Maude

As you've mentioned the Quarter Pounders, maybe the Entwistle Neo pickups might suit, and not break the bank trying. I've always said the PBXN is very similar to a 1/4 pound P but even more modern sounding. Still definitely P but not vintage P. I also have the JBXN's in a jazz and really like them for same reason, powerful and foucussed. Don't let the low price sway you, they are very good pickups, just not traditional vintage sounding.

Front the other current string ID thread, Dunlop have black silks at both ends, LaBella only have them at the nut end.

Just to add, LaBella sell individual strings on their website. 🙂

Labella flats have black silks. I'm not sure if they all do but their set for Hofners do. Beware though, I needed a replacement D string as it snapped fitting it (LaBella replaced FOC) but it had a grey silk, so they might've changed them all now. A black sharpie soon matched it too the others though.

Sounds like a plan. 🙂👍

Personally, if I was going to do anything with that I'd use nail varnish, well I wouldn't I'd use paint but I have access to a mixing scheme, but the point is a clear coat of any kind will seal it but not hide it, nail varnish will do both. It's completely your call as only you know your abilities. If you use nail varnish and it looks bad then it's easily removed with, guess what? Nail varnish remover. 🙂 I can't see it getting any worse if just left as it is though, it's your call. Just to add, nail varnish remover (weak acetone normally) is fine on a poly finish but I wouldn't go near nitro with it. I'm assuming that's a poly finish.

Yes clear nail varnish or superglue will seal it in and hold it all together. Any cracks will still be visable but they lose their white edges a bit, if that's how it looks now. Get a picture up but I'd guess you're over worrying about it. 🙂👍

A chip out of the finish won't normally grow by itself as such, but it'll never get better either. If catch the edges on clothing it's feasible you could flake off another little piece so there's absolutely no harm in touching it in to seal the edges again. Nail varnish is indeed great for this, easy to use, vast range of colours and not a double application of a coloured basecoat and a clear lacquer as a lot of paints would be. Superglue can certainly be used as a clear lacquer if the colour is intact, you can easily flat and polish superglue to get an 'invisible' repair as well. I wouldn't use an accelerant with the superglue though as it can cause tiny bubbles in the glue and turn it milky. Quite often nail varnish is a little soft to flat and polish, unless left for a really long time. Unless you're really picky there's no real need to flat and polish anyway, as long as you apply it nicely. Hope that helps. 🙂

Firepit GAS, or should that be a gas firepit? 🤔 😄

Police and Thieves - Junior Murvin (Robin')

Falling to Pieces - Faith No More

I've never really had any bad luck with couriers, a couple of times things have happened but we all make mistakes / have accidents sometimes. Being down in Cornwall everywhere is a long way so I use couriers a lot. I've recently bought a bass on ebay and arranged for a courier to collect it. North Yorkshire to Cornwall £12.50 including insurance as an instrument. This was DPD booked through Eurosender using the forum discount, 2 days door to door. I once received a bass wrapped in a single black bin liner, no damage amazingly, someone must have been extra careful with that one. Worst I've had was a Squier Bass vi from GAK, bent control knob, could've happened at any point in the supply chain, quickly returned and the next one was delivered in perfect shape, and a doublebass from Gedo which arrived from Germany with the fingerboard popped off, possibly courier handling, possibly manufacturing error as it was only where the glue let go.

Arabian Nights - Siouxsie and the Banshees

I was just thinking the same. Maybe I'm a soppy git but this sort of thing just warms my heart.

Never Enough - The Cure

Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson

Coming Around Again - Carly Simon

Thanks for that, I'll watch it tomorrow. Love a bit of NMA, Stuart Morrow was fantastic with them, driving and melodic but simple and straight forward if the song needed it, and what a tone. Smalltown England, such a simple bass riff yet absolutely drives the song. Just that intro fills me with excitement.

That looks lovely already. 🙂👍

Tiny Dancer - Elton John

I prefer their early stuff.

It'll be flown over by Spitfire. Meet Smudger Smith on top of the white cliffs of Dover and settle up for delivery then. Hoorah!

We are now entering the next phase of 'Adventures in Hofnerland'. I spent a long time to-ing and fro-ing over whether to try and find all genuine parts to make it as original as possible, or just get the parts to make it a decent usable bass whilst looking period correct, a resto-mod if you like. Unfortunately for @Shaggy he kindly messaged me to let me know of a Hofner pickup on ebay, I then proceeded to bore him with the details of my dilemma. 😉 And now I'll bore everyone else. 😄 Whilst a proper restoration would be lovely, sourcing genuine tuners, pickups, electrics, knobs and scratchplate would likely cost more than the bass was worth, or what I could buy a genuine one for, and it would still have a badly molested body which is painted the wrong colour. Also I have my Club for proper Hofner tones and my 4005 for that retro 'pickups at both extremes' tone. So sympathetic resto-mod it is. If the correct parts ever came my way it would all be easily reversible anyway. I've ordered the chrome mini humbuckers from Warman, as the Hofner staple pickups are mini humbuckers and these have very similar specs, some switches and pots and my scratchplate material is here. The pickups are four wire jobbies so the plan is to install two slide switches where they were on 185s and wire one pickup through each switch, the three way switches will give me single coil and double coil in series and parallel mode. These will be wired through two tones and two volumes (one for each pickup) with one of the pots being a push/pull which will put the pair of pickups in either series or parallel with each other. This should give me a much better range of tones than the standard ones but still retain the core original tone. If I can work out how to wire it up. 😁 Hopefully everything will be here by the weekend and I can get to work. Here's a few more pictures showing the body with the white scratchplate, to show how creamy beige the body is. The body, scratchplate material and neck, to show how the colour scheme should fit together, the cream and brown is meant to reflect the neck inlays. And another of the pickups which are on their way, I've ordered the chrome surrounds as well but not sure what they'll look like, I'll see when they turn up.

Gimme Three Steps - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Picking Up The Pieces - Paloma Faith