Stub Mandrel

Not really. Loyalty points often expire if not used. As long as no cash other than p&p changes hands I would say it's ok. Like winning a competition. I got this yesterday but paid for it in December so still in!

It's arrived! And it sounds bloody brilliant. Quite a wide range of sounds with the two slide switches. One very 'present', one dark and doomy, one almost an octave distortion effect and one that is a bit meh. The dual volume instead of blend is unusual but works well.

Well done Si!

You need an SM58 for your vocalist 😉

My grandfather taught my dad how to recone Goodmans speakers in the 1960s, using pieces of photographic negative as spacers around the voice coil.

My point was not that it is an expectation, but that one early failure isn't going to tell you anything useful. It could be a glitch on the coil winder, a little short of adhesive, a slight misalignment... but if others aren't failing then it's unlikely to point to the need for a change in supplier or manufacturing technique.

If gear fails well out of warranty (7 years) there's really nothing to learn whatever the failure mode. That's into the lifetime where random failures due to small manufacturing defects become possible. No matter what is said about the level and nature of usage, it has to be taken with a large pinch of salt as some people will be scrupulously honest and others may of thrashed it every night but not want to admit it. The have no way of being sure what the speaker has endured. If BF get virtually no failures and they are all beyond warranty, then there is little reason to change. If it was a 7-sigma, safety critical aircraft component it would be different.

Would anyone like to trial the small white dots?

You don't realise how you use them until you can't see them. I do a lot of big skips up and fown the neck. My AVII has clay side dots on the boundary between a brown rosewood fingerboard and an amber finished maple neck. Under stage lights they disappear. I bought dots online but they were ugly huge things. Ms. S. kindly cut several sets of 3/32 dots out of high adhesive vinyl for me using her Silhouette machine. They have lasted a few gigs without peeling so look like a good solution. No impact on value as I can get them off with IPA. No point in saying which is before and which is after!

On Saturday, after one of my more egregious cock-ups I discovered that I'd reacted by sticking my tongue 👅 out for rather too long...

I can't see how through body stringing affects tension to any significant degree. The change in break angle could lead to a need to reduce saddle height, and perhaps a slight change in intonation. Any change in tuning tension would be a fraction of a percent. I will change my P9 but only 'because it's there'.

No-one has mentioned Wishbasses or that eBay guy who tortures basses.

I tought it was a semantic discussion onthevtopic of 'what is a luthier' 😬

What did you think this thread would be about? 🤣

Yes I meant equivalent.

Continental Europe has different standards for defining an engineer (as I mentioned above). The UK and USA don't have the same restriction (a European engineer would be a chartered engineer in the UK). (Incidentally my grandfather was an associate member of both the Institution of British Engineers and the Institution of British Radio Engineers. When he was elected to the latter he was training aircrew at Cranwell).

It's been mentioned that most amp heads are loud enough these days. High power is largely about headroom for the peaks so they don't distort unpleasantly. One reason the little Elf is so giggable while just 150/250W is that it has very usable and fairly transparent inbuilt compression so you can run it nearer to max power without distortion.

By US standards he would be considered an electrical engineer.

The irony is my skills and workshop are far better suited to making the hardware... I do plan to make some necks, I have done a very rough job once many years ago on a tiny electric four string (uke sized). I plan a bass strumstick and if that is successful maybe a bass. I think the big skill is making good acoustic bodies.

Fair point.

Depends on the college. West Dean has a very high reputation for training people in practical crafts, for example.

Luthiery is the art of making and repairing stringed instruments. Hence anyone who does more than the odd bodge is indulging in luthiery. But like a car nechanic, bassists or botanists, there are professionals and amateurs teained and self-taught; qualified and not: highly skilled and less unskilled. In my mind a luthier has made successful instruments from scratch (at least the body and neck). It isn't a 'guitar tech'. But in the UK we are not fussy and allow anyone to self-define as most trades; here anyone can be an engineer in Europe you have to be qualified to get the epithet 'Ing.' after your name. Anyone can be an 'accountant' but you need qualifications and experience to be a 'chartered accountant'. Now what is it that allows you to call yourself a bassist/bass player and who are the gatekeepers of the title? Imagine if you needed to be Grade 8 and registered with the RCM to be able to say you are a bassist?

My mantra.