ForbiddenWytch

Couple hours left on this then it’s out for the bin men 

9 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

Unable to collect, but if it really is getting slung, I could use the tuners?...

Unfortunately won’t have a chance to post them due to work hours. Sorry.

Decided against carrying on with this project. Could be worth while for someone with a bit of wood working expertise. I attempted to convert it to an 8 string octave bass but I got bored half way through. Easy enough to change back. Has been routed to house a humbucker in the neck position as I had it wired up like Billy Sheehan’s attitude basses. Sounded great! 
 

MUST BE COLLECTED TODAY FROM CENTRAL BEDFORDSHIRE ELSE IT GOES OUT FOR THE BINMEN TOMORROW.

1 minute ago, Richard R said:

I know what you mean about wanting the set. 🙂
 bought the 5 string version of my four string earlier this year and I've put the four string away to learn to play 5. There is I think a fretless, but I'm not accurate enough even with frets!

 

😮 Wow, that is such a pretty bass! You've got a great pair there (oo-er) and they look incredibly well made. That orange/red burst is lovely.

And as for the fretless thing, i'm not exactly a precise player but I find the fret lines really are helpful for making sure you get at least close to the note. I've had an unlined fretless and it just didn't work for me. I get confused easily 😂😂

1 hour ago, Richard R said:

Very smart. And a great trio of guitars. 👍

Thank you Richard! Other basses have come and gone, but these will never go. Would love the 6 string to complete the set, even though 6 strings is too many for me, but they're rarer than rocking horse droppings!

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Good job

Thanks Andy! 😀

Hey guys

Quick back story, I've played a Tobias Toby Pro bass since I was 18 (18th Birthday present from parents). Managed to pick up the 5 string version of my original 4 string last year and was lucky enough to find another matching 4 string to be a back up to my #1 as I wanted to "retire" my #1 due to sentimental attachment.

Annnnyway, recently I've been really wanting a Fretless bass again but as I don't really have the room for another guitar, I thought I'd go about converting one of my basses (I've done fretless conversions for people before and on a bass I used to own) and decided the #2 was the perfect candidate. End of the day, this one has absolutely zero sentimental attachment and I only paid £100 for it (seller had it listed as an Epiphone bass, if they couldn't be bothered to list it properly, I wasn't about to correct them). 

So, I had some maple veneer left over from the last fretless conversion I did for a "customer" (a few mates have paid me to do fretless conversions on their basses after playing my converted bass) and went about getting it done. Reason for the veneer strips is because I still wanted fret lines so I could see where I am! Hopefully this stops me tinkering with my basses for a while so I can focus on a new model railway I'll be building soon (should no guitar tinkering get in the way! 😂)

Just as a side note, this isn't a professional job as I'm not a trained luthier but I think you'll agree the end results look great. I'll list the steps here then add some photos of the steps down below.

1: Remove frets = I did this by taking a Stanley blade and gently sliding it under the fret to lift it and remove and glue keeping it in place. Next, I slowly lifted the fret wire out with a pair of pliers and cleaned the slot by gently running a hand saw through the slot a couple of times. This way it didn't widen the slot and left it with a flat edge to push the veneer in to. 

2: Veneer strips = The veneer strips were cut to over hang the sides of the neck so I could trim them flush with the edges of the board and use it as an indicator for which note I'm playing 😂. A swab of clear super glue on the lower half ensured the veneers stayed in place. Once the glue had dried and hardened over an hour, I used a Stanley blade held flush to the board to trim off any excess. The remaining bits would be sanded down later on.

3: Touch-ups and polish = Using a very soft and very fine sandpaper on a soft pad with a hand-held drill, I gave the fretboard a final sand over on a very low speed to get rid of any remaining protruding veneer then checked the board back over with a 10" radius block (which is the original radius). No change at all to the radius so no problems there. There were quite a few scratches on the lacquer down the side of the neck so I just used the hand-held drill again with a polishing kit which got rid of all the scratches and returning it to it's previously lovely gloss finish. After all that was done, I applied some Linseed oil to the board (BTW, I don't care about the pros and cons of lemon oil vs linseed oil)

4: Setup and test = I'm not going to be using Roundwounds on this as in my previous experience, they cut in to the fretboard too much so I used my favourite Flatwounds, the D'addario Chrome 50-105 but as Flatwounds have more tension than most Rounds, I tuned this down to B E A D which again is a personal preference for 4 string basses.With a little neck adjustment, the strings aren't floppy at all and have great tension and balance. I dropped the action to my preferred 5/64s, set the intonation (as close as possible without frets!) and lowered the pickups back down a tad. The end result instantly made me smile instantly. Playing fretless is so much fun and so much more expressive. 

Any bits that chipped out of the board during fret removal were filled with rosewood dust and glue. I am still undecided about Epoxy coating the board as I feel there isn't any need to do so because I'll always use Flatwounds on it and love how it currently sounds/feels to play.

In conclusion, I was worried at first that I might regret doing this but no way in hell will I. I haven't played my fretted basses since finishing this and am just having so much fun with those lovely "muah" slides between notes. I'll get a video clip up on here in the next couple of days but wanted to share my progress with you all on here. Even had my guit*rded friend who said "why would you want a fretless?, it's an awful idea" end up saying "yeah I can see why you've done that, it sounds great" and is now pestering me to jam "Parisienne Walkways" with him 🤣

I should add that yes, there is a missing potentiometer from this bass because I haven't been able to get the EMG stacked preamp I want for it yet but the wiring has been done inside ready to just clip it in. The neck volume pot on all 3 acts as an active/passive push/pull so I can still use the fretless in passive mode (with the passive TBX tone pot) until I get the preamp and the bridge volume pot is a push/pull to swap between series & parallel. All 3 basses have had Hipshot Ultralite tuners installed, the two 4 strings have a Badass II installed, the #1 and 5 string have EMG preamps installed and #1 has had Nordstrand pickups installed. Eventually all 3 will have EMG preamps (2 band on Fretless), Nordstrand Pickups, Hipshot ultralites, Graphtech Black Tusq nuts and Leo Quan Badass bridges (II on the 4's, V on the 5'er).

Anyway, enough of my waffle, here's some photos and a family photo at the end. Enjoy!

Type his name in Facebook, these are the results. Hopefully people will learn soon.

1 hour ago, ForbiddenWytch said:

Thanks bud. He's playing a couple of venues local to me, I'm thinking of phoning them to forewarn them. The venue owners won't want that sort of publicity for their venues. After the stress and anxiety he's caused for us, it's about time he had a dose of his own medicine. 

 

A theatre company called "Reveal Media Productions Ltd" has just announced they're working with Mick's band so I've emailed them directly with details. I got given a phone number to contact them on so I just phoned them.

The lady who I spoke to said "we are aware of the situation with Mick but as no harm will come to us, we are happy to carry on working with him" then hung up the phone on me. Wow.

He's just threatened a lady on my FB friends list for sharing my post about him being a scammer. I've explained to her it's an empty threat that we all had. But it just shows how low he'll stoop.

6 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

If they have a Facebook & Twitter page post those comments, maybe harm will come their way after all.

They'll be deleted if I do it, the lady from Reveal told me she had no interest in it. So if anyone else fancies posting the comments on there, please do so.

18 minutes ago, walshy said:

Well done mate. With things starting to move in the gigs industry it was only a matter of time. He's out gigging with his band soon too so I am sure people are more than aware. 

Thanks bud. He's playing a couple of venues local to me, I'm thinking of phoning them to forewarn them. The venue owners won't want that sort of publicity for their venues. After the stress and anxiety he's caused for us, it's about time he had a dose of his own medicine. 

A theatre company called "Reveal Media Productions Ltd" has just announced they're working with Mick's band so I've emailed them directly with details. I got given a phone number to contact them on so I just phoned them.

The lady who I spoke to said "we are aware of the situation with Mick but as no harm will come to us, we are happy to carry on working with him" then hung up the phone on me. Wow.

He's been found posting in another group called Rockers Reunited looking for bands to rip off and the admin has contacted me (after seeing my post in the Tribute Club about him) to say he's been removed from it. Glad to see the word is spreading about this low life's misdemeanours. 

6 hours ago, TheGreek said:

 

Point of this empty re-quote is?

2 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I’ve just been accepted,  it I did it in the band name rather than mine. We’ll see what happens.

I've been accepted now, the admin accepted me and now Mick's had his post removed but mine is up for all in the group to see/warn them away from Micky boy.

https://www.facebook.com/tributebandclub/posts/3992361860844796

Posted

4 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Ah, I’ll withdraw that then. It’s a public group so at least you can view it anyway.

Oh there's a private group linked through the public group, that's the one I requested but I'll post on that page too

12 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I just joined that group as well. Noticed a friends band has put themselves forward. Have messaged him to delete it. 

I've not been accepted, have a feeling he might be a mod on there or as the member requests are open to being rejected by other members, he might have rejected my request. 

33 minutes ago, walshy said:

He’s reared his ugly head

I've requested to join the group and will be posting the link to this thread and the shared posts from Facebook in to the group. Hit him in his pocket before he hits someone else in their's.

On 14/04/2021 at 13:47, Dad3353 said:

Being blindfolded doesn't help. 

On 14/04/2021 at 11:12, ped said:

Looks like the cops are doing F all about this so far so he might as well start murdering people 

Didn't think jokes were allowed on this thread... 

On 14/04/2021 at 14:13, BigRedX said:

To all those affected: stick with it. As others have said these things unfortunately take time. I'm currently involved in a fraud investigation that has been going on for almost 7 months since I first contacted Action Fraud. The DC who has been dealing with it is just finishing up gathering evidence, and then it will be up to the CPS to decide if the case is strong enough to be worth going to court. In this case the money involved is considerably more than the cost of a handful of imaginary Sansamps.

However it is important to not give up. Fraudsters tend to get away with it because the victims give up because it all becomes too much bother, especially if the monies involved are relatively small. Don't let this case go the same way. £100 may not be a lot to you, but it might be to others affected, and from what I have read here, there are a lot of people affected so it all adds up. For those who have contact from the Police, reply promptly and let them know all the details. If you haven't heard anything more after two or three weeks, send a brief and polite follow-up email, just to let the Police know you are still interested in pursuing this. Keep all your correspondence with the fraudster, especially any where they make threats against you - the Police really don't like that. 

Good luck to all those affected.

Nothing's going to happen about this. There's been absolutely zero movement from any of the relevant law or legal services and he's gone off the grid. His tribute bands are booking gigs, his band members are aware of what he's been going and don't care. It'll end up with him getting off scott-free apart from the small punishment of being banned from a handful of Facebook groups. 

£100 is a bit much, you can get these new from Petr Michilak (the guy who makes these for Spector) for $91/£66 and they tend to sell for about £50/60 on here. 

https://michalik.cz/pricelist

BP-4 Bass preamp - $91

I'll be in luton for the next couple of days, if this can't be picked up and you are getting desperate for the space, I'd love to come get it

18 hours ago, Acebassmusic said:

That's a good point I hadn't added that to the advert! They're both the same size at:

Width = 39mm Length = 108mm Height = 23mm Foam thickness = 5mm

Thanks mate, I'll check this against my bass later on and get back to you.

Hi dude, what are the dimensions on these? Cheers

Black jazz basses always look so much better with red tort plates. Wish I was closer/had £100 to spare!

GLWTS.

On 28/01/2021 at 18:26, BreadBin said:

I got lucky and managed to pick up a Schaller 471 off eBay from a guy in the States. $74.99 shipped was a bit of a bargain. I'm (very slowly) converting an Epiphone T-bird to an 8 string.

I really want to see pics of that once it's done please dude! loving the idea of an 8 string T bird!

UPDATE 1: TUNING PEGS

Right, I'm a d1ck. I got the tuning pegs installed the other night but I've fudged up the Fat E string peg hole by a couple of millimetres. Not a problem, I'll fill the hole and re-drill it. I decided against filling the original 4 peg holes and finding space round them to install the pegs. This avoided having to weaken the headstock too much. Ignore the bit of green lacquer missing, I was seeing how thick the lacquer was as I'll be totally stripping the entire bass back and repainting it.

Strings will pass over the nut and to the respective tuning pegs without knocking on to the other pegs. I might angle the tuning pegs back a bit towards the body ala Warwick to give more room between the peg heads as in the horizontal/natural position, they can knock in to each other. Another option is to install smaller "bean" style peg heads on the skinny string pegs and keep them in the horizontal position pictured.

Overall I'm pleased with the outcome but obviously will be happier once I've corrected the Fat E peg position. I'll set about that in the next few days.

Anyway, any progress is good progress!

Thanks again to Andy for your reply about the saddles, I'm more fired up than ever to do this now.