Maude

As above, you really want the twin cartridge filter type as a minimum, the sort of paper makes being bought up in huge quantities at the mo are just dust masks and won't stop paint fumes. The other problem with that type is they don't generally seal against your face very well, as you can see after using one when the sides of your nose around your nostrils are covered in whatever dust you were creating. On a lighter note, the correct gear is not good with this covid19 around for a different reason. Our house is up a lane (pedestrian) off the road, my workshop is the opposite side of the lane to the house. When painting three basses a couple of weeks ago I'd come out of the workshop between coats, as even with extraction it fills up pretty quick in there. Some people walked up the road to see me stood in the lane outside the house in full hazmat gear, white paper overalls, latex gloves and full face with hood breathing apparatus. They looked quite worried to be fair.

My scratchplate turned up this morning from ebay, I do love a good liar. It was cheap enough so I'm not really bothered but this was listed as being new. It had one poor photo showing not much more than a load of glare from the flash. It said any marks were in the film (being new) and the film was intact. I've had plates before that look terrible but once you pull the film off it's all good, so I went for it. It didn't have a film on it and I've got a sneaking suspicion that it might be used. 😁 I'll give it a polish and see what it comes up like as it's not worth returning, but I have messaged the seller to ask him to be a little more honest in future.

I wonder what the manufacturing process is for fender, I assume the painting is all robotic. I can't imagine anyone sat there masking the headstock face off for painting. I imagine the colour goes over the edge by a couple of mm due to whatever automated process they're using, whether that be ease of masking or the actual paint application. Hmm, it would be interesting to know. For yours, just mask it however you feel comfortable. If you can get the tape right on the edge then ideal, if not then mask it a mil down the side. It doesn't really matter as long as it's neat. When I did the Longhorn headstock I applied the colour coat, removed masking and let it dry. Then as I was lacquering the whole neck I used a stanley blade as a scraper to scrape round the sides of the head, holding the blade at 90 degrees to the face to get a perfect edge.

People aren't happy in Postie land. Our singer is a postie and has posted the following on Facebook. EVERY SINGLE POSTAL WORKER IN THE UK NEEDS TO SEE THIS Dear Colleagues, Royal Mail USO/Executive Action This LTB is to update Branches, Representatives and members on the union’s response to the announcement made yesterday by Royal Mail Group regarding the company’s executive decision to suspend Saturday letter deliveries and to impose un-agreed changes to the current operational network and agreed duty structures. By their actions Royal Mail has derecognised the union and disrespected our members and the customers we serve. They are refusing to adhere to any of our agreements, be they at local or national level. It is quite clear that this current managerial leadership has no moral compass and has dragged standards of behaviour and industrial relations to an all-time low. Our members have lost full confidence and trust in these people and this planned national executive action is a despicable attempt to use a public health crisis to drive through long-term and highly damaging change. The changes they advocate go to the very heart of our dispute and our ability to protect the 6 day USO, our members’ jobs and this great public service. We stepped back from our dispute to do the right thing for our nation during this pandemic and Royal Mail Group agreed to do the same but they are now breaking that agreement. The timing of their action was also in our opinion deliberately planned to coincide with the CWU National Postal Workers day, so when the rest of the nation, including politicians from all parties, were showing their gratitude for our members and this excellent public service, RMG were rewarding them for their efforts with this highly damaging imposition and the very real potential of 20,000 job losses. Against this backdrop the Postal Executive, following consultation with our Senior Field Officials earlier today, has agreed the following political and industrial response: 🛑 The union will explore with immediate effect and where possible utilise all legal options available to mount a legal challenge against the actions of the company, including if possible a challenge on the reduction of the USO being an unlawful act. 🛑 In line with the relevant legislation it is the union’s intention to draw up the appropriate notices to send to Royal Mail within the legal timeframe that will result in us calling upon our members in Royal Mail to take industrial action in line with the ballot result we announced on 17th March 2020. 🛑 With immediate effect Representatives and members should not cooperate or give any local agreement to any deployment of management’s plan. 🛑 In defiance of the company’s unilateral action, all members should continue to adhere to their currently agreed duty/attendance arrangements. 🛑 The union will issue further guidance on all aspects of H&S standards and compliance with HMG guidance relating to social distancing/PPE within the workplace, the legal obligations of the employer to comply with them as well as the legal requirement for the employer to consult the recognised Trade Union on changes in the workplace which have health and safety implications. 🛑 The DGS(P) Department in conjunction with the General Secretary, Postal National Officers and the Head of Communications will develop a high profile communications strategy, including as a priority an individual letter to all postal members that sets out and exposes in detail the actions of the company and reaffirms the CWU commitment to defend its members, their terms and conditions and the public postal service. The union via the office of the General Secretary will continue to explore all political avenues in challenging Ofcom and the Government. Terry Pullinger Dave Ward Andy Furey Mark Baulch Davie Robertson Carl Maden DO NOT REPLY 🛑

As usual there's a few ways and none are right or wrong as long as they work, it also depends on what type of paint you're using. In general there's two types of colour coat, basecoat which dries matt and needs lacquering, and topcoat (or solid colour, different folks call it different things) which dries gloss and needs no further lacquering. There's a lot less build with basecoat so less of an edge to worry about, but masking onto basecoat that hasn't been lacquered can leave marks so if using basecoat I'd first basecoat and lacquer the first colour, not masking an edge, let it dry, prep the entire thing again, mask for second colour using fine line tape (I'll get to that in a minute) and spray basecoat, whilst still wet peel the fine line tape off, let the basecoat dry enough to lacquer and de mask the rest, then lacquer over the whole thing sealing in both colours. Or if using solid colour topcoat (ie gloss) paint first colour as above, dry, mask for second colour using fine line, paint second colour and remove fine line whilst still wet, let dry. Then de mask and prep for lacquering (although it doesn't have to be lacquered) and rub the raised edge slightly if needed. Lacquer completely and let dry. Now, the fine line tape. It's a thin plastic masking tape, about 3mm wide, that you can shape around curves nicely and gives a much cleaner edge to the paint than normal masking tape. You mask up with normal tape just a smidge back from where you want your edge, and then finish masking with fine line last, so it can be removed without disturbing the rest of the masking. I always peel the fine line off while the paint is still wet as the build up on the edge will flow slightly and you won't be left with as sharp an edge as if you'd let it dry first. Leave the rest of the masking on until dry so you don't get any contamination from it in your wet paint. Then prep the whole thing for lacquer giving the join line a slight flat if needed. You don't want to try and remove the entire edge as there's a risk you'll feather the colour back, just smooth it a little. Then lacquer the whole thing. You can then flat the edge back after the lacquer has dried as well but doing the above will reduce the amount you need to, so minimising the risk of rubbing through. I hope that all makes sense but any questions just ask away.

I use a fine bristle 2" paintbrush, gets in around the bridge and pickups nicely.

Perfect for Steinberger basses then.

Yeah yeah yeah, you're not fooling anyone. We all know you found it in @Happy Jacks toiletries cupboard. Nothing worse than looking all washed out under stage lights. 😁

Yes! If you plug your phone (or whatever music source) into one of the 'CHAIN' inputs rather than 'AUX', then the input knob only controls your instrument volume making it easy to balance the two levels (with your foot while you're playing, do i really do that?), ie not fiddling around with a phone. Phone volume on a decent level, then 'ME' up full 'PHONES' to a comfortable level and then just add your bass to suit with the 'INPUT' knob.

Yes sorry, I'd sort of missed the point of it being a bass class that VW was holding. Apologies

Yes I thought that too. I think it's more aimed at linking two or more together for silent jamming, the controls then adjust how much of you and the other people you hear. Having said that maybe you can plug your phone into one of the other jack sockets and use a one of the knobs to control its volume. I'm off to try.

I can see your point @Bobthedogbut if you don't know the song then you'll never know the bassline. I'm unfamiliar with 80% of the music folks on here talk about, purely because it's not the sort of thing I'm into. 🙂

I assume it's a waterslide decal @Jeff29361, built up your lacquer in very light coats, allowing to tack off quite well between coats. It's quite easy to melt waterslide decals with the solvent if you get the lacquer too wet. Apologies if you're already aware of this. 🙂

Well 7 must be 'Living On A Prayer' then. Nice playing by the way 👍

I've commented with my thoughts in a previous, similar, thread. My actual thought is it really doesn't matter, but, on the opinion that hanging basses by the headstock can't be good for them, surely simple physics says it's better if anything. My reasoning is simply gravity working in the instruments favour. The string tension constantly wants to pull the head towards the bridge, bowing the neck forwards as there is a slight cantelever action due to the angles. If you stand a bass on it's bum then the weight of everything above the bridge is helping those strings pull the head towards the bridge. If you hang it by the head then the weight of everything below the headstock shoulders is working against the tension of the strings, thus helping to keep the neck straight. In reality the gravitation pull is negligible compared to the much higher string tension so whether on a stand, hanging or laying down is all but irrelevant, but hanging cannot be worse. 🙂

All I can add to that is, 8 The Coral - Dreaming of You. 16 RHCP - Aeroplane 17 Stranglers - No More Heroes

You could get something much nicer with the kickback you'll be getting from Kenny. 😁

Hmm, there was a lot more to my post when I posted it yesterday. But other posts of mine from yesterday have also gone missing. Maybe I've upset someone. 🤔 I also said that the session cake has actual helped me pick up a bass more often. I leave a short instrument lead, phone lead and my headphones plugged in permanantly so I can just grab it and play bass anywhere I fancy sitting, especially in the garden.

That looks cool, I especially like the rusted steel scratchplate. 😎

That's a lovely looking bass, great colour. I bet it sounds good too. 🙂

It would've been a good one I'd have thought as well. I bought the bass in my avatar from the seller and he was one of the genuine good guys. He sent the bass from Chester to Cornwall for free, accepted Paypal fees and accepted my offer of £100 under his asking price, answered any question and sent loads of photos before the deal was done. If it was white I'd have probably bought it, I was surprised at the price, £400, or is that what they go for now?

You think they'd just check the two fit together quickly. Unless it's a Covid19 related issue where they're in a warehouse somewhere inaccessible at the moment, possibly.

That was probably the one I mentioned. It would've been in the Chester area and the ad said something about Matt Bascetta from House of Tone doing some work on it. If it was it sold pretty quick, I was keeping an eye on it. 🙂

I actually had no real use for mine when I bought it, but I thought it might come in handy. It's been well worth the money.

Ooh ow ow ow! @thebrig I was almost predicting what you'd done as I read your post as I had a similar injury this time last year. Same familiarity with tools and not being a cack-handed fecker, but one slip with a hand saw and I'd opened up the back of my hand, sawn into the bone and cut the sheath that the tendon runs in, but luckily didn't damage the tendon, still took 3 internal and 8 external stitches to close it up though. The same finger as well. The tetanus hurt more than the cut, proper dead arm for hours afterwards. Hopefully all will go well with the tendon surgery tomorrow and it'll be nice and straight forward. The cut should heal really well, I was amazed how quickly mine healed, the body is amazing. Best of luck for tomorrow. 🙂