Bassassin

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='622312' date='Oct 10 2009, 10:58 AM']Hammerite? [/quote] What a missed opportunity for a coat-grabbing pun! That would be a cool-looking bass without all that goop all over it. Jon.

[quote name='Musky' post='622593' date='Oct 10 2009, 06:56 PM']And there was me thinking that it was safe to call any '75 to '87 Aria a Mat. That's a lovely looking guitar, regardless of who made it.[/quote] It is, isn't it? I've actually got horrible, insistent GAS pains for a 70s LP copy with a maple board & black blocks. The alarming thing is that the guy who's selling the bass which kicked off this thread is selling just such a guitar too - and he's about 20 miles down the road from me. So far, the fact it's a Hondo and he wants £85 have successfully held me back... :ph34r: [url="http://edinburgh.gumtree.com/edinburgh/62/46698562.html"]http://edinburgh.gumtree.com/edinburgh/62/46698562.html[/url] At least this one's not a Mat. Probably. J.

[quote name='Musky' post='619360' date='Oct 7 2009, 10:09 AM']Now there's a weird thing - 6 bolt Arias. And from '77, when I thought Mat were exclusively producing for them. Or does that mean Mat were knocking out some basses with 6 bolt necks... I think I need a lie down. They don't like making IDing these things any easier do they. [/quote] Here's an interesting thing, taking the Aria-but-not-Matsumoku idea a bit further, and of course dragging the thread even more off topic! Careful with this, I have to warn you, it's a g*it*r: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170392904930"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=170392904930[/url] It's a old & pretty Les Paul copy with an original mid 70s Aria logo. It's also a Kasuga. OK, there's a possibility it's a bitsa with some Kasuga parts, but I don't think so. The big giveaways are the tuners, which are actually Kasuga logo'd. It also has a distinctive shaped truss rod cover which matches the ones used by Kasuga, and a plain MIJ-stamped neckplate, which we don't tend to find on Uncle Mats. There's a precedent for this too. Kasuga did use their own branded tuners (made by Gotoh) on other off-brand instruments - these appear on the Canadian "Northern" brand, which Kasuga built. Anyway, as you were. J.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='621274' date='Oct 9 2009, 08:16 AM']It wouldn't take much to ... erm ... "modify" your 2366B. Trouble is, that's such a nice bass as it is. [/quote] Wouldn't dream of desecrating that under any circumstances! But realistically, even top-end early 70s Jap copies like that are only cosmetically similar to real Fenders. That's one of the things I love about 'em. J.

I havent bought anything off Luke yet, but he deserves a feedback +1 for offering to give me (as in free) an old Kay SG copy! Jon.

Bought a cracking Ibanez Blazer project off Rob today. Great deal & a lovely feller. Jon.

[i]1) What kind of maintenance do you carry out on your instruments at home/gigs?[/i] At home absolutely everything - cleaning, fret levelling/crowning/dress, setup, wiring, truss adjustment, neck shims, refinishing etc. The only thing I've not yet done is a refret/defret but that's only a matter of time. At gigs the worst I've had to deal with is changing a string. [i]2) What position is it easiest to have the instrument in for these actions? (vertical, horizontal, at an angle?)[/i] Flat for the most part. I have a workbench in my basement (actually a big, old, heavy desk I "liberated" from an office clearout) with carpet glued to the top. Generally just lying an instrument on it is fine, if necessary I can clamp the body to the bench. For fret work I have a rubber-jawed vice to hold the heel and a polystyrene block to support the neck at the correct height. Truss adjustments generally require holding the instrument upright to apply necessary physical pressure. [i]3) Are there any tasks you currently carry out where you find it hard to securely orientate the instrument in an ideal working position?[/i] Not really. Fret work on set-neck instruments can be fiddly but you really just have to be more careful & patient. Jon.

£999? Y'know - I'm not proud to say the pikey in me is sorely tempted to have a go at some "creative relicing" of my own... :ph34r: J.

Hi - probably your best bet is to ask on the [url="http://www.vintaxe.com/boards/index.php"]Vintaxe.com[/url] forum. Vintaxe is a subscription guitar porn (OK, vintage catalogue scans!) site but the owner's usually happy to help with one-off enquiries on the forum, without expecting you to sign up. These are the Fernandes catalogues he has, looks quite comprehensive: [url="http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_japanese_fernandes.htm"]http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_japanese_fernandes.htm[/url] There are a couple of Japanese sites with Fernandes scans: [url="http://brochures.yokochou.com/index.html#FERNANDES"]http://brochures.yokochou.com/index.html#FERNANDES[/url] [url="http://www.geocities.jp/guitarofworld/FernandesCATALOGUE.html"]http://www.geocities.jp/guitarofworld/Fern...sCATALOGUE.html[/url] Had a quick look, but I think these are both too early to feature your basses. Jon.

[quote name='Musky' post='619360' date='Oct 7 2009, 10:09 AM']Now there's a weird thing - 6 bolt Arias. And from '77, when I thought Mat were exclusively producing for them. Or does that mean Mat were knocking out some basses with 6 bolt necks... I think I need a lie down. They don't like making IDing these things any easier do they. [/quote] I'd think they were probably from somewhere else - Matsumoku was probably pretty busy around 1977 so probably Arai contracted a different factory (or more likely, bought & badged-up their standard J-copies) to meet demand. Same thing Tokai did with Kasuga, which is why Ebay History now tells us anything with a Kasuga badge was "from the Tokai factory". J.

[quote name='evilLordJuju' post='619723' date='Oct 7 2009, 04:35 PM']It's a nice colour, whatever else you want to say about it [/quote] Looks a bit rattle-can though, wouldn't you say? J.

The serial number only checks out as a CIJ, and then it would be very recent - 2005 - 2006. Having said that, the neck doesn't exactly look consistent with the rest of the bass age-wise - I could easily believe they were decades apart. This is all very odd - he's trying to push the idea that the paint's an "early factory refin" but the routing for the 3 microswitches it once had was plainly done before it was refinished, since the route is painted. It looks to me like the "enlarged" neck pocket was too, but it's hard to tell. Gluing a neck into an o/s pocket would be a strange way of dealing with a sloppy fit, rather than simple shims. It would be a good way, however, of concealing any (lack of) dating evidence in the pocket or on the heel, and dissuading anyone from being sufficiently heavy handed to find out, it being such a rare & delicate old bass & all. It's a sort of fishy colour, isn't it? Quite appropriate. Jon.

[quote name='Musky' post='618107' date='Oct 5 2009, 11:31 PM']You reckon that might be a Mat then Jon? I saw the six bolt neck and thought Moridaira.[/quote] Well, that's why I said Aria/Matsumoku. It's unlikely all Arias were Matsumoku-made, particularly the earlier ones like this. Also it seems Aria, or Shiro Arai Co, acted as a sort of middleman reseller for Mat & possibly other factories. If you look at the older Greco catalogues you'll see credits for Fujigen and Aria at the back - at the time their guitars came from Mat & Fujigen. I've seen the 6-bolt plate on an Aria Jazz copy - in fact it's right here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=31614&hl=aria+jazz"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=...mp;hl=aria+jazz[/url] Just goes to show, in the world of JapCrap, nothing is quite what it seems. Trouble is, we don't ever know exactly what it [u]is[/u]! J.

He's been trying to shift this for a while - it's quite interesting but much more than I'd pay for something I'd never play. Arbiter sourced a lot of stuff through Aria/Matsumoku and this one probably is too - there's a guitar version in an early 70s Aria catalogue: [url="http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/catalogs/75_aria/75_aria_catalog_pg1.jpg.html"]http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/catal...og_pg1.jpg.html[/url] The eagle-eyed geeks amongst us may have recognised these as copies of Gibson's Kalamazoo range of budget instruments from the mid-60s. The guitar's pretty accurate but the bass should have a single mudbucker & handrest, like an EB-0. There are also 2 of these on Ebay, which have been failing to sell for a while: [url="http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=arbiter+bass&_sacat=See-All-Categories"]http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trk...-All-Categories[/url] If he dropped the price to £50 I might think about it. But probably not. Jon.