Jean-Luc Pickguard

In my experience some basses need more adjustments than others. My Jazz bass always needed regular adjustment and I have adjusted my Thunderbird vintage pros this week (which have a slim neck that feels much like a Jazz). My chunky '81 precision and JMJ mustang have not needed any adjustment this year so far. The orange-handled allen tool described and shown in the photo of the first post is made of Chrome Vanadium steel which I believe is a step up from the manufacturer-supplied allen keys. Also the truss rod tool Fender supply with USA-made instruments has a ball end like this one and I never had any problems with that for adjusting with my Jazz.

Yep: mustangs, thunderbirds, Precisions, u-basses, flatwounds, NS uprights, lightweight cabs, long suede straps, cmnfort strapps, lollypop tuners, lightweight tuners with traditional looking keys, daphne blue, sunburst (inc cherry) aged white pearl pickguards, passive controls, nickel hardware, trussrod adjustment at the headstock, vintage gear in good condition Not Yep: Roundwounds, Jazz basses(sorry!), ricks, heavy cabs, short or slippy straps, reverse winding tuners, black or gold hardware, 5 (or 6) string basses, active controls, tuners with 'Y' shaped keys, lined fretless, having to unscrew the neck to adjust the trussrod, skunk stripes on back of neck, bright white pearl pickguards, filthy/smelly gear

The 4mm allen key that comes with a lot of non-US basses including Epiphones & Squiers is OK, but easily lost. I've found an alternative which works much better and costs less than £2 from various ebay sellers in China. Seach for 'T handle allen hex key wrench spanner 4mm'

They're £175 new and there aren't many alternatives.

The starcaster guitars are listed on the Fender site, but there's no mention of a bass version. I'd take that as a 'no' or perhaps a 'not yet' https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/search?q=starcaster&lang=en_GB

Probably for the best - some daft punters would turn up expecting to see a performing donkey. For one of my previous bands I used different british comedy icons for the posters to give a bit of variety. One of them featured the great Les Dawson in his Ada persona. The landlord told us he had received a phone call from a punter asking if Les Dawson was really appearing at his pub. He replied 'No mate, he's been dead ten years!'

The tag says "Do not connect two or more extension leads together in a chain" I might have to pretend I didn't see that. 🤔

Thanks for the heads-up on this, I've just got back from lidl with a bag full of biscuits, crisps, and one of these very handy looking cables

The seller will probably stand a chance of getting a better price if they could have spent half an hour removing the stickers and cleaning it up.

"made by a gentleman that makes violins in good condition" I dread to think what his violins look like "Good luck" - if anyone buys it they'll need it

To get it to intonate I reckon the bridge will need to move about two inches back.

Eastwood's take on a telecaster tenor guitar looks a bit more balanced visually for me

I bought a blackstar amplug2 bass which I believe is very similar to the vox. - it sounds really good with my Beyerdynamic DT-150 phones.

My best buy was an EMG Geezer Butler passive pickup, a Fender HiMass Bridge and an aged white pearl pickguard for my '81 Cherry Sunburst Precision which is is now sounding and looking better than it ever has since I bought it 37 years ago. I couldn't do anything about it weighing about the same as a small planet though. My *worst* buy was when I was looking for a hardcase for my sunburst epiphone vintage pro thunderbird & I managed to get a slightly beaten up but solid & perfectly usable epiphone t-bird case included with another sunburst epiphone vintage pro thunderbird for a bargain price. The plan was to sell on the bass resulting in me getting the case for peanuts (or possibly free). However the idea of owning two identical thunderbirds grew on me and the second one was just as nice as my existing one so I kept it and treated it to the same upgrades as my existing one - mushroom strap buttons & rubbery strap holders, an XL comfort strapp, Gotoh GB640 res-o-lite tuners, Gibson logo TRC, and a set of Ernie Ball Cobalt flatwounds. I list it as my worst buy as it was originally meant to be a money-saving wheeze but ended up costing quite a bit more - still a bargain I suppose, and still a great bass but I just didn't *need* to buy it & all the upgrade bits. Luckily the missus hasn't caught on that I have two identical basses yet as I only have one out at a time when she's about.

Awesome bass player and songwriter. I just hope I don't ever have to mime his name in a game of blues charades.