W1_Pro

On balance, I agree about keeping the Ashdown. However...if cash was less of an object than it is, I'd be tempted by three Barefaced 110's and a valve amp to drive them. I've always thought that having three (or four?) single speakers is incredibly flexible. Individually very small and light, you could use as many as you need for any given gig and using the three together stacked in a column would give you a device with the line array effect and probably sound pretty damned good. Not cheap though....

Andy, great minds think alike..or fools seldom differ..😆 What do you think of the following... I've been staring owlishly at the bass for some time and I have come up with a variant of your plan which I think might be even less visible. Cut the neck at the pickup rout. It would need to follow the rout, rather than be a straight cut but it would be invisible nce the pickup is back on. I could then shim the neck in front of the pickup which would change the action height to something a bit more usable (I hope). This would probably need a couple of extra screws as you suggest...

I was looking for a diffferent sort of Hondo when I came accross this on ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267387545803?_skw=hondo+ii+bass+guitar&itmmeta=01K9D2ZE42Y0W47QVFJ4V6XSPD&hash=item3e418a28cb:g:KKEAAeSweKxotb8Y&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1d32JFlZ9hR7zmL%2F4CyZdNyRH52y%2FiuPIWTFFqJUZtKCFIl2or5Qy5wp%2FcNvcl04axr1Pg5KeLURUDKf1U9hV0JOVcfKowWtX4upMeJi8KtRHKnTnxHWTowLVPNJGP64koTD%2FhvNNaekzeSFB5QoYoHgyegnmXlQcbNLsWbEsmzCSi5qHKs5yITflrV35wQerdR1QF7hlfRDWTHeBQ3RZHoJkT4OUGqjg6%2FxvgqC6w7Ud5Suo6NFTRiFLuhvOvwNCqHXgwqbqikvX0rpAkfMcCw1bjQa%2BLM6q2otzSyAuC6kg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6zi_aLLZg Its sold by something called 'Bristol Guitars' and if you look at their other items they seem to have just taken a Hondo Rick apart and be selling it piecemeal. Now I understand that these basses are unusual, and may have some collectability attached as its what Peter Hook used in the early years of Joy Divison, but if you add up what they are asking for all of the parts (right down to the strap buttons- a steal at £15.99 each) then it adds up to a faintly breathtaking £1220 odd. And you have to put it together yourself. You have to admire the chutzpah.....

So this leaves two options as as I see it. Andy's suggestion of taking some material off the heel of the neck and Bassassins idea about routing a hole for the bridge. I'm inclining towards the latter, as I've seen that done (twice now, once on a bass of mine and once on Bassasins Satellite up the thread) and it seems to be a workable if somewhat heavy handed solution...

So I moved to the neck end and did the same amount of shimming with the same result...by now it was dawning on me that the shims on their own are achieveing nothing, because the bridge moves with the neck. I sort of knew this and I should have been able to work it out using a bit of string, a nail and an oil drum but I've always been hopeless at stuff like this so the practical work does help.... What next?

So shims...first of all, I trued some pretty extreme shimming at the bridge. This is two business cards folded in three and stuck one on top of the other..that is the most shimmage I have ever used by a factor of about three. Doesnt seem to have made much difference to the action height...

I think, this as far as this particular bass goes that is destined to remain a mystery. I bought it for £90 (as it says further up the thread) and it was in a bit of a mess. There were no strings on it at the time and I must admit I didnt see this particular issue coming, although in all fairness the construction is not what you might call 'conventional' so I'll give myself a pass there. It is what it is and I'd like to try and correct it if I can, with a budget of precisely no pounds. I've been messing about with shims a bit...more info below...

As I said, the bridge and the pickups mount on both the extended neck section and the body so (especially with the bridge) a flat spot is needed to mount it...

It sits kind of jointly on both the end of the extended neck and the body. So it needs a level base.

Yes...one option might be to rout a hole for the bridge. I had that done a long time ago on a bass which had the (set) neck at slightly the wrong angle...it worked..

Apparently that last reply earned me a 'Basschat hero' badge. I feel quite emotional....😆

Part of the issue, as far as I can see is that the pickup and the bridge attach to both the extended neck heel and the body of the bass. So changing one angle affects the other two. Ho hum.

Me neither.

Hello Andy, good to hear from you and thanks for the sage advice. The truss rod has already been de tensioned. In fact it was in these pictuures. It made a bit of difference to the action height, but you are right of course, adjusting it is not going to cure this. I did consider a shim. I was a bit leery of fitting one as I thought it might mess up the seating of the bridge, whch of course sits on top of the neck but it has to be worth a try! I shall do some experimenting and report back.

So after a very long break I'm resurecting this thread in a search for some advice. I got the bass back together to find that the neck, and/or the truss rod has a fairly serious fault. The action is very high all the way up the neck. I cranked the truss rod as tight as I could, which makes it slightly better, however when this is done the nut at the base of the neck- which is the truss rod adjustment- sits at a pretty alarming angle. My best guess is that the truss rod is knackered. So, I don't just want to bin the bass, the refret actually went very well and the neck, now its sanded and oiled, feels very nice. I think then, I need to replace the truss rod. Given that this is a hideously awkward job (I'll need to rout out the skunk stripe, remove the old one and refit the new one this way), and I really can't afford to pay somone to do this - it would be nuts considering what the bass is worth- I was wondering if anyone could suggest a method for routing out the stripe. I've got a decent router, I guess I'll need to make some kind of jig? Suggestions, advice and encouragement welcome.... I've attached a few shots below..The bridge is already as low as it can go.

Go on...you know you want to....

Here's mine, taken a couple of years ago. Overwater on the right in the process of having the control cavity insulated...NR TBird on the bench being restrung and set up...The pile of paint cans has only got bigger...

AFAIK yes, 1985 is relatively 'late'. My burst one in the pic further up the thread is according to Chris 'very early' he dates that as 1979 and the blue one at 1980 or '81. Here is a link to an article reviewing an Overwater with Armstrongs but in the same position as the earlier Lawrence pickups. A transitional model I suppose. It does mention in the review that Chris has been building this shape of bass for some time. https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/overwater-bass/6557?utm_source=chatgpt.com The article dates from June 84.

That must be a 'late' Original I think JPJ? The pickups have moved into an Artisan like configuration I notice. Really interesting to see how they have developed over time. Is that the battery box just off to the left there?

This looks like a completely magnificent project. I hope it ends up sounding as formidable as it looks! Bill makes a very good point about cable nonsense. I'm reminded of an event I worked on a few years ago at the opera house in Covent Garden. It was aimed squarely at obscenley rich people, and one of the featured attractions was a display of insanely expensive hifi. The mains blocks they plugged into were a sight to behold. Massive curly mains leads going into twenty amp powercons plugged into these amazing looking six gang plug boards with power conditioning and martindales built in. All of this apparently really helped the transients on the bottom end, the noise floor, etc etc etc etc. I followed one of these cables behind the set flats, where it was daisy chained into a white plastic four gang which was obviously bought from a pound shop. 'What tangled webs we weave', I thought.....

Thanks for that. As far as I'm aware, the early originals had Bill Lawrence blades in them, and then for whatever reason, they (Overwater) moved to using Kent Armstong soap bars and continued doing so into the Artisan bass(on the right of the pic below). The Kent soap bar is a relatively straightforward humbucker to which Overwater (sometimes) added a coil tap to to facillitate single coil usage, one assumes...Mine are all passive and have a single jack out.

So Red, the Overwater that you had that was active..I assume that was a later one with the Kent Armstrong soap bars?

Hello folks, I have a question with regard to this. I've heard a few people mention Overwaters 'filter based preamps' over the years but I have to confess I have no idea what they are or what they do. Were they fitted to Original series basses? I have three of them which are all passive. Two of those have completely standard pot and loom wiring and the third has a pcb which might as well be pot and loom, as it has (mounted on the PCB) two pots (volume and tone), a coil tap switch and a capacitor. If anyone could shed any light and maybe a pic or two, I should be grateful.