rmorris

Potting doesn't affect interference noise. Wax has no RFI shielding properties. It can help to minimise microphonic effects where the pickup magnets/coils move in relation to each other.

That's a bit different - to stop you making skin contact with exposed pole pieces and causing noise. Depends on playing technique whether it's an issue. Any colour will do the job ! Although real solution is to have pickups with non-exposed pole pieces / rails. I was meaning that the pickups themselves are usually not themselves shielded by design.

Nice. It would have been easier to check the bridge continuity with a multimeter rather than remove/refit. Bear in mind that you can't totally eliminate noise pickup as some will 'get in' via the pickups themselves.

Also be aware that the D5 comes in flushable / non-flush versions. As it happens I recently picked up a Marshall Guitar Combo. All pots were crackly or unusable. A first round of D5 sprayed into the 'hole' on the pot casing and a good exercise of the pots made a huge improvement with only two pots showing some crackling these were the 'Driver' channel treble and contour potrs so maybe greater audible sensitivity. A bit more twisting of the pots next day and crackling almost, but not quite gone. second round of D5 and all good since.

Still seems to me that they were ungenerous with their offer to take it back but at your packing/postage cost.

Mmmm..looks like metallic Alu screening on the control plate with conductive paint to interface to that - but not clear if that has continuity to 'Ground'. And lots of cavity looks to be unscreened. I see you might be in / near Brighton ? As am I. Will PM but tomorrow as getting late here now.

Having Tone Control Open or boosting treble (in the bass guitar sense) usually emphasises buzz. It's not unusual to get a transient when you go from not being in contact with the grounded metalwork to being in contact. The machine heads may have a surface finish that doesn't give a great connection when touched and the partial intermittency can give a problem. I have a similar thing on a bass where I have some coated strings and the contact is variable and results in transients / crackles. The problem does imply that there may be a screening issue where you are acting as an antennae for noise and the bass isn't adequately screened. What screening is there in the control / pickup cavities ?

Yes - mojo indeed. It shouldn't affect the intonation setting on the bridge assuming the strings run properly from bridge saddles to nut.

What did you do to fix the crack ? A good wood glue/filler, properly applied, should be stronger than the wood itself.

Nice. And just describe it as "Genuinely Relic'd" 🙃 The bridge intonation looks a bit odd but maybe that's down to the strings ???

+1 for the black pro eneloops. Also Fujitsu 'black' pro type but can't see them available atm. For charge and test the BL7000 charger in the link below has facilities to charge / test / refresh . May be successful in bringing some 'worn out' cells back to being more useable. https://www.batterylogic.co.uk/nimh-aa-rechargeable-battery.asp

Yes - but the absence of movement can be a problem where there is not a gas tight connection (as will be the case here). Surface contamination / oxidisation may occur. But that's a different issue to the loss of 'springiness' of the conductor in a jack plug.

Thanks for the clarification. On the 'detective' front we've narrowed it down to London then 🙃 (no real idea if that is an appropriate emoticon !) I do hope you get it resolved.

Since this thread seems to have veered towards discussing Drum Plug Ins etc. It's probably relevant to ask the OP if that is particularly important to them ?

Well we all want to know the builder in question now of course ! Southern England based ? Understand if you can't give any clues. But as an observation on this, a problem that appears after five years or so is imo unlikely to be resolved by legal means unless there were explicit undertakings originally. BUT, if subsequent repair / maintenance work has been paid for and was not of reasonable quality / competence in the first place then there may be a legal / TSO route to resolve.