Maude

It's got brand new rounds on and the tone doesn't work so it's bright but it sounds great, still has that short scale thumpy fundamental. It has that Danelectro kind of sound. Once the strings wear in and I fit a new tone pot I think it'll be great fun.

That'll make him happy if you tell him his 2 grand guitar reminds you of a Kay bass. 😆 I'll take the complement though, thank you. 🙂

I forgot my favourite bit. I've never liked those plastic 'top hat' type volume knobs but I saw some bronze ones on ebay and turned up this morning. They are a perfect fit for the colour of the bass and look suitably tacky. 😉

It's all back together and almost set up. I've used a threaded saddle type fender bridge fixed in the old holes and it has intonated just fine, so I'm not sure why the previous owner said it wouldn't. I've used a threaded saddle type so that I can pop the strings over a touch to give a more suitable spacing, but as I thought, that tends to pull the saddles outwards when playing. I have plenty of height adjustment so I'll cut a groove in the saddles where the strings need to be and then make a groove in the base plate (some have this anyway) for the height adjustment screws to sit in to stop the sideways movement. It's not a huge amount but it's annoying. The trussrod was out of adjustment but a washer behind the adjuster nut fixed that and has pulled the neck back nicely. The nut which was a righty, then cut for a lefty, now being used as righty again, is now sitting higher due to the coats of paint on the neck so the slots will need filing down which means I can file to the correct size and not have to replace the nut, again it's not a lot but will bring the strings down and hold them in place again. The action is pretty good at the moment and once the nut slots are sorted it will play nicely. The tone pot does practically nothing so will be replaced at a later stage. All in all I'm quite happy as, although it needs a little fettling, it is going to intonate properly and play decently with a nice low action. I've also picked up a suitably cheap looking strap which fits with the look.

I'll add a little update to this thread. My first bass, as mentioned earlier, was a no name SG type affair, absolutely awful and ended life being set fire to. Fast forward thirty years to today and I've just finished restoring it's Les Paul shaped brother. In a moment of madness I bought a Kay KJP 1B and realised the SG I had was a Kay as well, identical (terrible) build quality and features. So my first and last bass, at the moment, was/is a Kay. I worry for my sanity at times. 😄

It's in Torquay, not far for me and normally I'd have popped up with Mrs. Maude and had a day out in the sunshine and picked up the bass. Not now though.

No point, it sounds like you're beyond help. 😄

PMT have them for £151 with free delivery, piccolo strings are only about £15. I would normally buy second hand as I can have my fun and then move it on without losing, hopefully, but obviously that's a no go at the moment. There's a black one advertised on Facebook for £100 ono, virtually unused, still got the film on the scratchplate, etc. It's been on for a couple of weeks now so I reckon £80 would buy it but I can't go and get it.

I really fancy an ivory Ibanez Talman short scale with a set of piccolo strings on for a different sound to play with whilst isolated. The thing is, I'll have no real use for it once we're back to gigging. But it's so cheap and the reviews so good I'm having real trouble resisting.

He's got ten listings of basses with that picture and a wide range of prices.

The thing is, as I see it, buying from ali-express is an unknown minefield, who knows what you're buying, or who made it. Stories of good builders/sellers, and stories of bad. The agro of dealing with returns or partial refunds then rectifications are way out of a lot of people's comfort zones, so buying one already in the country that you can try out first (maybe not now obviously) is very appealing and something that some folks will be happy to pay a little extra for. If the seller is not being deceitful, which he doesn't appear to be, then I can't see a problem.

That's why I'm going to use a Ray scratchplate. A beaver held firmly by the tail will do for for my router as it'll be covered.

That's exactly my reasons, but Fleabag liked the Warman MM pickup and it's only £20 so it would almost be rude not do a twin PU. But the vanity whore in me prefers the look of a single PU Ray.

I still bought one though. 😁 I bought a pair of the KZ ZS10 in ears just to use as earphones but like the idea of using the YSC with them for for monitoring, if we're ever gigging again.

Now wondering whether to put two pickups in. 🤔

But you don't know you don't need it until you've bought it, used it for a couple of days, raved about your purchase, tucked it safely in the back of a cupboard, forgotten about it, found it again at a later date and wondered why you bought it in the first place. Then you know you don't need it. 😁

Yes you're probably right, at the moment the neck doesn't fit the body anyway so I've got some measuring to do. It fits the pocket but the neck has a curved end and the pocket straight. I'll probably file the actual neck flat to suit the pocket and leave the curved end of the fretboard to overhang the body slightly. This will possibly result in needing to move the bridge slightly to get the scale right, that's why I didn't want to just slap the PU where the hole in the guard is. But as you say, the measurement from the neck end will be more consistent (once the neck is fitted. This is all just thoughts from the garden at the moment as I've got three other builds in mid swing at the moment, and I haven't even done any kind of measuring on the neck or body. It'll all be easy enough to sort, I just want to make sure u get that PU in exactly the right place. 🙂

Thanks again. 👍 Yes I can see more surface contact area making a difference (maybe 😉), I'll see what I decide to do. I might just use a fender style and see what I think, easy enough to swap afterwards if the MM one has a larger footprint. Thanks for your help.

Thanks for doing that @mcnach. What controls have you got on that one? Also forgive my ignorance, but isn't a classic Stingray bridge just a more rounded BBOT, albeit with string through body? As @drTStingraysaid, all the parts play their part, but surely getting a MM pickup in the right spot is the bulk of the sound?

Thanks @drTStingray. This is only a bit of fun to use up some spare kit lying around as I'm getting bored. I have a right hand P body and a left hand maple blocked and bound jazz neck, tuners electrics, bridge etc, and I've just ordered a Warman MM pickup which is only £20. The only other bits I'll need are a scratchplate and control plate. So all in it'll be around £50 for a reverse necked precision-ray. As the blocks and binding are black on maple I was originally going for black body and black plate, but I might go gold body and black plate. As I said, it won't replace a gigging bass and will just be cheap fun but should result in a cool looking bass that sounds different from anything I've got at the moment.

This is another way of judging it but I've seen scratchplates with the pickup hole in varying places, also the neck route might not be the same as a Ray (I'm using an SX body) so I think the one measurement that counts in getting a pickup in the exact Ray placement along the speaking length of the string is from an average of the saddle distance to pickup. I'll make a scratchplate to suit whatever the distance from neck route to pickup ends up being if necessary. 🙂

It'll be having a MM pickup only.

As I'm going to go ahead with putting a MM pickup in a spare P bass I've got I need to know the exact spot to put it. Did the pickup placement change over the years or has it always been consistent? If consistent, could some one with a Ray let me know the measurement from the bridge saddles to the lower edge of the pickup, the measurement will have to be from an average of the saddles as obviously they will all be different due to intonation. From the bridge edge would've been better but I won't be using a Ray bridge. If the placement changed over the years, what would be considered the best one to go for and why. Thanks. 🙂

On the contrary, I think we need more distraction at this time. Yes there are far bigger issues at the moment, but there is also an awful lot more time for the majority of us to worry about those issues, which is not good. Thank you for sharing though, it's all good info. 🙂

No I can imagine. 😖