Maude

Danger! High Voltage (Electric Six)

Gimme Some Lovin' (Spencer Davis Group)

It's all witchcraft from what I can see of it and makes no sense. For instance people say you have to unplug an active bass to stop the battery draining. Duh, with no plug in there's now nothing to stop the electricity draining out the hole.

Using magnets will change the output of the pickup, and only the pole pieces which the new magnets are attached to will be affected giving an uneven output across the strings. You can try this by adding a flat magnet across the underside of a pickup to increase output. Also, although the magnets will be fairly strong against a pulling apart action, they'll be fairly weak against the shearing force of resting your thumb on the ramp edge, if you do.

Half a Sixpence (Tommy Steele)

If you think these are a rip off, wait until the BC branded waxing strips are released.

Where Is My Mind (Pixies)

White Lines (Don't Do It) - Grand Master Flash & Melle Mel

@BigRedX, that's an interesting thought regarding the neck pocket infill. I had noticed that the tailpiece looks slightly further forwards in some pictures I've compared to, and your theory would make sense. Also the tuner button idea is food for thought too as they do indeed have a slothead fixing on top so the button must be removable. I'll look into it when I've got a chance. Thanks 🙂👍

Oh BTW @Pea Turgh, I saw this whilst searching out parts for the Hofner. https://reverb.com/uk/item/36614997-kay-short-scale-bass-1970-japan What are they thinking!? 😄

Yellow River (Christie)

Thanks for those pictures @ikay, they'll help me determine what's what. I don't know what I'm going doing yet regarding replacement parts. Part of me would like to source genuine original parts and put it back to original, but it will still have had a refinish then and lots going on under the scratchplate that will mean it's not worth much. I'm not doing it to sell and make money but it's nice to know you'd get back what you've spent if I had to sell one day. The other part of me says refinish it, fit suitable, retro styled but new pickups, funky colour scratchplate and headstock facing so it's a cool, useable bass. The price, and rarity, of original parts makes restoring to original a bit of a non starter, I'd have to spend far more than it would be worth, and it might be worse to use. For example, it looks like it'll cost me £200 for set of original tuners and they'll more than likely be worse than the Schallers it's got at the moment. Although I did look on ebay and people are asking silly money for a set of these vintage Schaller M4 tuners. Likewise a pair of the Retrovibe HiGains (width dependant) would probably sound better than the original humbuckers, and the wiring is apparently quite odd in the way the controls interact with each other. I'm leaning towards keep what's good and a pair of pickups, loom and scratchplate material would only set me back about £100ish, refinish won't cost anything. Whereas to properly restore would cost roughly £500 give or take for the parts. But I feel bad 'ruining' what I think is a cool vintage bass. Sorry I'm rambling now.

Driving Away From Home (It's Immaterial)

Goes to look on ebay 🙈

And if you ever find all the odd socks I'll bet all the missing pens and plectrums are inside them, along with the spare car keys and probably a remote control.

My favourites are the Dunlop nylon 1mm ones. They're black and as such pretty much single use.

Thanks @ikay, that's great. Was yours a twin pickup with one by the bridge? I'm just trying to get my head around the cavities and screw holes. The control cavity looks to be the same although appears to have been widened slightly. I think mine is a genuine body, hopefully more clues will appear when I get the paint off.

Funny you should mention the Kay, (not selling yet 😁) as a lot of these had a vinyl covering and some were two tone, ie white front and black back which met in the middle like my Kay, I didn't know this when I did the Kay. Anyway, much as I like the above white/red one as inspiration, I've seen some really nice copper pearl scratchplate material which would pick out the brown in the fret markers, against a very creamy body. Then I thought the original copper brown I used on the Kay on the back would look good, like the Kay but reversed. Even a row of four of the knobs I used on the Kay because, as cheap as they are, I love them and they're a similar style to the Hofner ones. I've also got a couple of other ideas inspired by a Kay (American brand) acoustic that I nearly bought with an almost animal print scratchplate. Time will tell. 🙂 This shows the white and black vinyl.

Woodpecker From Mars (Faith No More)

Yes @Shaggy, most of these would've had a vinyl 'snakeskin' body, and yes, very tight string width, I think about 14mm at the bridge and like you say, practically parallel along the length.

Thanks for the tip. They're one of my favourite bits, once the neck is all cleaned up it'll be lovely. I can't quite work out what the brown stripe is, research say its tortoise shell (colour) but in May photo it looks like the grain of the rosewood is showing through, meaning they're are/were clear. Unless it's just a coincidence that the light and dark tones of the rosewood line up quite well with the tort patterning. I'll look at the others tomorrow.

I've just noticed that the tuners have 'Made on W. Germany' stamped on them, meaning that although they are replacements they must be over thirty years old themselves. Also, although a fair bit has been changed on this bass, it appears to have been done quite well and used extensively in its current form. I wish basses like this could tell their story.

Do you have a link as I'm doing some research at the mo 😉👍

The bass arrived safely, I booked through Eurosender using the forum discount code, £12.50 from North Yorkshire to Cornwall using DPD and it took two days, you can grumble at that. First inspection, Hiscox case in good condition, that has to be a third of the price taken care of. It's got Schaller tuners which once removed felt very light indeed. I'd like the standard ones which are square pearloid ones but the only ones I can find are two for £35 each and a further one for £45 on ebay. The neck is original and also very light and in good condition really but could do with a refret, I should add I played it before stripping and it played really nicely and sounded good. I really like the fret markers which are cream/brown/cream pearl. The brown part is possibly a clear resin that has yellowed with age as I think you can see the rosewood grain below it. The bridge and tailpiece are original and will polish up hopefully. The bridge appears to have a brass top and the tailpiece is possibly aluminium. I'll know more when I work on it. I had no idea what the pickup was going be other than a Musicman style hunbucker, turns out it's a Kent Armstrong HBMN-1 and sounds nice, but ultimately completely wrong for what I want so will either go in my parts drawer or get sold. The electrics? Who knows? But they're going as it should have two volumes and two tones, and possibly a pair of pickup on/off switches depending on model. The scratchplate is homemade and will be going as well, as obviously it won't fit the pickups I'll be fitting. Now onto the body. This was going to be the interesting part as it would hopefully tell me what model, and age, the bass was. There's some history on the Hofner 182/185 here if anyone's interested. http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/hofner2/artb.html Off came the scratchplate and up went the confusion level. Apart from the MM route I was expec a neck pickup route as the 185 had a neck and bridge pickup at both extremes of the body, but it had a central pickup route that had been filled. Also the neck pocket had been shortened with a little infill. The outline of the body looks to be identical to all the pictures of 185's (not the very early ones that were pre offset and had the classic Hofner control plate) and is relatively thin, as I believe the Hofners were, but the pickup and neck route don't make sense. 🤔 If it is a different body I don't mind as it's nice and light and the neck fits perfectly. I also checked the scale length was correct as if the pocket had been filled and the bridge fitted to a different body then I might have problems later on, but no, it's bang on 30". Oh yeah, did I mention it was short scale. It strangely doesn't feel or look it though. I'll see what appears when I start sanding the body and headstock.

Hi all, Whilst browsing eBay I came across a bass I recognised but had been toyed with at some point in the past. The neck markers are what grabbed me. A closer look and the body, bridge, tailpiece and neck looked to be original, with the tuners and scratchplate, pickup and electrics being 'modified'. The seller had it listed as a 'Jamie' bass and wanted £280 including the Hiscox case. Now all original ones seem to go for around the £600-£700 mark, this'll never be worth good money due to the missing parts, and vintage replacements are rare and expensive. I had to decide, do I take a chance unseen? Then I saw this picture of one with a replacement scratchplate and headstock plate, from what I can tell they had a plate covering the headstock, as well as the quirky textured vinyl covered body, anyway my mind was made. I could do a sympathetic restoration with similar, but not necessarily genuine, parts. This is the picture that swung it, I offered £200 and he agreed. 🙂 This thread will be a bit of a project journal (and detective work) as it's not enough to go in the builds section I feel. Next post : Bass arrival and stripping.