Biscuity Boyle

Both of stevieDee's are Bacchus's Malaysian copies of the Japanese Bacchus's BJB98 Jiro (Yoshihito Wayama) signature Basses. Basically What Brian is to Bacchus is what Squire or Epiphone is to Fender and Gibson. Their more affordable cousins. I own 3 of the Japanese originals. 2 piece center seam Alder bodies. Maple on Maple Neck and board. Originally done in a blue-tinted clear nitro that can and does change to a sort of sea green over time. Gotoh hardware and Bacchus custom shop pickups. These are high-end guitars. The Fit and finish is superb. Just about everyone of these instruments I've seen has a round sticker or had a round sticker on them. I'm guessing this was something Jiro from the Band Glay had on his bass so everyone wanted to copy him. Here's two of mine. Notice the colour change even though both are around the same age. One obviously played in and been exposed more to beer, sweat and UV Why do I have three, I hear you ask... because I can't find a fourth or a fifth one, at this present time. They are really nice Basses. There's a video or 3 on youtube if anyone wants a demo on what they are about.

That guy was me. how you finding them?

Something...anything from these guys. https://atlansiaguitars.com/

This old Greco deserved some attention. The main issue was the bridge had warped/curved over the years causing the E and G to be either too low, or the A and D to be too high. No middle ground, and no way to raise or lower the saddles individually. Standard fair for these old 3 point bridges I found a new bridge for £17. Not the best material but it would do just to see where i was with the Bass. It allowed me to get the job done. I fitted the bridge just to see if it followed the radius of the board, it did, it wasn't warped like the original, so all good. Next step, Adjust the truss rod to have the fretboard as straight as possible and proceed to mark the frets for leveling. Level the frets, recrown and polish. I'll need to invest in a longer leveling beam as the one i used was designed for Guitars. Around 12" long. Need an 18 incher. ooer Matron!😬 sets up great. 1.25 on the G and roughly 1.50 0n the E at the 12th.

To do the job. I needed a 9.5" radius block, turned out it was 10" a fret hammer, (i have a fret press i made from a Drill press stand, never used it) found the fret hammer to be excellent for the job. super glue, non runny stuff. stainless frets, Notched straight edge. fret levelling beam, 12" You could get away with a fret levelling file here. i prefer the beam. Covers more area. The small file would be ok for when you might have one or two high frets.? fret end bevelling block with two files inserted, 90 degrees and 35? degrees, Basically for taking down the overhanging fret end and giving them a inward bevel before you start to fine tune the ends. felt pen, Bone blank for the nut, and a small vice to clamp the nut while shaping. vice is option as this job could be done on the guitar but i wouldn't advise it. various sand papers for polishing out the rough after your have levelled with the beam. Steel wool, polishing dremel tool for final polish, optional but saves on elbow grease. metal polish, Nut files, fret crowning file, diamond grit. small jewelers fine flat file. for shaping the fret edges. oil for board. fret rocker. Not sure if i missed anything for this job. Not sure the total in ££££ or $$$$ as i i have a lot more luthiery tools than i used on this job. I bought loads of stuff over a period of a couple of years for certain little jobs i had came across. The fret files were the most expensive as i bought from .009-.135. Around 16-18 files in total? £180. Don't buy cheap nut files. Buy a good set and they last you well...and most important be accurate. Most of the tools and consumable i have i bought kinda cheap (not stewmac prices) from ebay and amazon, Like fret rockers and straight edges, radius blocks etc. i'm not sure how accurate these measuring tools are. Is a £25 Straight edge going to be precision engineering grade level straight? Are £17.99 for 4 radius blocks going to be perfect. I doubt it. I know for a fact the 9.5" radius block turned out to be 10" or my string radius guides are out? but they got the job done. At least they were true. Hey your could spend literally thousands buying precision tools... or trust your own abilities and just go for it with the tools at your disposal and within your price range. Some of the other stuff like the rotary tool i already had. I found a brand new old stock 1970's £500 Milbro pendant drill in a Charity/goodwill shop for a £5. Nobody in the shop knew what it was and i got lucky with that find. 😉 I'm always on the lookout for old and interesting vintage tools. As i said. I had gathered most, if not all of these tools over the course of a couple of years with the intention to learn how to do guitar work. I just never got around to it, I had the perfect donor guitar so why not. You'll never learn if you don't at least attempt it. I'm quite good with my hands. Wish i had started earlier when i had better eyes. Now have to rely on jewelers type glasses for really fine work. I look like Bubbles from trailer park boys with them on.

I'm over the moon at how it turned out. I was actually sweating clearing out the filler in the old fret slots. lol I wanted to do a refret on an old redundant neck or broken guitar first, and a few times before i attempted this on one of my preciouses but never found either. This bass was just crying out to be fretted and i had the tools at hand. Just had to grow a pair and get started. What was the worst that could happen, I rip the frets back out and restart??, just more practice. Going to do an acoustic guitar next now i have the confidence and appear to know what i'm doing. It's all the little things that take up most of the time. Repairing chip outs before you move onto the next stage, nut work, trying to avoid sawing into the body. I did (horns), when you get higher up the frets, taping etc... The action is crazy low. Like less than 1.25mm at the 12th on the G and 1.4mm on the E. Every note rings true on every fret. It always amazes me how easy a well set up guitar plays. Even just getting the nut slots to the correct height makes a huge difference. Effortless fretting thats for sure.

My first Refret. Put it off for the past year but decided to go for it as I have all the tools. What's the worst that can happen. Turns out I have luthiery skills. The bass (Gob speedway 700) was originally fretted. someone de-fretted it. I wanted it back to its original fretted condition. Rather than pay £200 for a refret, I bought the tools instead. I took my time over it. 15hrs or so over three days with many cups of coffee and ciggies in between. Well chuffed. Jobs in order. 1. cleaned out, filled where needed, and recut the old fret slots 2. radiused the board 3. filled in the chip outs on the board and flushed 4. Frets in and rounded off at the ends. 5, Frets leveled, Crowned? and highly polished 6, New nut cut, shaped, and polished 7, New strings on, Nut slots cut to depth. 8, Set up. A couple of tweaks and bobs yer aunty. Plays sweet.

Hi all, Has anyone got a Greco Gob 700/speedway Bass? I'm in the process of re-fretting one that was converted to fretless and was looking for the original Radius of the fretboard. I can't find anything online for this particular bass The fretboard now is roughly 9.5 at the moment but I'm kinda guessing that the radius may have been altered slightly when it was converted to fretless. I can radius the board however I prefer as the saddles can be adjusted for whatever radius i choose, it would be then just a matter of cutting a new nut to suit. So anyone got one they could check for me? Cheers

I used to have one of those. Bloody sensational instrument. Being the idiot that i am i sold it. I often wonder where it is now?. Probably Sussex or Essex or somewhere 😁

Hi, I had this Greco delivered today after a 3 month wait as it bobbed about the Pacific then the Atlantic. I'm in the process of stripping her down, cleaning and fixing a few issues. I'm mostly there. She Just required some deep cleaning of the vol/tone controls and switch. Tomorrow i'll clean up of the metal parts, add new string and set her up. It would appear this bass hasn't been played in decades going by the amount of gunk, junk, dead skin and dead spiders hiding within. My question is in regard to the bass mute sponge. Should it be hard or soft?. I'm guessing soft. I mute appears to work? but it's hard and brittle. After 40 odd years it seems to have deteriorated or was the foam hard from the get go?.

Cheers guys.

Probably?. I live alone. I am without a doubt, the best bass player in this house. 😁

Thank you, Douglas

ps. The Odyssey company has only recently been resurrected by one of the original employees. As of now you can by some merch, a T-shirt, but he has plans to start manufacturing and sell spare parts made to original spec. Plans are also up and running to start building Basses and guitars from the line again. Below is a link to the recent announcement. Exciting times ahead. http://odysseyguitar.com/?fbclid=IwAR2pMNAZ14fHqvjX4UKzS4teB3HlYE6-XlwMH_aXeGJqzixFkiOnFM__HAE

My 1979 G200ts Odyssey. The pickups covers and rings have been added as has the Control knobs, Everything else is original. It could be out of my hands this week as i have been offered a killer deal for it.