Mottlefeeder

I've used this supplier for a couple of projects and been happy with the service and the quality of the products. http://www.speakergrills.co.uk One point worth mentioning is that it will probably be cheaper to get Mark to powder-coat the grill than to paint it yourself. Priming, undercoating and top-coating a surface that is 60% fresh air means that you spray a lot of paint onto the backing news-sheet or whatever. David

I'll take that option too. David

I'll be there with an Ibanez 5-string ABG strung with flatwounds, and a couple of home-brew battery combos, an 'Even briefer case' 150W twin 5 inch, and a 75W/150W 1x10inch & 1x10 extension speaker, plus a Vong HPF/LPF/DI pedal and an MXR 3-band EQ/DI pedal. David

I use a behringer xenyx302 mixer as my headphone rig. It can be powered by a phone charger, or connected to a pc to create a daw. Channel 1 is mic/instrument (active bass good, passive bass loses top end) and has 2 band eq. Channel 2 is stereo, switchable between usb or phone/mp3 player, and also has 2 band eq, which works well for suppressing the bass of the track. You can record bass to pc while playing a pc track to headphones, but it has no fx. It is light, cheap and one box. David

Assuming I can make it, is there any interest in battery-powered combos and/or a comparison of sub-10-inch cabs? David

I've been using battery powered rigs for some years now, and my preference is to go for a car audio booster amplifier rather than a 12v to mains invertor feeding mains powered gear. The advantages are - 1. they are almost bulletproof. 2. they are more efficient, so your battery lasts longer. (they convert from 12v to amplifier voltage in one step while the invertor goes from 12v to 230v to amplifier voltage, two sets of losses). 3. If you stop doing battery powered gigs, you can probably sell them on more easily than an invertor. David

Thanks for that, but at the moment I'm going with superglue. Did your epoxy set transparently or with a bloom? David

The bass solo reminded me of something, and I finally worked out what it was. If the bassist was attempting to play 'Auld Lang Syne' in the middle of a song about moving on, it might be more clever than we give them credit for? David

I have no experience of Soundbox gear, but I have built a couple of battery powered bass combos using up-market car amplifiers running off small 12v lead acid batteries. the build threads are linked below. David

Found it. David

Gigging on Saturday, may be coming back by bus. David

I checked the bass this morning and found part of my PVA had peeled away from the original finish. I pulled at the loose end and the whole lot came off, so I am almost back where I started, except that I now know more. The original tint appears to have gone into the wood, so by next job is to find out whether superglue will change or move the colour, or whether I can just start building up layers of clear. David

Sorry if I seem to be tiptoeing round nail varnish - it is solvent based, and I'm worried about what it might do to the original finish. David

The body wood has a nice grain and is heading towards mahogany colour, but the original finish has a tint to give the final walnut colour finish. The original finish is around 1mm thick, so I don't think I can just use an oil as a finish. That pointed me towards 'seal, tint and layer up to fill the crater', and thinking that a water-resistant PVA would do the trick. I'm now looking at superglue. I'll start by checking whether it bleaches out the existing tint, and if not then I'll layer it up to fill the crater. I'm trying to minimise the amount of sanding due to the risk of creating more damage to the surrounding area. David

The vocalist/guitarists in my band are quite happy with the pa speakers at the back, because our performance volume is about right as their monitor volume. However, sound disperses according to the square of the distance, so OK for them is too loud for the back line. Even wearing earplugs, enough mush gets through to make it difficult to hear the bass notes you are playing. Our compromise is one front -of-stage speaker and one back-of-stage speaker, and I make sure I am as far from the back one as I can get. David

I agree, and I'm now looking at completing the 'crater-filling' with something both hard and waterproof, like Gluboost if it does not react with the existing foundation of PVA. If it does, then I take out all the existing PVA and start again with a sealing layer of Gluboost followed by a tinted layer of Gluboost, then fill as necessary with clear Gluboost. David

Thanks for that, but as @Baloney Balderdash commented, it is water based, so it will never be totally water resistant. I'm now looking at options for crater filling with PVA, finishing with a waterproof layer on top. David

Viagra is diamond shaped...

Slightly off topic: You will pay over the odds for a speaker rated in-line jack socket and/or an in-line speakon socket just because they are not commonly available. If you are comfortable doing so, it would be cheaper to use readily available panel-mount jack sockets and speakon sockets and fit them into a small plastic box. David

I use blackboard paint - it is readily available from diy stores, water based so it is compatible with TuffCab, and it dries matt black. David

PVA is water based, so a water soluble colour tint should be compatible with it. Also, the glue is listed as being washable, which I assumed meant waterproof. That may have been my mistake. David

Put some glue on a piece of plywood yesterday evening. It seemes hard this morning so I started sanding it. It didn't smear or crumb so I thought I had a winner. Got as far as 1000 grade paper - still looking good. Then I wet the abrasive paper, and the dried glue became tacky. I'll leave it for another 24 hrs to rule out 'glue still not set', and if it goes tacky again, then I need to be looking for a different top layer. David

@Eric.C.Lapton - I think we differ on 'Mojo'. To me it means natural wear and minor dents on a loved and cared-for instrument, not ugly scars like this. YMMV. @BlueMoon - yes, it's a Hohner cricket bat in walnut satin stain. The colouring I used was transparent, so the grain still shows through, so the only outstanding issue is filling the hole, flatting and polishing. I accept that it will still be visible, but hopefully will look a lot better than it currently does. @Maude- I've just put on the next coat, so I can't answer that question. I've also put some glue on a bit of plywood to check how hard it sets, and whether I can sand it. I'll report back tomorrow. Thank you all for your input David

I parked the car on a slope, opened the boot and failed to catch the bass as it slid out. It landed on the thinnest bit of padding in the gig bag. The finish chipped down to bare wood, with one crater on the edge of the top/side, and the other on the edge of the top/side/base, The left hand crater is about 15mm long at the bottom. The craters have sloping edges, making the finish look deeper than it is (about 1mm). I made some enquiries and one luthier declined the job, and one quoted £175. Going to Allparts for Gluboost would cost £50-£70 for a range of colour additives and some glue, so I thought I'd look for some alternatives locally. Hobbycraft have a transparent PVA glue and some water based transparent colours so I thought I'd have a go, mixing the colours on a transparent film so that I could see them against the wood. I painted the damaged are with PVA to seal it, and left it to dry. Then I mixed some mid brown with some red and got a surprisingly good match. I mixed that with some glue and painted it on. This is how it looked when it dried. This is the crater with about 6 coats of PVA over the tinted coat. I'm getting there, but it is a slow process, partly limited by the risk of the glue dripping if I put it on too thickly. And finally, my question - If I changed horses in mid stream, would Gluboost complete the job faster, or would it also drip off the edge? David

Not quite on topic, but may help - I play a 5-string ABG and I find that an HPF gives me better control of feedback than the built-in notch filter. David