NancyJohnson

An Argosy of Thunderbirds. There were others after this, too. The Lull, the Spector, more Gibsons. Oh, an Epiphone and another Epiphone that was in bits. And another Lull. Damn.

More:

Here's some more (all departed).

These were some of my old Thunderbirds. I still own the Hamer and (to a degree) I wish I'd had been able to hold onto the white one, but hey-ho.

Literally five seconds through the front door and my wife is going, 'You have to watch this!' May I present to you, San Jose's 'The Graystones'. These guys are not even teenagers yet. The burpy tone that the bass player gets is quite glorious. They're covering Sade, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Adele. 10/10.

Given the thing that appears to be dictating the dimensions of said bag may be the double-bass stand, I would always advocate looking at Gator bags. Their website is nightmarish from a navigational/user perspective (Come on, guys! It's 2025. Do better!). That said, a search on Andertons and Gator throws up plenty of stuff. I think it's more a case (no pun) of finding something that suits sizewise, rather than discounting something that purports to, for instance, be a keyboard bag.

Umm, Crowthorne to Queen's Club, Hammersmith. 80 mile round trip. Lakland DJ5, black sparkle. What was I thinking.

Excitement mounts. Sweetwater were great, easy transaction. Shipping (UPS) should have been three days (Fort Wayne, Indiana to Houston), but it took double that, so there was a logistics concern if the package hadn't dropped before today. Brother in law flies back to 'blighty tomorrow, should have it in a couple of days.

Now sorted. Got an offcut of some (cough, luxury, cough) foam underlay for nowt! It's 8-10mm thick, so easy to scissor cut. Cut to size and glued in with spray adhesive.

It's quite odd, but just the change in one component (albeit a major one) and the bass is so much more appealing to me. Been able to get the action down very low (maybe 2mm at the octave), much lower than the old neck, and acoustically it just sounds more resonant. While I don't need any more basses, I genuinely find joy from doing stuff like this. I can't believe that what I've done here is realistically that different from what (I can't remember their name) Limelight etc are doing, by sourcing and selling on cobbled together kit. [Edit: I notice that all the Limelight stuff is now showing as Prices On Application on the classic and cool guitars site.] My wife is now going on about me starting up something to earn a bit of £££ as I slip into an early retirement. 😂

With my old Aria, I used a brown liquid shoe polish as a stain on the body dings. The bottle with the little sponge applicator. If the wood has a fresh ding, just blob the polish on, let it set up for a few minutes, wipe it off. Dries in seconds.

I love your work. Can I, could I, make a suggestion on the You Tube presentations? Maybe (maybe) run the bass through a crossover of some sort (Rolls make the SX21) and output the lows through a cleanish bass amp (or something with a bit of whump) and the highs through something with a bit of dirt. I owned a 12-string for a while, my personal feeling is that the bulk of owners/players are looking for a dUg Pinnick/Tom Petersson tone.

We have a carpet shoppe in the village and they have a big Grundon bin out back. Will have a root around tomorrow. Might need to get some adhesive from them to justify the taking.

There's a few posts elsewhere relating to the history of this instrument, when I got it the bridge was missing a few bits, so I put a Hipshot Kickass on it. I doubt it makes the slightest bit of difference to the thing tonally, but to it's credit it's very comfortable as I tend to play with my palm very close or on the bridge.

All done. All in, an hour or so to sort out (I needed to work inside the bass too). Neck pocket needed a little bit of sanding...there was a bit of finish gunk in there from 45 years ago. Fitted a new set of Wilkinson machine heads. Didn't need any real set up, intonation/action is fine. Noticeably Jazz Bass in profile (like my old Geddy. I may sand the back of the neck in a few months (it still smells very new). Genuinely surprised and impressed. Shipping was quick and I didn't pay anything on top. All in it was under £82.00. I've always liked a dark fingerboard with block inlays. My first bass (Columbus Jazz copy) had this and I suppose I've always had a soft spot for this set up. In closing, yes it was supplied with a late '60s, early '70s Fender logo on it. It's the first time I've ever had an instrument with a fake logo on it. If you don't like it go and have a coffee and relax.

I picked it up yesterday...the foam inside was knackered and smelt rank. Just seem to have boxes of bits all over the house and seemed a good idea to just put it in one trunk.

I need to re-line a cable trunk. Opinions on what to use? Carpet? Underlay? New foam? I read that yoga mats are a good/cheap/tough foam option.

Just stick a bit of cardboard in there, but make sure it's tone-cardboard.

Neck arrived. Looks lovely. Bit of Birdseye in the wood. No sharp fret ends. There's an ever so slight backbow. Beyond this I can't comment as it arrived about ten minutes before we were off out. More later.

You can pop over and have a go on it! You know where I am.

Thread resurrection. Brother-in-law working in Houston for the next ten days. I've ordered one through Sweetwater. $499.00. I should be able to cover the fee by offloading my BDDI and DI-2112.

Isn't this indicative of how obsessed we are as players/fans with tonality beliefs (and the basses used thereof) and this just turns about-face and just slaps us in the jaw?