Maude

Holy thread revival Batman!! Well this has been a while. I can't even make up an excuse as to why this went on the backburner, but it's back. I'll update some pictures as the old ones all went in the photobucket fiasco. Right that's that caught up with. Now to some progress. As I'm painting my Kay tomorrow (maybe) I though I'd get this one and my Hohner prepped ready to do at the same time. I flatted the mint green ready to apply the glitter tape (remember that?), I hade to trim it down to size which was easier said than done. I decided that 1 inch masking tape would be the perfect width for the side tape so I stuck a length of masking tape to the glitter tape to give me a guide to cut along, fairly simple but when I peeled the masking tape of it took the sparkle with it and just left clear tape, hmm. Freehand it is then. I stuck the sparkle tape on and then put a thinner black tape line either side of it, rather than the traditional Danelectro cream textured tape. I think I'll be needing a white Tux and frilly shirt to play this bass. When I painted the headstock all that time ago I managed to drop it and get dirt all over the face of it, I have some of the mint green left at home but I really don't think it's going to be usable and mixing some more at work is out of the question at the moment, so tomorrows decision is to try and redo it green with what I've got or use the tape and do the face of the headstock silver glitter, the neck was going to be left natural. The three ready to paint tomorrow, this Longhorn, my terrible Kay and a Hohner Arbor Series fretless, both ply bodies.

A little update on this as it all went a bit quiet for a while due to one thing or another. I've painted the back of the body, neck and headstock in terrible beige colour, reminiscent of the cheap plastic stuff was made of in the seventies, think those Bontempi fan organs that were red and cream. I got a bit productive today and got three projects back on track, all basses and none made of real wood. I put the Kay waterslide logo on the headstock and lacquered it in then flatted that back, along with the body which after applying a black demarcation line will all be lacquered tomorrow, hopefully. The headstock still needs the black line applying. After applying the black line to the body I had a strange urge for some licorice allsorts. 😉 These are the three 'non-woods' ready for lacquering tomorrow, the Kay, a ply bodied Hohner Arbor Series fretless and a Dano Longhorn, made out of kitchen worktops or something. 😆

Thought it looked deep red but didn't want to say in case you said it was black. Even better now I know it's ruby red. 👍

@scalpy I like the look of that, very classy. Is it black or very dark red?

I still think this body is useable. But only once rotted down and used as a compost to help the growth of a new mahogany tree.

😆

Not metal but classic rock, Cream in particular. 😆

I was going to say I agree with you but for some reason a Rickenbacker with a white plate just works. Maybe you just get so used to a design that it becomes wrong to change it.

Firstly, thank you, it is a lovely bass and has now been my sole gigging bass for over a year. Secondly, follow the advice posted above. 🙂

Absolutely this. If it was set up OK before the string change then all that has changed is the tension on the neck which the trussrod counteracts. Less string tension just needs less trussrod tension to counteract it.

Plain weave or double braided string?

Longhorns seems like they should be all polite and frail sounding, but with rounds they have a proper growl going on. And they look as cool as ****!

Good point. This is good idea if you're after a decent amount of damping.

Oh yeah LEDs fret markers. Blurgh! Side ones I can understand but still don't want but what the hell are the ones on the front for? You can't see the front so they're not for the player, and they make your bass look like a cheap toy so they're not for audience. It's just jumping on the bandwagon of, "Ooh stick some blue LEDs in and it'll be cool". Not! Warwick tuners. Straighten them up muppet! 😆

Well you shouldn't, I love an Encore bass.

The scratchplate makes it look like one of those terrible Soviet Union basses that pop up on ebay.

Haha, the all new Music Man MangoBanana. I actually like the look of a Stingray.

It possibly comes under the heading 'functional' (although I've yet to encounter problems without the feature) but I just don't like the of any of those modern single cuts. A traditional single cut looks fine, Hofner Club, Gibson Les Paul, Yamaha Bex4, etc, it's just those with a bloomin' great bulbous top, erm, lump, that I can't get my head around.

Ooh now you're talking! 😁

Last time I looked, a Jaguar/Precision/Jazz/Telecaster hybrid bass was a bitsa.......... and not the best part seven grand.

That looks cool. I really like black plates on Ricks. I would put a black scratchplate and TRC on my 4005 ("IT'S NOT A REAL ONE!" "Shut up you.") but it's got white binding around the edge and the f? hole so wouldn't look right. Same with my 4001 ("THAT'S NOT REAL EITHER!" "What the hell is wrong with you?")

Those look quite cool, interesting to see the differences in gaps between windings up close. Can you feel a difference? This is the only photo of a flatwound up close I have. My doublebass G string after it fell over and landed G string first against the edge of a granite step.

Gorgeous. Gold hardware on the right bass just works.

With songs that have boring bass I quite like spending some time just jamming my own lines over the top. Something like this from Gary Clark Jr is great for improving your improvised walking bass lines. It's a bit more blues based but those walking lines can be used anywhere.