kodiakblair

My pal's Sunbeam 🙂

@SteveXFR Was there not also some story about a lawnmower engine saving their arse ? I reckon they're just about done. Not too many 40 stone 40-somethings harbour easy rider illusions never mind can afford it 🤣

Harley Davidson domestic sales are down 17%, down 12% internationally. Japanese exports to US up 8.5% Funny thing is both Fender and HD are owned by Servco Pacific 🤣

Been that way for years. Maple mostly comes from Canada. CTS pots are made in Taiwan. Tuners either come from Schaller in Germany or Ping in China. Roswell in Korea ship pickups and pickup parts to Corona. Hardware like bridges, knobs and strap buttons, all made in Korea. Unlikely, FMIC are a minnow compared to others. Corona puts out 1500 units per week, say 80,000 pa. China's Zheng'an county has 130 factories producing 2.25 million guitars a year 😀 Guangzhou has maybe 20 factories. Then there's Cort, Samick, World Music Instruments, half dozen plants in Japan.

Fantastic. What a great way to spend your birthday 😎

Nope, it wasn't a Thomann operation, not even the warehouse. Warehouse is located in New Hartford, home to Ovation guitars. If the folks behind the Reverb store weren't ex-employees then they had plenty of knowledgeable people close to hand. 'Cracking' the US has never been a Thomann priority. Potential market for EU/UK is 520 million customers, it's 330 million for the US. What there was has pretty much gone. Kurt at Rondo quit importing SX, Agile and Haeden a few years back. Sam Ash no longer sells their own brands, Carlo Robeli etc. Guitar Fetish currently have all their imported brands reduced by 50%, my guess is they're getting out of the game too. It's several years for me. Owned more than enough US basses to last a life time, don't miss any of the crap coming out of Hollywood, stopped buying records around 2002 and I don't eat fast food .

Could be. I know when DeCola left Peavey to work for Fender he was told elements from his Palaedium neck had been used for the Geddy Lee bass.

This one was my favourite of the US basses. Patriot, cheapest model they ever made 🙂 Really enjoyed the simplicity of it, set me down the path of single coil P-basses 👍

It wasn't an issue if you hold it like a classical guitar, lower horn hooked over your left leg.

They did that. Trim pots on the back of the bass allowed you to set the output level for each string to pan the string left or right if you were going bi-amp. Sold mine last year to a fellow BC member. That's it to the right of my Palaedium. Selection of some other Peaveys I've owned.

Take the pickup selector switch out of the equation, then ditch the completely stupid 'phase' switch. You have 4 wires. White is hot, black/blue+ bare are grounds. Red goes to the Tone Pot.

@neepheid It's nothing taxing Matt. Instead of pairing white/red as hot on the Vol pot you stick red on Tone pot lug 3. Just minded, I gutted one and stuck a preamp in it 🤣

It was never clever. You have some tonal variation with the humbucker through positions 1 - 7. 8 - 10 is your single coil, with little variation. Dan Armstrong used the same method on his London guitar/basses around 1972, he quickly saw the folly in it so added another pot, 1 did the coil to ground and the other was the tone pot. I always snipped the red wires on mine, gave the humbuckers a slight boost plus you have more control over tone.

Owned 72 Peavey basses, from all models released between 1978 and 2010. My 5 string DynaBass was some gunmetal grey finish. Can't say I was too impressed by Peavey's decision to stick a pickup designed for 4 string basses into a 5'er. Was the early 90's before they got around to having an actual 5 string pickup. 2nd gen DynaBass and 2nd gen TL-5 were improvements IMHO. Look how tight 5 strings are on the Ferrites compared to my 2nd Gen TL-5

Yanks on TalkBass were getting their panties in a bunch over these a few months back 🤣 Think I've had 3 basses where the Hipshot version came as stock hardware. Never had any call to use it but if my situation changed I rather pay £60 for the Guyker than £140 to Hipshot 👍

I'll be about £5 for a pre-cut pack of 24 but I'm pretty sure I can scrounge a 2" offcut from Mark at Bonnywood. Was fixing a butchered Concord started me off building and repairing basses 🙂

There are others, nut is broken and it's been shimmed with cardboard 😎

There's that much corrosion at the selector switch the casing has a fur coat 😀 Could just be the switch but there's a stray Vol pot ground too, might as well replace the lot. Nope, anywhere near that high and I get a nosebleed 🤣

Guitar player friend messaged me on Xmas Day, said he'd got his hands on a mutual friend's bass 🙂 Seeing as our pal hung himself in 1999, I was both glad and surprised to hear a bit of his gear was still about. Was even more surprised when I was told it should be with me 😲 Got another message yesterday telling me to collect it 🙂 Old Japanese Gibson copy, think it may be a Sakai Mokko. @Bassassin care to give an opinion ? Neck is straight but it's missing a fret. No sound bar a loud hum, pickup selector switch is goosed, I see one failed solder joint in the cavity. Won't be doing any fault finding, it's easier to replace the electrics. Can't see the pickups failing but I've a replacement set in a drawer. Nice wee fixer up job but I'd rather my pal was still with us 🙁

My God, add Bat out of Hell, 2112 and it's a repeat of the Tommy Vance New Year show from 4 decades back 😁 Longer the track the more folk vote for it.

Aye, that was my thoughts too. Couple of year back some 'singer' from the early 90's got in touch, said he'd found a tape and if convert to MP3 would I like a copy. Out of politeness I said OK. Wished I hadn't , awful fails to describe how bad it was🤣 Crazy thing, by the early 90's I'd a serious alcohol problem. OK my playing on the tape wasn't great, pretty shite, but compared to the hash head guitars and drums it was acceptable 😀

@Mrbigstuff I don't see that happening, there's no real parallel between China and Japan in this respect. Post-war Japan had crippling poverty coupled with a heavy US military presence, folk grew up with a culture they wanted but couldn't afford. When their economy picked up folk bought American. China had decades of crippling poverty but almost zero experience of US culture. Now things have improved, when they want nice things they buy domestic 🙂 One of the Zheng'an luthiers, Zhang Weiyi, charges between $26,000 and $52,200 for his guitars; man has a waiting list 😎

Still some way off but it could happen. Zheng'an county has a big fancy guitar info centre, brochure/handout leaflet says 30 million Chinese folks have taken up guitar playing in the last 10 years 🙂

B&Q flat bar. 1m aluminium 30mm wide, 2mm thick £7.60 https://www.diy.com/departments/aluminium-flat-bar-l-1000mm-w-30mm-t-2mm/253985_BQ.prd Also comes in 2.5m length for £15.20. https://www.diy.com/departments/aluminium-flat-bar-l-1000mm-w-30mm-t-2mm/253985_BQ.prd 1m anodised £10.33. https://www.diy.com/departments/anodised-aluminium-flat-bar-l-1000mm-w-30mm-t-2mm/254149_BQ.prd They also sell steel flat bar.

Also Pub bands in their 60's playing 50 year old songs to punters pushing 70 🤣