Hellzero

Generally, I measure these 34 inches (864 mm) scale distance from the nut to the place where the D saddle should be, which is more or less what you're doing. It's not a rookie question at all and you were right to ask it. Also check the parallelism with the neck to be sure the bridge is correctly centered.

It was his cousin, Charles Haznovoice.

More than one, three... 🤣

I like the way you're "rescuing" this old project @MichaelDean ! 👍👌

A bit further away in the alphabet.

And here is my Le Fay Remington Steele 6 RHT CC CAP Big Block bought brand new by my wife and offered to me:

That's the question...

The problem with strings is everything going between the wounds, including gunk and corrosion. The Elixir way prevents both, the others just prevents corrosion. So what's to bin?

The effect of a fully grounded shielding is silence, so shielding the pickup cavities will have a huge impact on the final signal to noise ratio.

First of all, all shieldings wherever they are must be grounded otherwise it's useless. Don't forget to shield the pickup(s) cavity too and star ground it. All the wires going to earth have to be star grounded including the wire coming from the bridge. Star grounding simply means that all these wires come to a single point, here, for example, in the control cavity on the copper. Is it clear enough? Do you understand the rest of the diagram?

Quite easy, but harder to explain to a 5 years old kid, but I'll try. I'm on my third coffee, so it will help.

Can you show that diagram?

Or even more... but, all considered, it's almost the entry price of a Fodera...

In fact, the preamp you had was a boost only model, so no center detent here as it starts flat at the zero position, and there are plenty, not only by John East. Sometimes, reading the manual helps a lot. 😉

Typical from the Dobbratz brothers. 🤣

No charges on gifts but you'll need to put a value on the CN23 (or CN22) as 0 is not accepted, so it needs to be 1. Customs can be very binary. 🤣

Already looks gorgeous. 😍

Yep, 3 gear boxes in a row for my ugly Talbot VF1. 🤪

If you're in the EEC, there's an interesting bass in Germany with a Bogart carbon neck: https://www.bassic.de/kleinanzeigen/g-l-usa-jazzbass-mit-bogart-carbonhals-und-emgs.42705/

Overrated: TalkBass. Underrated: BassChat.

It's a Vester, Mick, not a Vesta... 😉

I also have fretless basses with both, but it doesn't really bother me as I've been playing fretless since the first day, so something like 40+ years. That said the first option is the fretless option and the second is the defretted option. Starting with the first will certainly help your intonation.

That said you have to start somewhere, so using Fender's pickup height adjustment chart is a very good start and they are very close to the best settings, you'll only need slight adjustments afterwards.

You made me feel 41 years younger @Leonard Smalls. Always loved The Residents and saw them live once in my life when I was 17 years old (and had been a huge fan since I was 15 years old), I even "slept" at the Brussels Central Station with all the fauna you can expect. We were fired at around 5 in the morning and spent the rest of the night wandering in the streets of Brussels until the first train home arrived which was 2 hours later. Great memories with these night walkers always kidding, laughing, drinking, smoking, but taking care of the others and absolutely not vandalising anything (as opposed to what is believed).

As a complement to what @Steve Browning just wrote, here is the complete Fender chart (same but easier to read) :