Bassassin

Suggestions for MkII - full-width vintage style inlays & checked binding, but to make it more individual & less Rickenbacker, a maple fingerboard & bound headstock. And how about using a Hipshot bridge - proper intonation & string height/spacing, plus no chance of tail-lift. Natural finish would be lovely. J.

Largely pretty horrid, I have to say. There was a massive aura of smug fakeness about the whole thing - probably mostly because it's a sleb knees-up recorded in October (or some similarly unseasonal time) with all the "guests" blatantly only there for the free booze & exposure. Ugh. The acts were what you'd expect I suppose - those post-Winehouse plastic, soul-free, talent show pub singers (Adele, Duffy) which [i]Later[/i] seems to love, "heritage" acts - Annie Lennox still the same old strident, gurning foghorn, & probably Dave Edmunds' first TV appearance since 1978 - was it a choice between Jools & the "who the f@ck's that?" slot on [i]Buzzcocks[/i]? At least Martha Reeves had some classic & timeless material, even if she's not what she once was. Kelly Jones' rendition of [i]My Girl[/i] was very good - nice to hear he's capable of more than grating Rod Stewart impressions! I quite liked the Ting Tings - although I can't help feeling that bands like them succeed in using technology to complicate the performance of essentialy simplistic music. Get a bassist! Hold Steady were good but a bit limp compared to last time they were on Jools. I got the impression that Duffy's band were a bunch of session guys who'd been told to play like they were "really into it". Perhaps that explains their somewhat incongruous twitching & posturing. On balance, a poor show that felt like it dragged on for years, the highlight really was some lovely musicianship from Jools' band. Jon.

[quote]Start/finish my Project Jazz - I've had all the parts for over a year. [/quote] Errr.... [quote]De-fret my Peavey 5 - I don't play it, don't want to sell it so making it a lined (& therefore playable by me) fretless should help justify its existence.[/quote] Errr.... x2 [quote]Build headless twin-neck fretted 4/fretless 5 prog nightmare bass.[/quote] Oh, come [i]on[/i]... [quote]Set up workshop in basement in order to do all of the above.[/quote] Did this bit. But none of the above. [quote]Flog my owned-since-new (1992) , as-new, never-gigged & never-going-to-be-gigged-by-me Ibanez SR800 fretless (unlined!) - it deserves better![/quote] Did this - it's now owned by the lovely Mr David Nimrod of this parish. [quote]Set up recording studio/permanent rehearsal space in other half of basement.[/quote] Objective achieved, Captain. [quote]Demo two songs which are written but not recorded - one of which is already over 2 years old.[/quote] Sort of - neither of the songs ended up as they were started, but there's no longer a backlog of unfinished material. [quote]Record two albums with band - the "back catalogue" material & the as-yet only half-written Concept Album. And try & find a label gullible enough to release them.[/quote] Partly - recording the old stuff got postponed after the new material took precedence. There are still a few little bits & pieces finish up, but [i]The Fifth Sun[/i] (which is indeed a concept piece) is pretty much finished, including artwork. Whee. [quote]Start to collate mass of useless info about JapCrap basses & guitars for future website (Rickenbugger.com ) or book which no-one will ever, ever publish.[/quote] GTFO. [quote]Play more gigs outside the UK.[/quote] A few [u]inside[/u] the UK would have been nice. However for 2009 we have a festival date in Slovakia provisionally booked & will hopefully be playing a short tour around that date, both there & in the Czech Republic. So not bad, on balance - I think this year I might try & finish off last year's (with the possible exception of the twin neck - but you never know) and probably just buy more JapCrap... J.

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll try it next time I'm refinishing a body. I'll avoid it for the fretless fingerboard - I was only wondering if it would be a (potentially) easier alternative to epoxy. J.

It's a bit like someone went "I really, really want a WishBass, but I'm damned if I'm paying those crazy prices!" Jon.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='366419' date='Dec 30 2008, 05:24 PM']Well that Elmayer has now kicked off big time. Over £600 and counting ...[/quote] Six hundred and fifty-six pounds. [b]SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX F@CKING POUNDS!!!![/b] That is an all-time record for a Rickenbacker copy. *faints* J.

I read the TB thread - it was funny to see the "encouragement" you were getting to go for a greenburst finish. Wonder if any of them knew those crazy Japanese did it first? [attachment=17843:vorgbassresize.jpg] What's the Rustins like to use? I'm thinking about trying that for a maple neck/board refin & possibly on a fretless fingerboard. Any advice/opinions? J.

[quote name='Lemuel Beam' post='365706' date='Dec 29 2008, 07:32 PM']Identical to my first bass, bought in '78 for £90.00. An absolute heap of sh*t.[/quote] Just think, if you'd hung on to it you could have punted it for £400, like he just did for that. Despite not getting his original £600, I think that's a record for Korean plywood garbage. Recession? What recession? J.

I'll do the best my unskilled bodging permits! Very pleased with how well the original hardware (apart from the tailpiece - I just [i]couldn't[/i] use that!) came back, the tuners look nearly new. Just checked out your 4003 build. Bloody hell! J.

[quote name='Al Heeley' post='362827' date='Dec 24 2008, 02:28 PM']Thanks to everyone for taking such an interest in this thread and for all the great feedback.[/quote] I didn't even clock your build thread until you posted on my JapCrap restoration one. That is an outrageously stunning piece of work - How long did it take you? The initial readthrough gave me the impression you'd knocked it up over Christmas - although clearly that's not what happened! Did you leave the back/neck natural & just go for a black top? Going off to check out the TB thread now! Jon.

[b]*End-Of-Year Update*[/b] Which is that having salvaged some parts from a tragically butchered 'Faker, I have put this back together, and it looks laaarvly! But. There's always a downside. Unfortunately, this one suffers from the scourge of earlyish neck-through JapCrap, which is Unadjustably High Action Syndrome. Gah. It is playable as it is, and there are a couple of things I can do to make it a little better, but I do like a low string-height & I doubt that this will ever be as playable as I would like. What I can do is to first lower the nut slots - these are really very high and serve to nearly double the effect of an overly high bridge. Secondly I can take the base of the bridge unit down by about 1.5mm, and lastly attack the saddles with a file. The problem will be that I'm then limited in how low I can have the string height by the rest of the hardware - the strings will be hitting the pickup ring and the bottoms of the channels the mute sits in. The other thing that occurs to me is that I'm using a genuine Rick tailpiece here - it may be that the casting's deeper/differently proportioned and that a proper JapCrap one will work better. Anyway I'll try & take a few pics soon, before I start hacking stuff up. I'm sure you'll agree it'll look great on the wall... J.

Send 'em back & buy a pair of Carillon AM-05s, similar spec & currently being practically given away for £50 a pair in the [url="http://www.reverb-store.co.uk/product-detail.asp?prod=194"]Reverb sale[/url]. I got a pair of these at Music Live (£60 then) to use with my desktop PC and have been blown away by them. I have a pair of Spirit Absolute 2s for my studio setup & the Carillons are easily as good, if not better. Jon.

Samick's originally Korean and one of the biggest musical instrument manufacturers in the world. Guitars made there have been common in the UK for best part of 40 years - Samick made the vast majority of Hondo guitars from the late 60s onwards. Not a fantastic recommendation, but they've long since transcended their cheapo plywood origins. As Essential Tension said, they made many MIK Squiers, and the bulk of Korean Epiphones up until 2002, when Samick moved guitar production to Indonesia. It's probably a decent-enough budget spec bass, but £199 seems quite dear for a probably second-hand no-particular-brand MM copy. And if it's the same as [url="http://norwich.gumtree.com/norwich/70/28299870.html"]this one[/url], it definitely is. Jon.

I think that's a lot for what would basically amount to a secondhand P copy body once you swap neck & pups. I think you'd probably pick up a project P body for a lot less than that, either on here or Fleabay. Jon.

[quote name='Rich' post='361672' date='Dec 23 2008, 08:06 AM']The alternative would be to decide on your bridge, position it accurately and then get a friendly chippie/luthier to rout out a rebate for it to sit in, thus lowering the saddle height by 3mm or so (or however thick the bridge baseplate is). Obviously this is more work, but worth it I reckon. Seven-fifty! Ye gods, what an utter bargain![/quote] That's a good plan considering it's string-through, which mine wasn't. Oscar, have you had all that masking tape off the neck yet? You'll find rather sexy triple-dot brass inlays underneath it... :brow: J.

That's a Cort, probably sold branded as Kay in the UK, made in Korea in about 1980. [url="http://www.axesrus.com"]http://www.axesrus.com[/url] will probably do you pretty much everything it needs - which would originally have been generic P/J pups, 2xV, 2xT, 3-way selector, sealed Schaller M4 - type tuners, Fender-type bridge, plus output jack, strap buttons, scratchplate plastic for the control cover & brass nut. And when it's finished it'll probably look quite a bit like this: [attachment=17685:front.jpg] Yes - I did have one. Cost me a little bit more than £7.50 - and cost the person I sold it to a [b]lot[/b] more than £7.50... The one issue it did have was a very shallow fingerboard height above the body - this meant that it wasn't possible to achieve a particularly low action - the original bridge was fairly chunky with fat barrel saddles, so that didn't help - I'd recommend going for something low-profile for this, ie - [b]not[/b] a Badass. Unfortunately de-fretting will only make this worse, don't do this before you find out how playable it is with frets. Jon.

Wire wool is good for cleaning heavily tarnished frets but there is one precaution you [b]absolutely must[/b] take. Keep it away from your pickups - wire wool disintegrates as you use it, shedding thousands of metal particles which want nothing more than to make a home on - and in - your pickups & anything else remotely magnetic. If this happens there's every likelihood of irreparable damage, so take off the neck & do the work well away from the electronics. If you have a set/through neck bass carefully tape over & around the pups so nothing can get in. I wouldn't be too concerned about masking off the fretboard unless it's lacquered or otherwise finished - rosewood is very hard and if you use fine grade wool you'll see very little or no discernible marking on the wood. Treat it with lemming oil afterwards & it'll look good as new. An alternative to wire wool when the frets aren't particularly tarnished is a cloth or cotton-wool pad with a touch of metal polish, T-cut or similar abrasive compound. We're talking very small amounts here, so the cloth's barely damp with it. Excessive amounts will stain the grain, and probably isn't something you want flowing around the glue holding your neck together! This method's particularly good on lacquered boards, and will also have the effect of making the varnished wood between the frets very glossy & new-looking. Jon.

They do look loads better - the bridge pickup & the vast crater it sits in ain't designed to be seen. Alternatively, there's [url="http://www.pickguardian.com/pickguardian/RICBridgePUPlate.html"]Pickguardian[/url]. J.

Excellent spot, Nick, never seen those before. That would be a great replacement for a neck unit, it won't be a direct swap for the bridge, although could easily be adapted to fit using the old bridge unit base plate. It's worth bearing in mind that Rickenbacker have always used the exact same 6-pole "toaster" unit on basses and guitars - I think on recent reissues the only difference is the size of the mounting holes. J.

Sadly not quite as easy as that - you need to remove the strings, then unscrew the pickup surround from the bass & remove the pickup from that. The cover is assembled from underneath the surround & the screws & springs hold the lot together. Fortunately for those not brought up on Meccano & building go-karts from old prams & rusty tin cans, Rickenbacker have a handy-dandy diagram on their website: [url="http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/bpickups.pdf"]http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/bpickups.pdf[/url] Hope this makes more sense than my garbled explanation. Jon.

[quote name='hookys6stringbass' post='360611' date='Dec 21 2008, 11:43 PM']Can anyone suggest replacement pick ups, pots and 3 way switch for a Hondo II rick copy??? thankss[/quote] Pots & switch should be no problem, these are standard parts, the pot rating will be on the back (either 250 or 500, can't remember off the top of my head) and anywhere that sells bits & bobs will do you OK - I usually use [url="http://www.axesrus.com"]http://www.axesrus.com[/url] - good prices, very quick delivery, free postage. However - before you bin the old 'uns, get down your local Maplin & pick up a can of switch cleaner spray - if the pots & switch are just crackly this should sort it for a lot less money & soldering! Rick copy pups are quite hard to come by - as are real Rick parts, and those are cripplingly expensive, if you can find them. Old copy parts do come up on Ebay from time to time so that's the best place to look. There aren't very many aftermarket Rickenbacker components manufactured, due mostly to Rickenbacker's litigious enforcement of their design trademarks. However, there are compatible sets from Seymour Duncan & Bartolini available, these are pretty expensive - and both are humbuckers so will likely sound less Rick-ish than you'd probably want. Dangerboy on here had an SD bridge unit I nearly bought from him (for a good price, if I remember) for my Matsumoku restoration, but I managed to snag a cheap but ruined 4001 copy for the parts, so ended up not going for it. He might still have it available. Probably an idea to stick a post in the "Items Wanted" board, someone might have something. Jon.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='360410' date='Dec 21 2008, 07:05 PM']My cousin bought one of these in the 80's and the fingerboard fell off. [/quote] Just like a real 4001, then. They get tail-lift too... J.