Richard R

Any suggestions what this lump of wood might be? Retrieved from a skip, so no provenance, but it's quite a nice piece and has clearly been planed on three sides. Colour is a warm, slightly pink brown. Oyster card for scale. No idea what I will do with it.

Evening all. 👮‍♀️ There are a lot of folks on this forum who modify basses, and a few talented individuals who can make them from scratch. But there aren't many who can actually make a living from building basses and guitars. So I thought it might be interesting for us to have as a guest someone who does exactly that - our very own Robin, aka @Manton Customs, who is quite often at a Bash with his unique creations. The format will be a live Q&A, running to about 25 minutes I guess, and I'm hoping Robin will bring along some works in progress as well as the usual stunning finished basses. https://www.mantoncustoms.co.uk/basses

Just seen this thread. Looks like huge fun.

I did, and then had to explain to my better half why I was choking on my coffee. 🤣🤣

Sounds like a plan. Look forward to the build diary. 👍

Please don't disembowel yourself with a bass - Imagine the headlines!! 😱 (And the pain, the mess, and the effect on your poor wife of course. But mainly the headlines in the Sun)

Dubbin' Ya Boots - sounds like a reggae band from Keswick.

Splitting hairs is part of the game. Let's make some analogies: A new tuner plugged into the bass pedalboard. T2 as an accessory unless a replacement for a failed unit? The mechanical footswitch add-on to my amp that can either switch between EQ in and Out, or (more usefully) mute the amp, depending on which socket it's pluggged into. Probably T2 accessory as well as it makes life easier? This is a very fancy equivalent of that pedal, so probably T2 as well? Either way a very cool piece of kit 👍

We allow straps, so a bag should be OK I would have thought?

They aren't all bad. There is one particular Rickenbacker that I know of which is a truly fabulous instrument, sounds great and is an absolute joy to play. However the owner has made it clear that she will never part with it, despite growing arthritis in both hands, due to its sentimental value.

Sorry but not under these rules. Selling to purchase is just funding the shiny new toys. Now if you were to start a separate "Buy and sell what you like but keep the net spend to zero" thread, that might be entertaining. You could have a totally over-complicated scoring system; the person closed to zero wins outright but after that the maximum standard deviation about that point gets points as does the most lopsided curve, etc etc. There is bound to be a statistician somewhere on the forum. 😉

That pic is worth entering in this month's photography competition: "Grey is beautiful "

If I recall your demo at the last Midlands Bass Bash, the way for this was to measure the gap between the frets and a steel straight edge with the neck under tension. You recommended a business card difference presumably at 12th. In the absence of a long straight edge then clamping a string at 1st and last fret. In the absence of business cards then use a feeler gauge. If you fancy repeating that demo at the Bash on 20th June then I'll video it for posterity and transcribe it.