Maude

I do understand all that, and to a degree it's understandable, but it does give them a get out jail free card for, at best accidents, at worst theft. I'm a panel beater in a large accident repair centre. We can't increase our hourly rate when we work on an expensive car. Whether I'm working on a brand new Aston Martin or a ten year old Dacia, the hourly rate is the same (there are variables but that's down to who you're insured with, not us), but the financial risk of rectifying mistakes is massively different. Also due to the far greater complexity of more expensive cars over budget brands/models, the risk of mistakes is also increased (in general). You don't take your car to a bodyshop and ask for their hourly rate, to be told it's a sliding scale from £35p/h on vehicles valued below £1000, to £500p/h for vehicles valued over £100,000. So would it be reasonable to ask for the customer to take out an insurance policy to cover any extra cost due to any mistakes made? The kind of thing I'm talking about is, for instance, say I was doing a front end repair on a car and while removing the headlights I dropped one (like a courier parcel). Some headlights are £200, some are over £2000. Plus the dearer one will more likely need to be programmed if a replacement is fitted, at more cost to ourselves. Sorry for the borderline rant, but I just feel it encourages the couriers to care even less about your parcels. I'd like to add that all my regular delivery folks are brilliant though, it tends to be in the sorting depots where this stuff happens. I'm guessing low paid, night shift workers who just don't want to be there.

Why does this feel less like bring attention to an interesting thread, and more like rounding up recruits for the commune? 😄

Down On The Farm - UK Subs

So, are you getting some then? I couldn't quite tell if you liked it or not. 😄

I would say that the Tech21 Sansamp bass driver was the pedal to get classic Ampeg tones from. With that in mind maybe a Behringer BDI 21 might be worth a try as it's kind of a clone of the Sansamp, but waaay cheaper.

It still bugs me that you should have to take out insurance at all. I'm sure we all do jobs where if we f**k up, we (or the company) have to put it right. What other service do you pay for where they ask if you'd like to pay for an insurance policy in case they completely balls it up?

I agree. The odd thing is, I don't really like pearloid at all. I think it's a bit tacky. I never had pearloid on any bass up until last year, even removing the factory fitted pearloid plates and making plain ones. I'd always said the only bass that pearloid suits is a Hofner, then bought a Club, removed the pearloid plate and made a plain one. I don't like red or pearloid, so then put a bitsa together last year, painted it red and made a cream pearloid plate for it. Now look where I am. I actually like that this is a bit tacky, kind of kitsch. It's a funny old place, my head. 😁

I suppose it just saves swapping basses for a couple of songs. Personally I prefer fretless when it's not as noticeable that's it's fretless, if that makes any sense. Although I love Pino's fretless, a lot of his early 80s stuff (Numan, Young) was very 'mwah heavy'. Music For Chameleons is epic but it's almost a cliché of fretless playing. I quite like when you can barely tell it's fretless but for the subtle little slides here and there. Such as.

I know what you mean, it's got that Eko kind of vibe. But it's definitely a Hofner thing. Hofner weren't being shy with some of their solid bodies at this time, all sorts of patterned vinyl coverings and pearl or sparkle plates. Even these fret inlays must have been pretty radical at the time, white pearl/tort/white pearl stripes. It's OK not to like it though. 🙂👍

I hope so. It seems odd to release a picture that makes it look like a bitsa bass where the wrong pieces have been made to fit the best they can.

I'm guessing smaller body but standard hardware.

I don't get it, 🤔 Have they got tort issues?

Needles and Pins - The Searchers

Machine Gun Etiquette - The Damned

Hmmm, now you might just be onto something...... OK maybe not. 😁

The scratchplate could open downwards on two small chains to reveal a couple of shot glasses and a selection of miniatures in extended pickup cavities. 😄 It would be like Lemmy's bass case with JD bottle recess. Dont get me thinking. 🤔

Thank you both. 🙂 It makes you wonder why more manufacturers don't do it. It's like a colour matched headstock taken to the next level.

Feel free to doubt me, I do it myself enough. 😉 I wasn't sure myself to be honest. When it isn't on there the bass just looks more 'familiar', if that makes sense, like basses always look. And there was the issue, overfamilarity. I've got lots of basses with either wooden heads or painted heads, but nothing like this. It looks like they all had a plate which was normally black, so not too noticeable, but then I saw some like the red one with matching sparkle/pearl scratchplates and head plates. So I thought just do it. It's quirky and more in keeping with how it should be than not having one, and I reckon one it gets a 3D Hofner badge and stings it'll look even better. On similar note I've always liked the Yamaha RBX with the half head plate.

I wonder if one of these scammers has tried buying a Mason edition Sansamp pedal?

Just as an aside, it's always good to have an email address that you use for this sort of thing, shop receipts, manager at work, etc. One you don't monitor that will get all the spam.

If you're bored reply and say that the pedal is worth more than you thought, and you've had an offer of £250. Ask if he's willing to better that offer. If he will then say you'll only accept friends and family payment, or gift or whatever PP call it now. Just keep stringing him along.

Any message to an ad which says, "I am ready to purchase", or similar would just get ignored.

A little bit more progress today. I drilled the holes for the tuners in the headstock plate. Seems easy enough but with my limited tools at home nothing is ever straight forward. 😄 The ferrules are just over 12mm and the biggest drill bit I have at home is 10mm, apart from some step cutter type bits. Also marking the position of the four holes proved trickier than you'd imagine as they'd have to be bang on or I wouldn't be able to get all four in. The inner diameter of the ferrules was 8mm though so I hatched a plan, yes Baldrick, a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel. Well nearly. It taped the plate into position on the front and popped the ferrules in from behind. I could then use an 8mm drill bit and the ferrule would act as a guide to stop it wandering and keep things aligned. I then ran a step drill through until the 12mm section and tried the ferrules, and they fit, but were they in exactly the right place? Tried to slot it all together and as if by magic, it actually fits. The neck is now on and I can pop a pair of strings on and line up the pickups tomorrow. The badge I mentioned further back is hopefully being sorted. @Dad3353 & @BigRedXhave teamed up and most kindly offered to design and 3D print one and it should be just the ticket. Massive thanks fellas. 🙂👍

😎

Hofners have very narrow string spacing. Spacing at the nut and the bridge are two different things and can make the playing experience drastically different. In general people quote nut width but not bridge width. Stadard Fender spacing at the bridge is, I think, 19mm (between each string). The Squier Bronco is 17mm. Hofners are 14mm from memory, with parallel strings, as in they don't get any further apart from nut to bridge and as such feel very different to play.