BassBollocks

I fitted a Wilkinson P-Bass [size=4]pickup to my Westfield (along with a Wilkinson [/size][size=4]hi-mass bridge) and the sound is great. I got the Westy for £35 from a car boot sale so I didn't want to go to the expense of Gotoh/Wizard bits. Wilkinson stuff is well designed and of excellent quality for the dosh. [/size]

Greetings... and welcome [size=4] [/size]

I saw a Westfield 'P' copy at a car boot sale with a price tag of £40. I offered £30 as I was after a Precision-style body for a project, and we settled on £35. The bass was covered in dust and had corroded strings but I figured it was worth it for the wood. When I got home I had a proper play on it for a couple of hours and decided that it was too good to tear apart. It was finished in translucent blue which, although a nice colour, revealed the rather unappealing grain of the wood. I decided to refinish the body in a solid colour. A trip to Halfords secured some white primer, Ford 'Transit Van' white and some clear lacquer. After sanding all the old finish down to the bare wood and cleaning up, I sprayed two coats of primer, half-a-dozen coats of the 'Diamond White' and four coats of the lacquer. Allowing two weeks for the lacquer to harden a bit, I rubbed down with wet 1500 grit paper, then 3000 grit 3M Trizact polishing pad before rubbing out with 3M Fastcut and Machine Polish. Another couple of weeks for the lacquer to harden further before reassembly (you need a certain degree of patience to refinish a guitar!). In the meantime I buffed up the satin-finished neck with the Trizact and some T-Cut to a high gloss and treated the rosewood fretboard to a liberal coating of lemon oil. The frets were mirror-polished using the trusty Trizact. I wanted to upgrade the hardware but, in keeping with a budget instrument, decided to follow an economical route so fitted a Wilkinson bridge and pickup. Nothing wrong with the scratchplate, and the machineheads seem to work just fine and stay in tune so I left them alone, too. CTS 250k pots, Switchcraft jack socket, Sprag[size=4][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]u[/font][/size]e [size=4][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]0.047 uF capacitor, vintage-style cloth covered wiring and copper shielding tape finished off the electrical side and, well, that's it, really. For less than £150 I have a bass which looks, feels and sounds great, and compares favourably with the VM and CV Squiers (which are excellent for the money), plus I have the satisfaction of having rebuilt and refinished it myself.[/font][/size]

For portability you can't beat the Vox AmPlug range of headphone amps... they plug directly into your jack socket. Mine runs for about 12 hours on a pair of decent alkaline AAA batteries. Plug in an MP3 player, lightweight headphones and run around the garden like an idiot whilst you practice your stage act... the sound quality is surprisingly good for such a small and handy device. Just the job for warming up backstage, too. Expect to pay about £30 for one. See here: [url="http://www.voxamps.com/amplug/"]http://www.voxamps.com/amplug/[/url]

Thanks guys... I thought this was the case but I just wanted to make sure - and yes, Graham, the Rumbles are all solid state.

General tech question: I have a Fender Rumble 350 Watt head which I use with a Marshall 1540 4x10 cabinet (and it's a great combination). Now I've always been very careful with separate head/speaker cabs not to turn on the power unless the cab is connected. I understand that if I were to do this I could damage the amp as it sees no 'load' (this may be more relevant to valve amps, but I always take the precaution anyway). When I plug in my headphones, the speaker cab is, of course, bypassed. Am I correct in assuming that the amp now sees the headphones as a 'load'? Am I also correct in assuming that I can safely disconnect the speaker cab and utilise the ultra-portability of the pocket-sized Fender with just my headphones connected?

Thanks Steve, I thought it was about time that I joined a forum, so I signed up here and at TalkBass. Now I can annoy people on both sides of the Atlantic! I'll be at TwoSheds tomorrow night (we're auditioning another frontman). See you there... Greaser

Thanks guys, and yes Len... the Squier is a great instrument for the money. I recently visited a music shop in Peterborough that had one in stock and which I was able to play 'back to back' against their other models. I tried various other Squiers before making my way up through Mexican-made Fenders and onto the 'Made in USA' stuff costing a grand or more. I may be new to the bass but I know a good neck when I play one, and the Squier's was as good as any of them - a solid and quite chunky feel that I find very comfortable. So much so, in fact, that I've shelved my plans to save for a 'proper' Fender and I'm going to upgrade the VM instead with a Badass or Gotoh 201 bridge, some CTS pots and a Switchcraft jack socket. A pair of Wizard pickups and some better tuners may follow at a later date. I have a Japanese-made Telecaster which I've upgraded in a similar fashion and it's the best guitar I've ever played! I'll keep you posted on any developments. Cheers... Greaser

In early 1977 I saw my first live band at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, a relatively unknown act from Australia called AC/DC. I don't remember much about the gig other than the atmosphere (everybody dressed like me in flared jeans and leather jackets) and the sound of the bass guitar (must have been Mark Evans at that time): a thump in the chest and a rumble through the floor. "I want to make that sound", I decided, and so I bought a bass guitar - an anonymous short scale thing from Cambridge Rock for £40 that I eventually managed to learn 'Roxanne' on (which was in the charts at the time). To cut a long story short, I accidentally became a guitarist, and have played Les Pauls, Strat's and Tele's for over 30 years. Last year I decided that I couldn't play the bloody things and bought a bass - a Squier VM Jazz for £150 off eBay, and haven't looked back. Talk about a waste of 30 years! In six weeks I reached a higher standard on the bass than I could achieve on the guitar in all that time. I was lucky enough to get hold of a Marshall 3530 amp head and a 1540 4x10 cab for £250, and I'm now in a position to tackle my mid-life crisis with some serious attitude! Well,that's enough about me for now... cheers, then! Greaser (BassBollocks)