Jean-Luc Pickguard

Living In The Past — Jethro Tull

Bizarre Love Triangle — New Order

I think building the loom on a cardboard template was the key to a tidy wiring job. I'm sure if I'd tried making it with the components on the control plate & pickguard it would have looked more like Worzel Gummidge's pubes.

I liked the simplicity of the one volume, one tone, one switch, but didn't like the components — particularly the switch which would often take a few goes to get it to pass a signal when switching either way. Also I learned that these have 'fifties wiring' which is blumming annoying as unless the volume is at 100%, rolling down the tone also reduces the volume dramatically — which is stupid. To fix this I built a new loom with a switchcraft switch, pure tone socket, orange drop capacitor and CTS pots and I shielded the bass with copper antislug tape. This is covered in this thread -> I will update this thread with the components and wiring diagram I used — in case it might be useful to anyone who comes across it from googling in the future. (Hello future peeps, I hope Kamala won!)

Woo hoo! The bass is back in one piece and everything is working as it should. The new switch works perfectly with no glitching. After turning down the volume a bit, rolling off the tone no longer drops the volume The puretone socket is positive and doesn't push the jack to one side as it is plugged/unplugged. The copper shielding has silenced the small amount of noise that was there. All in all a perfect result which calls for a huge sigh of relief and a small glass of celebratory Whiskey.

That’s okay, a former president of the USA says it is called ‘The Weave’ when he goes off at a tangent, and some of his good friends who are English professors say it’s the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen. I wonder whether he added “But they went to a different school so you won’t know them.”

Old Man Trump — Woody Guthrie

I have put together the new loom using a typical p-bass circuit. I'll finish off tomorrow and solder the white wires from the pickups to each side of the switch, and then the black wires from each plus the bridge and body lug grounds to a blob on the shell of the tone pot. If it all works first time I'll celebrate with a small glass of Bushmills 10 year old single malt. if not I'll have some troubleshooting to do. I found that the new iron made it much easier. I didn't have to hold it on the components so long to get the solder to flow. I used the lead free as I need all the brain cells I can keep hold of. Even though the original Korean pots closely resembled CTS pots I had to get out the tapered reamer to open up the holes in the control plate so the CTS ones will fit.

Yesterday, after shielding the cavities of my PJ Player Mustang bass I attempted to start to rewire it to replace the glitchy toggle switch with a switchcraft one and swap some cables about to solve the issue with the volume dropping when rolling off the tone. My soldering iron is an oldish 30W one. Using this iron I found it impossible to reflow the factory solder at all and I had to cut the wires off the switch. I tried to desolder the bare leg of the capacitor from the tone pot using desoldering braid, but couldn't flow the solder at all. I deduced that a higher powered iron is needed so I placed an amazon order for a 100W one which has buttons to adjust the power and a temperature readout, which seems to be standard now. This defaults to 350ºC and goes up to 500ºC. I found in various bits boxes, a pair of CTS 250kΩ audio pots, a 0.047uF orange drop capacitor and a pure tone socket, so I decided it would make sense to build a new loom. I couldn't remember where I stashed my push-back wire so I added some to my order. My order was delivered today. The plan is to use a standard P bass circuit, replacing the pickup ground and signal with the ground and signal out from the switch. I have now mounted the components on a cardboard template and will probably put the loom together tomorrow. I have both old tin/lead solder — which was easy to use with my old iron, and newer lead free — which wasn't, so I will try to use the lead free with the new iron. My question is - what temperature do you use when soldering? Is the default 350ºC likely to be hot enough? Is there a disadvantage to upping the temperature beyond what is needed? Also why are Americans unable to pronounce solder properly?

Let There Be More Light — Pink Floyd

Return To Fender — Elvis Presley

The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill — The Beatles

Don't Squeeze Me Like Toothpaste — 10cc

I bought a behringer clone of the ARP Oddessy from Trash Converters, however within an hour of it being delivered I discovered that it would crash and need a reboot whenever you pressed a key after changing the octave up.I sent it back for a refund. I used to enjoy using behringer pedals though when I owned them. The ADI-21 acoustic preamp was essential when I used to gig with a Dean Pace electric upright aka 'the banister'

Tonight I Sellotape My Glove To You — Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson

My bag was £1.50 from Tesco Inside are: Clipboard with set lists/notes Cables inc spares Zoom h2n recorder + spare batteries Hand sanitizer Earplugs Spare strings Setup tools

New Rubbers — Psapp

Its not even a squier. Probably worth about £100 on a good day with the wind behind it.

Tattoo — The Who

The Needle And The Damage Done — Neil Young

Has anyone come across the genere 'egg punk?' I heard the term for the first time last night listening to the 60 cycle hum podcast. It seems to be a sub genre of punk harking back to the late 70s and came about recently due to an internet meme. It seems to be based on a lo-fi aesthetic using fuzzy guitar and cheesy keyboard along with wacky lyrics to make a sound not unlike Devo. Apart from the name, it appeals to me and I'm going to have a go at making a few tracks in this genre. It has also been known as devo-core. As it seems to be mainly a US based thing perhaps there is scope for a UK specific sub genre. Any suggestions for what this could be called?

In my experience, apart from on the very cheapest instruments, it is rare to get tuners on a bass that don't work well from new or go bad over time. If yours do develop any looseness, stiffness or jumpiness, a dab of vaseline on the moving parts and ensuring everything is tight enough (but not too tight) should keep them working well forever. I think I have only changed tuners for aesthetic reasons — all three of my vintage pro thunderbirds look fantastic with Gotoh GB640s, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with the stock wilkinsons.

Why Was I Bournville? — Dinah Washington

If you're thinking about the GB640 or GBR640, They are not reversable and Gotoh only sell them as 4L or 4R. Also if you did get hold of two L & two R, I think the backplates would probably have too big a footprint to fit on a Starfire headstock. My Starfire II has a set of Grover 142N fitted as standard, which are well suited and might be a suitable upgrade for the starfire I: https://www.thomann.co.uk/grover_142n_vintage_bass_nickel_22.htm Alternatively, Guild used to use Grover Titans, so they might be worth looking at. Thomann have plenty of different sets of 2L2R tuners: https://www.thomann.co.uk/2l_2r_bass_tuning_machines.html

Every Teat Of My Heart — Gladys Knight & The Pips