Ou7shined

This shows the Electrosocket Telecaster jack socket that I chose for this. I used my Dremel sander to create the recess. As you can see I left the original through body holes. it would have been easy enough to fill them but I though it would be a nice [i]homage[/i] to it's former life. I have no intention of using them. Around this time we decorated the bathroom in..... ... You guessed it, Surf Green. My 3 year old daughter displays the skills inherited from dad. The Mint Green (mg/b/mg) RI pickguard I shipped in from the states was a very close fit but needed modifying slightly. I did this by scraping perpendicularly with a loose Stanley blade and tidied it up with some 1000 grade paper. Re-fretting is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Just make sure you get each one right before going on to the next. I was interrupted in my important re-fret job by a pesky gig... so I stuck all together with blu-tac and hung it up so I could purvey my handy work. I was trying out a 4 saddle Wilkinson bridge at the time (well they're cheap). It just wasn't right for the job so I bit the bullet and got a swively Wilky 2 saddle one from the states (not so cheap). Elvis approves. A job I do on all my basses, whether it's necessary or not. Note how each compartment is earthed to the next. Soldering up. Very simple wiring job. Cha-ching! There are still a few jobs to do but I blew my load and couldn't resist posting the pics up here the other day. Things still left to do... A special wee '50's style decal for the headstock tip.... once I can be arsed getting photoshopping. A thumb rest - because of my aggressive finger playing style I need to play nearer the bridge otherwise it gets a bit clanky. possibly a pup cover too. I'm not over the moon with the pup that's in there just now - it's relatively thin sounding and low output. Howard is having a look into what else he might have - but I'm tempted to bung a Lindy Fralin split in. I have LF's in my main bass and love them to bits. More later....

Thanks guys. :blush: Yes it is quite hard to believe that this beauty actually has lowly origins. I suppose it's even harder to believe the some idiot would actually attempt to do this. To get my head around what I was about to do I made a mock-up from polystyrene. I know most people would rout out a larger simpler recess then plug that... but I'm not most people. My initial pencil sketchings were luckily good and I stuck with them right to the end. I had already sourced the pup from our own The Bass Doc (cheers Howard). It's an original Fender RI pup that's been rewired by his pup guy. I couldn't resist trying it out so knocked this up... It sounded ok but it was hard to get an even sound across the strings with it sitting at this acute angle. Here it is plugged with ply and levelled. I used a fine chisel to form my new cavities - never done this before. I did such a neat job of it that I didn't need to sand it out at all afterwards (what you see in the finished bass is just paint over the chiselling) I love doing this kind of intricate work. Wanting to leave as much control cavity space for possible future developments I "floated" certain pieces. I though it prudent to glue [b]and screw [/b]this particular bit in. I had 3 coats of undercoat before it was flat enough to even consider colour (I wish I'd used white now - I'll know better next time eh) I looked at a few headstock pics on the net and sketched on a line as close to the shape as possible. I don't have a lot of tools so I literally attacked the headstock with a hacksaw then set to it with some homemade sanding blocks. It took ages as the maple is hard as stone. Sanding the varnish off revealed a snapped off string tree screw - I left it in. I'm very happy with the new shape. As you might see in the pic above, the previous owner had mucked about with the holes and my shiny Schaller bushes slopped about in some of them. So I opened them all up to an even size then lined them all with some maple veneer to take up the slack - tight as a duck's now. Borrowing Neepheid's fret puller, the frets came out with relative ease. Any minute bits of fb that lifted I saved and superglued back in... like I say, I'm not most people. Surf Green. It's a hard colour to capture but on my monitor this pic is actually pretty close to the real thing. this one is a bit bluer than reality.

I suppose a few more detail as to what constitutes a "custom bass guitar" might clarify but yeah it does seem a bit crazy.

Here ye go. How do you like the new look? [attachment=29564:25072009007.jpg][attachment=29565:25072009008.jpg][attachment=29566:25072009009.jp g][attachment=29567:25072009010.jpg][attachment=29568:25072009011.jpg] I've modded the original body and neck and pimped it out in Surf Green - the only other original parts used are the neck screws. I'm against the decals theoretically but I think there are enough [i][b]homages[/b][/i] to the original Coaster so as not to be pulling the wool over anyones eyes so (although at the end of the day it's probably put together better than any Fender) I thought f*** it why not. I'm getting dragged out to the shops just now but I'll list the changes and hardware later. I'll try and get some better pics up too as the sun's out in Aberdeen again and these are way overexposed and you can't get a right good look at the purty Surf Green. Cheers

Janis bought my GT6B. He's located in Riga, Latvia but this wasn't a problem other than the extra shipping time. Copious comms from this guy and he paid instantly using bank transfer. Cheers man. Rich.

He needs to sell it at that price to make up for the Ltd Edition Stingray he's just bought. Coz like, they're in the same league. He seems to have bought and sold a few Aria' (plural?) so he know exactly what he's at. How does he know that it will sustain [b]forever[/b]. Forever isn't up yet. Hello, trade descriptions? I've used far too many Emoticons in this post. :ph34r: :brow: Sorry :blush:

Cameltoe.

Bought a fancy-ass retro volume pedal off Garry and he threw in a dvd. Arrived in good time and thoughtfully packed too. Top banana all the way!

This is my second transaction with Antonio. This time I bought his gorgeous '98 Stingray. As with the last transaction this deal was flawless. I arranged for my courier to collect, while Antonio made sure that the bass was boxed up properly to avoid damage. Antonio clearly looks after his gear and gives honest descriptions of condition etc. Nice guy to speak with too. Many thanks. Rich.

Dan bought a DiMarzio DP123 model J pup off me. Paid instantly with bank transfer. No hassles at all. Cheers man. Rich.