Dom in Dorset

As a pallet junkie I'm jealous! That's really quite beautiful.

Experienced bass player with vocals looking for something interesting.... My background is a bit of a mixed bag taking in folk rock, Americana, country, country rock, folk, reggae, ska, psychedia, prog rock and even a few stints in a theatre pit band. I also write songs and have been lead singer ,and front man in a couple bands but happy to stand back too. Fairly recently moved to the area, looking for something interesting/creative /fun available for depping or something permanent. I do play guitar as well but bass would be my first choice. I'm in my 50s ,Based near Dorchester but willing to travel. In South Somerset area on a regular basis.

A least all the machine heads were turned to the same point for the photos.

I've entered, no idea what I'm going to do as yet.

I'm planning on entering but probably with a guitar. Looking at design options this morning.

I have been considering a whipe clean range.

I'll be there with some Scavenger Basses.

It plays beautifully IMO, I'll make a demo video soon.

Eronious post please delete

Dah dah!

Those gigs you thought were going to be awful but turned out nice in the end. Following on from the train wreck thread... My country rock trio (something like Motorhead playing country) were booked for Boomtown festival. The site is devided into zones, futuristic, urban, etc and a wild West zone where we were playing. Our zone was all timber facades of saloons etc complete with actors doing gunfights every hour, falling off buildings into hay carts, "ladies" plying their trade etc We'd been told that there would be backline, drum kit etc just bring guitars, pedals and breakables... We arrive to find that none of this is true. There isn't even a stage. There is a small pa and they get us to set up on the saloon steps to entertain the crowd between bands on the main stage. Everything is plugged into the pa including the guitar and as he usually uses the dirty channel on his amp it's clean sound only. Our drummer has to play standing up with snare, hi hat , ride and a suit case for a bass drum. All set to be a total train wreck but...our set coincided with the actors clocking off for the day. Still in full wild west costume they gathered Infront of us and immediately started dancing wildly waving shot guns in the air and generally having a blast. Their presence attracted more people and we ended up with a good crowd. Just goes to show that things can turn around.

A few years ago I was living in a small Somerset town , there was an annual street fair. It was a popular event attracting thousands , stalls running the length of the street, buskers playing, main stage with bands , beer tents etc. I'd been involved from the outset in various ways including dressing up as the green Man and playing bagpipes. I was approached by someone from the next town who'd been to our fair and wanted to put on something similar ...would I be interested in doing my act there? I arrive in the morning and they've closed of the town's main car park for the fair. At each entrance there is a table with people in high vis vests to stop traffic. The car park is completely empty bar a table at one end where the local cats home are selling a (somewhat poor selection of) bric a brac. It's still early I think to myself as I stand pipes in hand in the middle of an empty car park as the start time approached. I play to an empty car park. Still nobody. I hang around until 1 , still nobody. I give it another hour before finding the organiser. We chat about how disappointing it's been and I ask her what publicity she's done..... "None, I don't believe in it, you can't beat word of mouth!"

Are we nearly there yet?

Thanks, I did experiment with them pointing upwards but for some reason it looked odd at the 12th fret.

They should stand out even more as the wood darkens with age.

Fitting the dot markers turned out to be more tricky than I thought. The course grain of the oak and the tiny aces meant inlaying wasn't an option. In the end I drilled 10 mm holes and set the aces in black filler .Not as crisp as I'd intended but still in character for the instrument. And of course it's now fretted. Fretting in progress: Ready for fret leveling and polishing: The neck so far : Carving and sanding the back of the neck: Carved ,sanded and oiled: Progress so far:

Long long ago...I played bass clarinet and bagpipes in a weird folk band, all unusual instruments, bagpipes , hurdy gurgy, bouzouki etc. We had a gig Hartlepool (we were based in Somerset And Sussex) . The week before our hurdy player had to drop out due to a bereavement in the family. I drafted my brother in(Also playing bouzouki) and sent him a CD to learn our set , he had three days My brother lives in Yorkshire so the idea was to meet at his place the night before and go on to Hartlepool the next day. In stead of running through the set that night we set about demolishing a barrel of my brother's home brew.... We arrive in Hartlepool with raging hangovers under leaden skys and sideways rain. The stage was a artic flat bed done up like a castle in a car park that was more puddle than tarmac. The sound guys told us to weight in a nearby pub and unless the rain stopped we wouldn't be playing. We sat feeling damp and miserable enjoying a hair of the dog confident that at least we wouldn't have to play our unrehearsed set on cold out of tune instruments to an empty car park. Two minutes before the start time the sound man comes in and says "it's stopped raining , you're on!" We trudged out and set up , the sort of instruments we used were tricky enough to keep in tune but straight out of the case into cold damp air wasn't going to help. We started our set...we were rough. There were quite literally two men and a dog watching. They left half way through our first number. We played the remainder of the set to a wet car park.

Many years ago I was playing in a covers band. We had a gig at a caravan park. During the gig someone came up and asked the singer if we could dedicate a song to his father as it was his birthday. The singer duly obliges "this next one is for Joe Bloggs, happy birthday" We launch into the next song on the list. Half way through our rendition of knocking on heaven's door we notice a guy in a wheelchair being pushed up the front wearing a large home made badge with the number 80 on it.

I played in a folk rock band and we had a gig on a small stage at Glastonbury. That gig went well but... I can remember how but the week before the festival we were asked if we could serve as backing band for a visiting Australian aboriginal actor/musician Tom E Lewis for his gig on the Glade stage (a much bigger one than we were originally booked for) . We agreed band were able to arrange one rehearsal with him. He was an absolute gent but a bit vague about how some of his songs went. I swear he never played them the same twice. The problems started when in addition to our band a couple of other musicians were added (no idea why or by who) sax and keys I think. The rehearsal went ...ok ish and our guitarist spent a bit of time with him writing out the chords . Not feeling overconfident but hoping we'll get away with it. After all some of us have played together for years. When the gig happens even more musicians Turn up ..trombone, percussion, mandolin old uncle Tom Cobbley and all none of whom had attended the one ropey rehearsal. Thankfully a sizeable chunk of the gig was lost to the prolonged soundcheck, so long in fact that we had to start before the drums and myself had even done a line check. The descent sized crowd at the start of the gig drifted off as chord progressions went out of the window and we descended into a free form jazz exploration. The resulting gig was a train wreck saved only by the didgeridoo solo at the end. Tom was a lovely guy and it was a privilege to meet him, we were all saddened by his death the following year. I smile when I think about it now but at the time I wanted the stage to swallow me up.

I've used oak for necks and fretboard, a bit unforgiving to work with and very variable in density but worth it. Fretboards in oak look great and the oak necks I've made seem to be solid and stable with a good feel. The resulting instruments have no loss of brightness or sustain. I suspect that the course grain and variable density is why it's not more common. My current build features an oak fretboard.

I've been a bit distracted by this Back onto the bass next week, the ear studs have arrived so no excuses. ♠️

Boil your strings but don't use the water to make tea afterwards.

Depends where your piercing is.

They are stud earrings, five pairs should do it. It's going to be tricky to inlay them but I'm feeling confident 😕

Last of the routing on the bass and I've picked out the remaining white fillers from the worm holes. After a final sanding and oiling... The headstock is now shaped and the fretboard trimmed.. I can't fret it until I've fitted the dot markers that should look something like this...