squire5

Success that time,I'm glad to say.

As 51m0n says (like that?See what I did there?) Meths is much better than boiling.I boiled my strings for years and it worked.But meths cleaning lasts an awful lot longer in my opinion.Makes the meths taste a bit funny afterwards tho'

On reflection,I wonder how I would have fared if I had clicked 'Pay Now' without thinking.Would it have emptied my bank account? Not that I have £17 million,you understand,but My Paypal is directly linked to my bank account.Jeez!

LOL.I just registered for this site.I ordered the magazine £1.69 as stated.I opted to pay via Paypal.When I reached checkout,I nearly had a minor accident in my pants! Why?? " Amount due - £16,900,000.00" It may be a good mag,but there's no way it's worth nearly 17 million.I MAY try again!

Was that the great Rico Rodriguez on trombone? I think I caught a glimpse of a wooly hat at one point.

Right guys heads up.Things are tight money wise,so I decided on a Wilkinson humbucker from a company in China, who were on Ebay.It arrived yesterday,packed like Fort Knox, and I installed it today.Wiring had me a bit perturbed tho'.Black,yellow and red and white,which were soldered together.I naturally presumed that the black was ground, and the yellow would then be hot,but that put both pickups out of phase.So reversed the connections and that worked OK,except that I now have a slight buzz when I'm not touching the strings,but only on the new pickup.I presume that it will have to be earthed now,but I dont see an earth wire.There is an ARTEC SE3A pre-amp installed in the bass,by the way.That may or may not be important.How do I ground this new pickup?

[quote name='BigBeatNut' timestamp='1318772566' post='1405994'] Ooh look what I just found [/quote] I think there's something rather...er.'labial' about the tail end of this bass.Or maybe it's just my weird mind.

Just watched an interesting prog on BBC4 with Rick Stein (yeah,the cook) on the origins of the Delta blues.Really good and not a lot of cooking being done.Seems his hero is Howlin' Wolf,and he's a lover of the blues.It showed a pic of him in his school days and he was holding a cheap looking bass.Didn't have time to check it out but it had 4 in-line plastic tuners.Catch it if you can on iPlayer.

D'oh! Too late1

Plenty nice YES footage on Sky Arts tonite..35th anniversary concert followed by documentary.10.00pm til 1.45am.( followed by Dave Dee,Dozy,Beaky,Mick and Titch,if you're interested)

Yeah,nice bass.I also like the green lefty in the other side of the case. Good luck with it.

Er..I like the blue theme..(cough)

Right Lawrence,thank you for that.I've looked at the site and I think the 45HZ may be the one.It's passive,has twin coils and at £70,isn't too dear.I'll just have a little hunt around first.Watch this space....

Heads up on this guys.My German friend has just been in touch.He's checked the p/up and has declared it dead.I now have to find a replacement.Any ideas?

Alls I know is I had a Haynes manual for practically every car I ever owned,and without them I would have been out 100s of £s in repair bills.Hell I even changed a cylinder head gasket myself,using the Haynes.If the Fender one is as good as the car ones,then I reckon its money well spent.

"Under 10s e-mail me first" ?? Where is a 9 year-old gonna find £800? come on!

Yay a good old Marshall stack.I had one of those back in the 70s..In RED yet! I discovered the joys of the 'Presence' control.(Well,it was the 70s). Welcome,by the way.

[quote name='Johnston' timestamp='1319395703' post='1413647'] Can you by any chance get a few piccies up. (Pre-amp too for my benefit ) Sneaky suspicion the XB and my Dean are cousins from the same factory. I have the Pre out of mine (And it works ) so if everything looks the same, I'll pull mine apart tomorrow and measure up. [/quote] Small problem my friend.Due to my inexperience I initially blamed the Washburn pre-amp,and promptly replaced it with an Artec SE3A 3 band EQ.I've attached a pic of the bass in its case if thats any use,but the electrics will look completely different to yours.

Just heard from the German guy.I sent him a pic and he says he may be able to do something.He also said that the high reading may be due to there being 2 coils (humbucker) each with 8K resistance?

I think the norm is around 11-12K John.I've contacted a guy in Germany who rewound p/ups for me before,but as soon as I mentioned the Epoxy filling,he said it was prolly a no-go.Do you know of anywhere local where I could start to find reasonable replacements.They're 4 1/2" X 1 1/2" soapbars, and seem to be pretty thin on the ground.

Yes Mark already tried that too.The p/up in question gave no output through an amp.I can only think that if there was even a small output,the pre-amp was boosting it sufficiently to be heard while it was installed in the bass.Having said that,it would have been equal to approx 1/2 of the signal from the other p/up,which is strange, as it now appears to be completely dead.It's hard to understand how a break in the winding could have happened tho'. I think a rewind is a no-go,as it is epoxy filled and probably not cost effective.I've seen a couple of p/ups with the correct dimensions in the dreaded Ebay,but they all seem to be in China,and seem very cheap.By the way,what are your thoughts on the resistance reading of the 'working' p/up? 16.2 K.a bit high? Many thanks for your assistance guys.

Right now.John,the pickups are disconnected completely from the electrics,in fact the neck pickup is completely out of the bass,and on the workbench.Reading is 1.--- as with probes apart. Mark I have already tried the 'tap test' and the neck p/up was giving a very weak reaction compared to the same test applied to the bridge one,also,in use,the neck p/up was not giving the true output that a neck p/up should, in comparison to the the bridge.You're probably right,they're probably passive.(Shows how much I know).I'm presuming then that the neck p/up is u/s,and needs replacing.What does the team think? Thanks.

Thats what I thought too John,but as is usual,I may be doing something wrong.The p/up has 2 leads (1 white wire encased in a braid earth) meter is set to 200K and probes are connected across the 2 leads.Just checked again and reading is defo 16.2 for the bridge p/up.Neck p/up gives no reading at all.

I've just tested the pickups on my Washburn XB600 as the neck p/up seemed much weaker than the bridge.Readings from my multi meter are thus: Bridge p/up - 16.2.Neck p/up - No reading at all.My questions: Is the zero reading a sign that the p/up is duff?If so,how can it give me an output through my amp?And secondly,is the 16.2 (not sure what the units are.Kohms?) reading normal for what I believe are Active P/ups?Many thanks.