MrFingers

Vintage Fenders have the square covers, the first ReIssues (1981 I guess) had the round ones.

grey bobbin, Alnico II magnets, enamel wire and wound around 12K.

There is no such thing as "the sixties pickup", since there are the black bobbin pickups with Formvar coated wire and slightly bigger magnets (until 03/1964) and the greybobbin with Enamel coated wire with smaller magnets (1964 onwards). A 1966 pickup should be virtually identical to a 1977 pickup, except maybe the amounts of windings, those varied since it was done by hand (sixties) or by an inaccurate machine (seventies), and the use of "whatever we can find" wire in the later seventies.

What's a major soundchanger is the bass itself. An alder body with a HUGE maple neck with rosewood fretboard (sixties) sounds very different than an ash bodied with a thinner all-maple neck (seventies).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND... it's gone!

it's a 34" scale neck, that's why it's set deeper in the body, and the bridge is further towards the back.

I put this ad here for a friend of mine. He acquired an unlined maple fretless P-neck, and is now letting go of the older neck he had. It's a [b]1979 Fretless P-bass neck[/b], with [b]ReIssue[/b] but period-correct Schaller "Fender-stamped" Tuners. The neck was originally an unlined fretless, but the previous owner had it fretted and defretted again, so there are [b]fretlines[/b], but [b]no facedots[/b]. Sidedots are on the fretless-position (on the position, not in between them like on a fretted neck). Apart from that there isn't much to say. 42mm nutwidth, normal C-shape, virtually no fingerboard wear,... It's a great opportunity for the fretless player who lusters after a vintage P-neck but is reluctant to start playing unlined fretless (that's how they came in the seventies).


He's asking 400€ for the neck and the tuners, excl. shipping. The neck is located in The Netherlands, but shipping isn't an issue. Since it's for a friend of mine, please contact him directly via mail on:[b] jackwesselius[funky"a"sign]yahoo[dot]com[/b], and not via PM please

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0559.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0558.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0557.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0556.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0555.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0554.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0553.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0552.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0551.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0550.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0550.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c305/Jazzboer/zervamelmapje/Jack/IMAG0560.jpg[/IMG]




[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEPlv3Bk34[/media]
The neck in action (excuses for the ugly sweater)

Ouch, straight in the GAS-gland.

They do exist, it's called a "sparkle" finish, and once in a while one pops up. Made on custom order, or for big fairs like NAMM.

http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40866

Musikraft does it as well.

I have one (a 4001 from '73) and yes: they are too expensive for what they are (especially when you know that [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEuqgZzKxC4"]virtually all woodwork nowadays is done by a CNC mill[/url]. They just have to align dowels, glue it together and slap some hardware on it). On the other hand, the same applies for Fender & Gibson in terms of pricing. I also owned a nice copy from the seventies (if I recall correctly it was a Aria). It was neckthrough, toasterpickup,... Only it had a maple fretboard. Did some AB testing, and it sounded exactly the same as "the real thing from the USA" in EVERY aspect. The playability was even better (but that's personal ofcourse).

Rickenbacker is so picky about copies because in the USA, you have to ACTIVELY protect the copyrights you own. Fender lacked to do so, that's the reason why there are so many other builders who have Fender-models in their catalog. Rickenbacker also chooses to keep the demand high by refusing to beef up production. And they'll get away with that. It's a businessmodel that is questionable, but totally legit.

Risky business.

The declared value is the insured value if you go via insured shipping (you can insure your package via an external insurance, but that will cost a LOT).

And customs aren't that retarded anymore than a couple of years ago. If they find a package with a very low value for what's inside of it, they will track down on "teh interwebz" what the content is actually worth, and will calculate customs and VAT on that value. Or they'll ask (ask as in: "if you don't give it to us, we will destroy your package") you to send them the original receipt/bill/... of your purchase, so they can charge the correct amount of VAT

And you'll probably get a nice fine (here in Belgium the fine is 100% of the original value).

Make it yourself, can be done for maybe 30£. You need 2 250K logaritmic pots (volume) , 2 500K lineair pots (tone), 3 capacitors (2x 0.047µF, 1x 0.0047µF), a switchkraft 3way switch (angled) a stereo- and a mono jack. Oh, and some wires.

Oh, and please don't shove those feathers TOO deep into my arse I was just helping out a bit . Btw, if you want to go fully vintage correct: add nail-holes and paint the entire neckpocket black

Neither have I, that's what made it so strange, but yet everything was correct (it was a slab body, without a paintstick mark in the neckpocket, dating it before 1963, with the correct nailholes). Maybe a custom one-off, like Fender sometimes did for an artist. I'm still searching the dark corners of "teh interwebz" for it, but to no avail .

P.S. You've got a PM about the booklet

There were some (how many? a few?) slab P-basses made in 1962. Slab body (honey blonde), tortoise pickguard, slab rosewood neck. I saw a picture of one a while ago on an auction site, but I forgot to download the picture, and the link has gone dead

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/b8a34374.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/e03258bd.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/57f80fce.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/52fcbbec.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/72f142b3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/465bf071.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/0d224c78.jpg[/IMG]
'68, '62, '64

More pics of the Coro and EB-2D

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/c81f04b3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/4ded9053.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/aa26171a.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/e7b3fe08.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/76664101.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/34d2787c.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/c5809bf6.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/031edbe7.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/dd324/williamsanders127/f742ba61.jpg[/IMG]

I like the white guard better, but that's just me maybe. Here is an example of a [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDF7nMpQg1s"]vintage P with tort[/url], and although I still don't like it, it doesn't look TOO shabby. It all depends on the lighting I guess.

And flatwounds on a jazz -> heaven!

Nowp, Jap pots are indeed smaller, and for CTS pots you'll need to widen the holes in the pickguard just a little bit (it's a little over 9.5mm, so I always use a 10mm drill, and the pots fit nicely).

Seems odd, I didn't even know that allparts put numbers on neckplates.

You don't have to be afraid of sanding paper. You can't go lower (coarser) then a grit 200 for sanding. If you wetsand, the particles you sand of won't scratch the wood.

As my avatar would say: NICE!
Now slap some chrome covers over the pickups, string it up with flatwounds and add the spring mutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwYoi9G67DU

Pots do change tone, if you're switching values (replacing 250K pots by 500K pots make the sound a whole lot brighter. That's how the rhythm-circuit works on the Fender Jaguar & Jazzmaster guitars (1Meg (jag) or 250K (jazz) <> 50K (rhythm circuit)). If you change the pots with CTS 250K pots, you won't have any differences in terms of sound. CTS is "the standard" for quality pots, and used by Fender since the sixties. The only two things you can do is upgrade your capacitor to a PiO (Paper in Oil, like the Sprague Orange Drop), which gives a "not so muddy closed sound when the tone is rolled off"-sound, and replace the tonepot with a 250K LINEAR pot (which makes that your tone rolloff is very equal. The difference between 90% and 100% is the same as the difference between 0% and 10%). Fender used logarithmic pots for everything, making your tone pot more of an on-off switch.

The banjo tuners were just until 1961, from 1964 (when production restarted after a 2 year hiatus), the tuners were the standard "elephant ear" Kluson 456.





Not to surf too much off topic: I had the casady, and it's an amazing bass, but it's also a strange thing. The pickup is a Low-Z (low impedance) pickup, giving you a very clean, natural, dynamic sound. Downside to it is that it requires special electronics (if the pots go scratchy, you'll have a hard time finding the correct replacements. You'll need 2.5K (two and a half) with a long shaft, which I still haven't found. I ordered 2 at Epiphone a year back, and still haven't got them...