JPJ

In the ‘slow but steady’ progress club, today I found time to finalise the P Pickup cutout in the scratch plate, shield the P Pickup cavity, shield the back of the scratch plate, and trial assemble the stack knob vol & tone setup from KiOgon of this parish, a piece of work so fine it deserves its own photo.

So had a rare day off today, so despite the freezing temperatures I headed off in the direction of the shed with three layers on and cracked on. Today, I’ve cracked on with the scratch plate which has turned out rather well. Still need to scrape the edges and finish the P pickup cutout but other than that I’m happy. Oh and to get the scratch plate neck pocket right I had to first drill and screw the neck to the body which went well and is aligned to within a hair of gnats chuff 😎 Oh and you might notice that in a spare half hour yesterday I shielded the J pickup and the control cavity. I will do the P pickup as well but only when I’m finished fettling.

So being left alone to ponder for the afternoon, my hankering for a fretless Precision type bass took me onto the Public Peace website and after a quick play around on the configurator, I came up with this. Ticks all the boxes, is considerably less money than Fender's only current fretless offering (the very nice Tony Franklin) and as the secondhand market seems bereft of anything decent at around this price point I'm seriously considering pressing the 'order' button. I know a few on here have taken a similar plunge, but what's the general consensus, are these basses worth the price point?

A little bit of progress tonight. Too cold to venture into the workshop (shed) so I sat with the body on my knee in the office and carved the rebate around the battery box opening by hand. Pleased with the result as the battery box is now flush rather than raised.

Two 18’s plus two 10’s and all that weight for just 400W. Maybe the old days weren’t as rosey as I remember 😂

Oof 😍

Finally got a few hours today to get on with assembly. Now you know I said everything was tight, well the neck pocket was 3.76mm too tight to accommodate my MightyMite precision neck. Before I go on, I must mention that the neck pocket fits the replacement Fender scratch plate perfectly so it’s obvious the MightyMite neck heel is wider than the standard Fender neck heel. After puzzling over this for a couple of weeks I decided to adjust the neck rather than the neck pocket on the basis that I’ve already messed on with the neck and it owes me nothing whereas the body is pristine. So today, with the aid of my digital vernier, and some newly sharpened chisels (there’s nothing better than a freshly sharpened and well honed chisel) I set about the neck. Got to say I’m pleased with the results. I also found time to rough out the template for the scratch plate but more of that later.

So I decide to not go down the repair route and instead picked up a secondhand head version of the same amp. Unbelievably, TC use different sized bolts and bosses to attach the feet to the head version than the combo version but after a rummage through the parts drawer, the amp is now safely installed in the combo and all works as it should. Downloaded the Spectracomp TonePrint to the amp and all is well again 😎

Well spotted sir, the hang tag does indeed say RS940TV

You built this with your dad? Sorry, but I’d say leave well alone. That type of memory/nostalgia is priceless, especially when your dad is no longer around. Buy yourself a Hercules stand and celebrate the originality.

As I said on FaceAche, I love a story with a happy ending. And boy does she sound good in that video (and shock horror I prefer the clip with the flats).

Well it’s certainly a factory fretless, I’ll check the original hang tag and let you know 😉

I blame Nigel Tufnell, now we just turn everything up to eleven 😂

I’ve run a few preamp & power amp setups over the years but one thing I’ve never been sure of is how you should set up the ‘master’ volumes. To explain, I fully understand the relationship between the pre & post levels on the preamp as these mirror the function of pre and master levels on any regular bass amp. But where should the volume control on the power amp be set? Should it be 100% and control the overall volume from the preamp post control (unlikely as very noisy), set to zero db on the power amp and control the overall volume from the preamp post control, or run the preamp post control at 100% and control the overall volume from the power amp volume control, or something else?

Sister from another mister to my 1982 RS924 fretless

So the long wait is over and DHL delivered my finished body today. Got to say it’s rather excellent. It will need the minimal amount of fettling as everything is tight (very tight), but I’d rather it was like this than the other way. Looks like a quality piece of timber and the finish is flawless. Please ignore the gratuitous mock up shot, that’s a standard Fender five string scratch plate that will be used as a template for a custom made BWB scratcher to suit the Bartolini 5 string P pickup. Of course as luck would have it delivery has neatly coincided with a really busy time in the day job so there will be little to no progress with this in the next couple of weeks.

I’m selling this on here at the moment 😉

I’ve read through the build threads and unless I’ve missed it, there’s one question I think hasn’t been answered. Is the physical proportions of a cab as important as the internal volume. Obviously, there are a few fixed dimensions (diameter of the speaker, length of the port) but other than these practical limitations will a short deep cabinet perform differently to a taller but slimmer design?

I really fancy building a couple of the MkIII cabs but whilst I’m a proficient wood butcher, I wouldn’t trust myself to assemble the crossover without a fair chance of a spectacular failure. So here’s a thought, if there is a fellow basschatter with the reverse skill set, I’d be up for bartering my time assembling a cab for you if you’d build two crossovers for me? Material costs to be covered by each party.