Bassassin

I had a bass with the same tuner unit - it's a fairly flawed design which is hard to get to work well! My bass had a head-end string clamp and I strung it with the ball-ends at the tuner end, removing the need to wrap the string around the cams. This made it a lot easier to tune without the mechanism becoming stiff - but the gearing on the system still made incremental tuning unnecessarily fiddly and inaccurate. If I'd kept the bass, I'd have looked at replacing it with one of the Steinberger-derived designs.

It's an RB760 - and the f-hole's a sticker!

It's a custom build by a guy called Mick Butler. Interestingly, this was his 103rd instrument. Needs a hose down, too.

I have a V7 fretless, the lined maple neck looks and feels gorgeous. The hardware on mine's fine - the bridge is a pretty standard/functional BBOT with vintage style threaded saddles, and is as good as any other of the type. The tuners are nice quality, with cast bodies & torque adjusting screws, similar to some Gotoh & Schaller units. Mine's not an S2 and I don't really understand why the components get the criticism that they do. I only have a couple of niggles - mine (metallic red) has a bit of finish checking under the clear coat, which bugs me a little - and it's heavy. Very heavy! Otherwise it's a lovely bass, and unlike every other fretless I've owned, a keeper.

Oh god, just stop it. Are there really enough hipsters in the world to justify this sort of guff?

Very impressed with your bevels, @Meddle! I've made a few with results I'm happy with, but tend to lose my nerve at the edge-finishing stage for fear of ruining hours of work. I either trace the shape from the original, or make a stiff paper template to trace from if it's an original/modified design. Rough shape's cut out using a scroll saw & then hand-filed to finish. I round the edges to make them look less straight-cut, will have to work on bevelling technique though. Not completely happy with the tasteful Rick copy attempt - don't think the black pearloid works, and the shape ended up being a bit too Mosrite-y, which wasn't my intent. I don't like the standard Rick shape plate, which looks like a lazy afterthought to me, so I wanted something that followed the lines of the body shape a bit more. I actually simplified my original design which would have had the plastic curving behind and through the neck pickup, and extending in a point up to the top horn, mirroring the shape at the lower horn. I intend to re-do this in white pearl, and instead of rounding the corner under the bridge, bringing that up to a point, a bit like the very first Rick 4000 design.

Agreed - that is absolutely stunning. Considering I've seen a few pretty ropey, beat-up exampes listed for £200-odd more than this, the price is not as mad as it could be, either. I'm not tempted GAS-wise by much these days, but I genuinely wish I could justify this. Always loved these.

So - you drop your bass (or more realistically, use it to demolish a wall) and as a result knock a f*ck-off big chunk out of the body. Do you a: attempt to glue the piece back in, Or b: lob the bit of wood on the fire & go "sod it. no-one'll notice".

Thoroughly lovely and emotional night in Glasgow last night. I think the nature of the show, featuring a sextet of orchestral musicians, made the set itself and the performance a little more restrained than Marillion usually are. First time I have seen them not perform any songs from the Fish era - and to be honest I don't think there was a single person there who would've felt cheated by the absence of one or two fluke chart hits they had in the mid 80s.

This thread seems to have meandered on, without any of the esteemed contributors having investigated the vendor of this unique artifact's other endeavours. You really should. Warning: Viewer discretion is advised. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dave-gilmour-custom-painted-fully-loaded-guitar-body-no-neck/303312980293 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Custom-made-electric-guitar-Whiskey-lady-with-gun-with-hard-case-/303333056684 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peaky-blinders-electric-guitar-loaded-body-only-Custom-/303310035343 Can anyone think of a ground-breaking luthier/technician, possibly an established Ebay seller well-known on Basschat, with whom Mr Gerry_1969magic might consider collaborating?

I'm old enough to remember reading an early interview with US stadium-rock plodder Billy Squier being upset by people pronouncing his name as "Billy's Queer". Boo, and indeed, hoo.

They weren't. The Squier name comes from the string manufacturer VC Squier, which Fender acquired in 1965. They've always spelled it correctly.

The headstock: And as you like "obscure cheapo basses", the price... https://eastwoodguitars.com/collections/rivolta/products/rivolta-combinata-bass-vii

The body shape's a knock-off of cheapo 60s US brand Supro. Everything Eastwood do is shamelessly robbed.

Have you read through the thread and the info & articles linked to? Short version - 80s Japanese Squiers, particularly those with the JV serial prefix, were exceptionally high-quality replica-standard instruments, weren't produced in huge quantities, and comparitively few survive nearly 40 years later. This means they are rare, collectable and therefore highly desirable to some people.

No probs. But some of us really do need to get out more...

These gold stickers with the WO prefix appear on 70s & 80s guitars from the Cor-Tek (Cort) factory in Korea. Here's a random Cort-branded guitar with the same type of sticker: https://reverb.com/item/9881428-cort-double-cutaway-electric-guitar-1981-antique-brown-sunburst Cort's always been an OEM manufacturer as well as a brand name, and like all such factories, would badge guitars with whatever name the customer specified - as well as supplying unbranded instruments, like the one in the original link. The bulk of Korean instruments from the 70s and 80s seem to have come from either Cort or Samick, and since often no country of manufacture is specified on the instrument (stickers tend to get peeled off!) many people assume they're Japanese. If you know what to look for it's usually quite straightforward to spot differences between MIK & MIJ, despite there being a lot of shared designs. It does actually seem to be the case that as Japanese guitar manufacturing became more sophisticated and began producing higher standard instruments, budget ranges were outsourced to cheaper Korean manufacture. The problem with trying to understand the history of these old instruments - both Korean and Japanese- is that very few real records were kept, and a lot has to be pieced together from old brochures and details such as these WO stickers. There are still loads of grey areas, and probably a lot of stuff that'll never be 100% certain.

Random late 60s / early 70s Tele-shaped starter bass, could be from a number of different factories. It's an unbranded bass, ergo it's not "a Mansfield", "a Jedson" or any other importer brand. This style is known to have been made by Sakai Mokko, Guya & Tombo but there were doubtless others. The seller describes, but annoyingly doesn't show a 6-screw neckplate. This is an early Moridaira trait, but probably not exclusive. The two pots below the gap between the pickups aren't original. God knows what they do, probably nothing good.

It's a Cort, so made in Korea. Probably mid 70s, and based on Japanese designs from a decade or so earlier. The gold sticker with the WO-prefix number identifies it as Cort, not sure if this is a model number or production run.

Nah. The logo on this one's a sticker or transfer someone's obviously printed at home. He would've just scribbled on the headstock with a biro.

Looks like a bunch of leftover parts from half a dozen random basses, bodged together. This is that Eastwood shower again, isn't it? Bet it's about a grand, too.

For anyone interested in the origins, history, technical specs and model variations of the JV Squiers, this website and the attached forum should tell you anything you want to know. It's particularly recommended for anyone labouring under the bizarre and baseless delusion that MIJ Squiers, and the JV models in particular, were some sort of cheaply bodged-out, corner-cut borderline knockoff aimed at beginners. Read and learn. http://www.21frets.com/

They usually do a Fishy song or two - but I'm in Scotland so they probably feel they have to. That said, last time I saw them was Newcastle & they did Garden Party. Wouldn't mind in the slightest if they didn't though (although the first 3 albums had their moments), and looking forward to seeing them next week in Glasgow.

Disappointed (and surprised) by the absence of references to the "Brown Note" in the aforegoing comments. Having redressed that regrettable emission omission, my work here is done.