KingBollock

Finally ready to show off my Thunderbird. It’s cheesy and I love it!

I actually received this bass at the beginning of the year but I had some plans for it, so it has taken a while to get around to photographing it. Please keep in mind that I bought this for a Hair Metal (mostly Motley Crue if the drummer has his way) style covers band... When I play, you can see on my picking forearm tattoos of a Mudflap Girl, playing cards and flaming dice. I have represented these on the bass. I have also made a truss rod cover in the shape of tribal style flames (the photo of it didn't come out very well). Also, my lair and PC are themed in black with red accents. I am thinking of making a t-shirt (probably a vest) with "I Ate Vince Neil" on it, because I ain't no Nikki Sixx!

I remember when I was a kid an had started mucking about with electronics, I had an idea… I had been given a pair of 1x12 speaker cabs. They were huge, something like 24”x18”x18”. I assume they were PA cabs or something, they weighed a lot, too. Anyway. Each had a port along the front bottom (haha!) of the cab, and I had the bright idea (pun totally intended!) of wiring a painted (by me) car light bulb in series with the speaker. The idea being to give me a kind of disco light effect shining from the port. Surprisingly it worked! But I had no idea, at the time, that I was actually making the cabs better! (Although, they didn’t actually have tweeters).

You could try detuning the bass to something like D standard (D C G F instead of E A D G). This would loosen the tension from the neck but still be playable while you do some research to decide if you’d be confident enough to have a crack at setting the neck relief yourself (often, confidence is key). I find this site useful: https://www.studybass.com/gear/bass-setup/adjusting-neck-relief/

As long as one end of the capacitor goes from the correct lug on the tone pot, and the other end goes to ground, it will work. In the left hand diagram, you can just make out that the lug that the capacitor is connected to on the volume pot is also connected to the back of the pot, which is grounded via the foil shielding on the pickguard. Both options rely on that shielding for ground. I would go for the right hand option but run a wire connecting the backs of both pots together, for no other reason than an abundance of caution. Having said that, if I am mucking about with wiring, it is because I am doing something like adding a push/pull (or push/push) pot for coil splitting, series/parallel switching or a blend knob (I don’t own a bass with only one pick-up). And, despite going to college to learn electronics, I still always follow a diagram because I never quite trust my ability to see/grasp exactly what’s going on. So I know how you feel. And I only really do this because I enjoy tinkering, I rarely need those options.

Thank you!

What sort of gauge do they go up to? I’ve got a bass I’d like to make a bone nut for. I’d like to have a crack at a stainless Steel nut, too. That should be fun. I have alternative tools and plans for that, though.

Habe you got a link? I’m too lazy to troll through trying to find the correct set!

Though I don’t know why because it makes me feel so utterly, utterly, painfully alone. It’s an amazing song.

I have unusually warm hands, this can cause problems with many things. I find picks warp on me quite quickly. This can be a double edged sword, because while they can be more comfortable to hold, you can only use them the same way up from then on.

Well no, the best part is there’s nothing to be disappointed about! Knowing my luck, I’ll be reincarnated and have to start all over again… Sod that for a game of soldiers!

For the run where the pick-up wires go through the body (assuming it’s a rear style control plated cavity), I like to use the metal shielding from Gibson style wire. I just strip the inner wire out and use the metal sheath.

My wife had a hat that looked a bit like that, but it was fluffy. Same colour, though. One day we went fishing and she was sat behind me, it was the middle of winter so she had her fluffy hat on. The lake seemed empty, I couldn’t see anyone else fishing. At one point, as I was casting, I managed to hook her hat without realising, and I cast that bloomin’ thing half way across the lake! Then I heard, very loudly, from behind some reeds: “What the hell’s that?! A bloody chicken?!”. I just sat there, dumbfounded, until eventually my wife suggested I reeled it back in. Fortunately, the hook was still attached to the hat (I was worried because it was barbless). We went home after that, though, because her head was cold…

I have exactly the same one as you. It was good until I squashed it…

You can buy decal paper for inkjet printers. Microscale Micro Sol and Micro Set are really good when applying decals. https://www.amazon.co.uk/MicroScale-Industries-Decals-Setting-Solution/dp/B06XS3KWHK Or, it might be worth seeing if you know anyone that is into crafting. See if they have a Cricut, a Brother Scan & Cut or something similar. I am currently trying to decide on a design to cut out of vinyl with my wife’s Scan & Cut. Or you cut just get some of the vinyl and have at it with a craft knife or scalpel.

Wherever it’s from, it should go back!

I use tape that has conductive adhesive. I tend to lay the tape down all in the same direction, slightly overlapping. But still, sometimes, while checking several places with a multimeter, there’ll be the occasional dead spot. I don’t know why. Running a strip, with folded under edges, across it all just makes sure that it’s all connected. It’s mostly a precaution. It takes 3 or 4 inches of tape and a couple of minutes to do.

I, personally, use aluminium tape. Mainly because it’s what I have knocking about. Seems to work just as well as copper. I have done one guitar in copper, the rest aluminium. This information is probably useless, though, because it’s not going to be any easier to get than copper tape.

It helps if you’ve got a multimeter to make sure that it is all connected and conducting. Sometimes the stuff with conductive adhesive doesn’t always conduct through the adhesive. What I like to do, when it’s all done, is add a strip of tape across the lot with the very edges of the tape folded underneath. Or you can stick down a length of stripped copper wire. If this makes any sense? I’m not sure I’m describing it very well.

I recently found Ren (thanks to Justin Hawkins). Some of his solo stuff is very shocking. I’ll just post that one here, but have a look around his YouTube channel. His Tale trilogy - Jenny’s Tale, Screech’s Tale and Violet’s Tale (in that order) - bring genuine tears to my eyes, no matter how often I hear them. I also love the stuff he does with Chinchilla (someone else I hadn’t heard of until recently), especially the song Chalk Outlines. When you find his band, The Big Push, you get to see the massive breadth of his talent.

I have to be really careful about this… One of my hobbies is model painting (I have to build them as well, but it’s the painting that I really enjoy), and I am a “brush licker”. A horrible habit that is used to reshape the brush. I also often use my mouth like a third hand, using it to hold things (like the other end of the brush, screws, nails, sometimes even scalpels…). I am fortunate enough to have managed to avoid sticking my soldering iron in my mouth, but only because I have caught myself as I was about to do it, more than once!

I use Antex. I have had the same 17w one since 1991. A couple of years ago I bought the 25w one for jobs that require that bit more, but I probably didn’t go big enough to make that much difference, though I like it’s more flexible, silicone cable. The 17w still does everything I need it to. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Antex-S58J470-XS25-Silicone-Soldering

It might have been auto corrected. The following two instances are correct. My typing on my tablet is not very good, but it seems that most of the words I do type correctly get auto corrected in some very strange ways. Its to it’s is a common (if not particularly strange) one (in fact it did it just then!) I’ll read through a post a couple of times before I press send. And then I have another read through and edit the mistakes. Then read through again and fix the mistakes. At which point, accuracy be damned, I abandon it. What really gives my bladder a squeeze, is when it really doesn’t want you to use the correct word. It’ll change it, so I change it back, and it’ll do it again and again, even after I have pressed the cross next to the suggested correction. And it’ll do it for every instance of that word it the post.

I know what you mean. I am terrible for not wearing ear or hand protection when using power tools. I like to be able to hear or feel if something starts to go wrong. Which is all well and good until I go deaf or lose a finger… I do use latex gloves when using an airbrush, though.