Maude

A sunburst 1024x has just sold on Facebook, he was asking £400. It was the chap I bought my 4005 from and he was one of the best sellers I've dealt with. I know, it doesn't help does it. 🙂

This is very, very nice. It's a a limited edition colour called Luke Blue. Modern enough to get away from my retro ice cream colour fetish for a minute. It's so annoying not having access to mixing paint at work at the mo, I'd just use a nice coarse dark silver with a splash of smokey blue and black in it and voila, a one off very similar to Luke Blue. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/news/140487/

You've just hit the nail square on the head! I know I like a black body and PG Jazz with a black block maple neck, and I know I like a black body and PG Stingray (not seen one with blocks), so I know I'll like this all black with the block neck. But it is just so damn 'safe' when there's a world of funky colours out there.

Yeah, see it looks alright on a Jazz. Maybe I just don't like the look of the Ray scratchplate on the body, which doesn't bode well for this build.

Does black blocks and white paint work? Off to study images.

Erm, maybe Something simple like this silhouette.

@Ricky 4000, For some reason I can't explain, vintage white is pretty much my favourite colour for a bass but I don't like white Stingrays. I'm not a fan of modern white basses and for some reason a stingray always seems like a modern bass to me, I know it isn't but I never claimed my brain worked properly. Maybe it's the big pickup, I don't know. I'm having a bit of a run on retro pastel shades at the mo, my bass rack looks like an Italian ice cream parlour, but I don't think that style suits a stingray. I do have some of the duck egg blue BMW Mini paint in the shed I could use but I'm not sure about it. Regarding the 3+1 head, it work be some major-ish work because just removing one tuner from the side totally unbalances the look. All four would need plugging and redrilling. All the screw holes on the back would need filling so the back of the head would then need painting, along with the rest of the neck if an unsightly line is to be avoided. The HB head is remarkable similar in profile to that Stingray one you posted though, I hadn't noticed that before.

Hmm intriguing. I'm not sure I know what you mean about the head. Do you mean a paint design/scheme or an actual picture of some sort? If I go with the black colour I did think something like this raven as a logo, either in black against the natural wood, or stuck on, sprayed black and then peel the decal off to leave a natural wood raven against a black background, then lacquered obviously. You've also got me thinking about green. A nice dark BRG with cream scratchplate, I kind of Lotus Cortina theme.

Well here we go again, welcome to more lockdown inspired shenanigans. Having been using the spare time to finish lots of little jobs on builds and generally try to decrease the spare parts bin and increase the bass rack, I've decided to put together a Precision bodied, Jazz necked Stingray. I had an SX Precision that I picked up for next to nothing years ago which I intended to use for a project at some point, and a left handed Harley Benton 'deko' Jazz, which was similarly bought for peanuts, mainly for the Wilkinson hardware. Then I was reading the thread about Stingray pickup placement, that was hinting that the main thing to get 'that' sound was pickup placement. Yes body, bridge, neck, electrics, etc all play a part but a Stingray pickup in the sweet spot seems to get an unmistakable Stingray tone. Fleabag was praising the Warman pickup, which only costs £20, and my little brain started whirring. The P body was already in primer so it will need painting, but as I'm furloughed I can't lay my sticky fingers on any, ahem 'budget' paint. So this will be aerosoled, and if I'm going to aerosol it why not do it black so that it'll show every imperfection like the proverbial sore thumb. As the neck is a lovely maple with black blocks and binding I thought the classic black body and black scratchplate would work well. I love a funky colour but I really think just good ole black, black, maple will look great. Oh yes, the neck is a lefty so it will be a reverse necked PreJazzRay. Here's the main bits and a quick mock up. A black scratchplate is on its way, and once all the bits are gathered I can do some careful measuring, drilling and routing. The main thing is to get the pickup in exactly the right spot, regardless of where the rest the hardware is, if I need to make a one off scratchplate then so be it. The neck needs a little reshaping to fit the pocket end and some of the cavity will probably need filling along with some screw holes but it should all be quite straight forwards. Ha famous last words. I've flatted the face of the headstock to remove the upside down logo and I'm not sure whether to just re-lacquer it or do it body coloured, any opinions folks? Saying that any thoughts on body and scratchplate colours to go with the neck would be welcome as it doesn't have to be black, I did think a dark silver/graphite grey might be nice.

Thank you @Ricky 4000. Some instruments just deserve a nice paint job. 😄

I really like how you do the finishes on your builds Andy, it always amazes me that it is brushed/wiped on. It seems a very organic finish that really complements the natural wood. Top work 👍

Thanks to @AndyTravis, who saw one on ebay and was kind enough to message and let me know, I've now got a Bronco bridge on the way which should fix the string alignment without having to bodge the threaded saddle bridge. Cheers Andy. 👍

Well I've now got a neck with hardware, a body, bridge, control plate with electrics and a scratchplate. I'd better start a build thread. 🙂

I really, really like this bass. I bought it to put piccolo strings on, which I've got, but haven't actually done yet as I keep playing it as it is. It sounds ace played with a pick. I've just spent a couple of hours playing along to The Cure, Neds Atomic Dustbin (the high melodic bass), Joy Division and have just blasted through some early New Order, the frantic ones like Procession, Age of Consent, etc. The Hofner Club is nice but in a different way, it depends what you want. My Club has LaBella flats so is a proper thump master whereas the Talman with fresh rounds is really grindy with a pick. Put some flats on and play with yours fingers and it'll be thumpy like the Club, but put rounds on the Club and I don't think you'll ever get that grind, plus aggressive playing on a Club moves the bridge over time. Out of my shorties I had the Club with flats for the thump, Longhorn with rounds for the grind, and this Talman was getting the piccolo strings for some high up melodies but the Longhorn might get the piccolos now and keep this as it is, I don't know. I've also got the Kay but I can't for the life of me explain why. 😁

I haven't got any scales here but it's not a lightweight. It's about middle of the road I'd say. I've got some heavy basses and some light ones but this is somewhere in the middle. It's a big lump of a body even though it's short scale. You don't pick it up and think "ooh that's light" like the Longhorn or Hofner shorties I've got, but at the same time you don't think "shite that's heavy" like some. It's just like an average Precision really. Sorry I can't be more help.

The purple quilt looks great Stew, and the pickups look pretty meaty. How does it sound? I love a good budget bass. 🙂

Haha nice one 👍 But they're normal single knobs I assume, if there's another out of view then I guess it's volume, tone and pickup selector switch.

That looks cool, I do like Danelectros. What is the control on that one, just a volume?

After looking into it a bit more it doesn't look like I can put standard chrome knobs on it. It's got dual concentric knobs but rather than standard size shafts and grub screw fixings it got old radio style fixings. The outer control has two opposing cut outs and the inner control is a lot smaller than a standard 6mm knob. I did think I could leave the lower control as it's very dark brown and then just put a chrome knob on top but the shaft size is now the problem. I'm now on the lookout for some old silver radio knobs but I can see me buying a few before I find anything that fits.

Wow, I didn't realise how quickly a spokeshave would tear it down. As you say very easy to get carried away I'd imagine. That purple heart is very purple. Will it silver a bit or does it stay quite vibrant?

This is probably the first bass I've seen where the headstock looks better as a five string. The tuner arrangement looks quite odd on a four, like the D is too far away. Shame mines a four string. 🙂

@scrumpymike The paint finish on that top horn shouldn't have left the factory really, but that's the only issue I can see. I'm happy to give it a polish up but some may have sent it back. I'm not into relic'd instruments but weirdly I can see this looking great if it was a bit beaten an worn. Unfortunately you can't get a forty year old one with genuine wear and I'm not about to bust out the belt sander. 🙂

Thanks, I think so. I do like the surf green one but I've just painted my Longhorn mint green so didn't want something similar. This is a really yellowy ivory, it's really very nice in the flesh, like vanilla ice cream, which will go with my mint Longhorn and chocolate Kay shorties. Mmmmmm, ice cream. 😁

By some weird coincidence I seem to have a thing for short scales at the moment and this is the latest addition to the fun little family, an Ibanez Talman in, what I think is rather fetching Ivory. Bought from PMT online for the meagre sum of £151 delivered to my door. I fancied trying a piccolo bass and have always quite liked the look of these. I looked at a couple of reviews and my mind was made up. Now I could've just put some piccolo strings on one of my existing short scales but where's the fun in that. Anyway it turned up yesterday evening and I've only just been able to properly play it, and it's fantastic. Really well built and the hardware seems just as good as any bass in the sub £500 range. Paint is good, the pickups sound great, controls are responsive. It's a PJ and when pickups are solo'd it sounds like a P should and the J has that nasal quality but sounds good, both on full the volume drops slightly but back of the J to about 75% and the tone on about 50% and it sounds great. The neck is satin and lovely and smooth with some quite nice grain but very light in colour and the fretboard is quite light as well due to being something that's not rosewood, I don't know what, but I real life looks better than I'd thought it was going be, quite a depth to the colours in the wood. Frets are all nicely finished and it plays great straight out of the box, a couple of tiny tweeks would improve it but that's a personal thing and it'll be getting a set of piccolo strings, which have just dropped through the door for £6 from Amazon, so it will need tweeking again anyway. The only bit that's not great is a dull patch on the front of the upper horn that needs polishing. It's looks like it has been flatted slightly and not polished up properly, or some of the polystyrene packing may have been rubbing on it in transit. Either way it'll polish up no problem and I'm overly fussy with paint anyway so some might not have ever noticed it. For the money I'm not going to complain. What you can get for so little money these days is amazing. Enough rambling, I know you all just want pictures. 😉 This the paint patch in the light making it look worse than it actually is, then some pics with reflections on the paint so you can see the finish. I'm not sure I like the control knobs, but again for the money I can't grumble. Finally the strings that just arrived. I've got some work to do but will be fitting them later. So there you go. I can thoroughly recommend one of theses if you fancy a classic looking short scale. 🙂

Inside the trussrod assembly there is a threaded bar that has two opposing threads, right hand thread at one end and left hand at the other. There are two fixed threaded tubes, nuts if you like, at either end, so as you turn the threaded bar via the allen key, the opposing threads either pull the ends of the rod together curving it one way, or push them apart, curving it the other way. Edit, I should add that the above is a dual action rod. A single action is just a threaded bar which is fixed at one end and passes through a non threaded sleeve at the other, adjusting end. A nut is placed on the threaded bar outside of the non threaded sleeve and when tightened creates tension in the trussrod assembly making it bow.