig models for probably hundreds of different domestic artists over the years - the manufacturer has a pretty comprehensive catalogue archive here: http://www.fernandes.co.jp/catalog/ Personally I wouldn't be surprised if this is in there somewhere - may take a fortnight to find it though!
  6. The bass is a Cold War-era East German Musima copy - the irony is that the original hardware on these was decent - the original tuners would have been torque-adjustable Gotohs. Wonder if the seller binned the old bits just because they were old, & "upgraded" it?
  7. Excellent! Patience is a virtue!
  8. It should! Been on before & had a thread of its own back in January: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/318773-double-edge-ibanez-musician-copy-£295/ Looks like an alt account from the same seller - price dropped to something far more reasonable (still about £50 over the odds IMO) but the same apparent inability to read plain English. Quite a cool bass, might be a bit more tempted if it was P/J.
  9. Says "22 frets" but it looks suspiciously like it's been defretted to me. Pity - when they turn up it seems like 3 out of 4 of these are factory fretless anyway. Bloody shame someone's been at this with the pliers.
  10. Interesting in that Kent is a US brand & never officially sold in the UK. Wonder how it made its way to Harrow? What I know about Kent connects them predominantly to Guyatone, but also Teisco & Fujigen for earlier models. That said, I have an early 70s, slightly weird SG copy which has the same shield-shaped neckplate. That one was possibly made by Sakai Mokko.
  11. Very cool - kind of glad I'm too late! You might be interested to know that these have serial-stamped pickups which will give an accurate manufacturing date for the instrument. The second digit of the code is the year, ie 1 would be '71.
  12. Dunno how come I know anything about these as I found them ridiculous even when I was a kid - but the problem with the original was the straight/vertical seat-stays, which made them highly unstable & prone to tipping over backwards! Subsequent ones had a bend in the seat stays, presumably to move the rider's weight far enough forward to make this less of an issue. Of course the comical banana seat meant riders all gave their mates backies, leading to double the brain damage when the whole lot fell over backwards. Probably explains a thing or two. Anyway, that's why the reissues (like the one in the OP link) had single seats with fake sissy bar backrests. Also had a conventional handlebar gear change for the preservation of genitalia.
  13. Have you tried flexing the neck back to remove tension from the rod when you try to slacken the nut?
  14. If you were 12 in 1974, perhaps. But not if you were a snotty little road bike snob, like I am I mean was. Real ones in good condition (the proper 70s death traps) go for seriously stupid money these days. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/raleigh-chopper-mk1/183147735002
  15. That'll be similar, but not identical. Korean, made by Cort, like this one: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/322758-tried-to-buy-this/
  16. Branded Kay, made by Cort. Cort did a whole bunch of guitars & basses based around that through-neck template, all identifiable by the (rather sexy) triple dot brass inlays. These turn up branded Cort (obviously) but with plenty of other names - Targa, D'Agostino & Lotus are three that spring to mind. Speaking of which, I'd love to add one of these to my collection of neck-divey, symmetrical body, single-P basses that I never play: Cor(t) blimey!
  17. Blazers are getting a bit scarce & prices are going up as a result - I'd be keen to keep it standard if it was mine. Blazer necks do come up but not very often. Have you tried stacking washers under the truss nut to give it a bit more scope for adjustment? I've had good results doing this with maxed-out rods. As far as replacing it's concerned, I think all Blazer necks were one-piece maple, so the truss will have been fitted under the skunk stripe. Don't know if this makes any difference to actually replacing it, but would think some refinishing to the back of the neck would be unavoidable.
  18. Appears to be an abandoned project that's had a lot of work put into it - stripped & looks like an oil refin, new hardware, very nice looking wooden control cover. Wonder why it's been abandoned? I had one of these which would've been lovely aside from two things - the neck was twisted, and the bridge (standard BBOT) was unadjustably high & would have had to be routed into the body to lower it enough to be properly playable. The pickups, on the other hand, sounded great. Wonder if it's my old one?
  19. It's not - it's a (fairly) recent reissue. Two-part seat, no stick shift, alloy cranks. Ain't no Mark One. The idea of some hipster converting this into a fixie is genuinely hilarious, though.
  20. Brutally expensive unfortunately - these (under about 15 different brands) usually go for around £150. Nothing to do with Matsumoku although the jury's out among MIJ aficionados who the guilty party was. A version of this appears branded Fernandes, a brand apparently made by Kawai and Tokai Gakki at different times. I think the construction & some of the detail looks like Kasuga. Really nice-looking basses, would be very tempted to grab one at a decent price. Although I should know better - I've had way too many neck-heavy, symmetrical body, single-P Japanese basses already!
  21. The Thunder came in passive & active versions & both basses used the same pickup - the spec refers to it as an HF600B. A lot of the pickups in older MIJ guitars were made by Maxon or Gotoh. http://www.westone.info/cats/82/12.html
  22. Look on the bright side - the maple fingerboard at least means it won't be impounded & then destroyed by UK customs for breaching the new CITES reguations!
  23. Interesting one - never seen a bolt-neck Jack before, or a passive p/j for that matter. Does look a bit of a state, & the active through-necks do still turn up for sub £200 prices from time to time, so this is probably a bit dear for a low-end project. Always had a bit of GAS for a j/j through-neck Jack.
  24. I've owned 2x MIJ Squier Precisions & a more recent VMJ fretless - all excellent instruments that I'd happily gig or record with anytime. Here's a band I'm particularly fond of - OK, the song's a 9-minute prog epic but you won't need to watch too long to see what Jon Poole (Cardiacs, Wildhearts & dozens of sessions) gigs with - last time I saw them he also used a very beat-up Squier VMJ as well as the P/J. Might just be me being "inattentive" but I'd love my basses to sound like that live.
  25. It's a 70s copy-era bass, probably MIJ. The tuners are Gotohs and incredibly common on basses from that period. Looks to be one of the better quality basses, it appears to have a solid timber body, rather than ply or butcher block - there are no big black oversprays concealing laminations on the contours. A lot of these basses originally had Gibson-type nuts & looking closely I think this did too - there's a rough-looking bit of timber poked in behind the nut on this. Looks a bit bodged. I don't think the scratchplate's original - most maple board/burst MIJ copies had tort plates. Not enough detail or pics to speculate on a manufacturer but clearly nothing to do with Fender. Depends how cheap it is - some of the old MIJ stuff was excellent & if this was sub £100 it might be worth a look anyway.
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