Bassassin

Cheers Andy - the finish I ended up with wasn't what I expected - didn't think I'd get as much of a coating as I did. Applied it thinly with a cloth, but once it started building up, I kept going to see what it would do. Must have had 15 - 20 coats over the course of a couple of weeks or so. Quite pleasantly taken aback at how glossy it turned out, thought it would be more subtle. So I'm thinking now of using different techniques on the through-neck, using Danish for both areas but slurry/impregnating the neck. There will be a build dairy for this, once I get around to starting.

Just wondering about the differences between the various oils. I've used Danish oil on a body with great results, but the finish seems to retain a slight gumminess, even after a couple of years - pretty sure I could scrape it visibly with a fingernail if I tried. While this is fine on the body, it does make me unsure whether it would be robust enough for a neck. I'm planning an oil finish for through-neck project & wonder if products like Tru-oil harden off better, or if they're much of a muchness in this regard.

Indeed. And therefore this entire thread, every opinion expressed herein, and even its title, is pointless. And following that rule, so are roughly 93.72% of all the topics and posts that have ever been made on BC. Anyway, I'm off to have an existential breakdown over the pointless futility of my worthless existence. Again.

Sounds to me like the rod's having no actual effect. When you're tightening it, are you manually flexing the neck back to de-tension the rod? You should be able to tell if it's reaching the limit of its adjustability before it can affect neck curvature. If that's what it is, a couple of washers under the allen nut should give you a few more turns and hopefully restore function.

Agreed. It's wilfully incongruous and quite deliberately hideous.

I wouldn't rule it out... However, while Guya/Tokyo Sound was a major manufacturer in the 50s/60s, they went bankrupt in 1969. The company was revived and the brand continued into the 70s, appearing on copy-era instruments (as you can see) - but it's not clear whether it was still a manufacturer in its own right. Most likely it was just the brand, which was well-established and high-profile in Japan, being used on other manufacturers' products.

You could look out for one of these: Aria STB-GT from about 12 years or so back. Not string-through but that would be a pretty simple mod.

Shame about the pickups - some (those made by Maxon/Nisshin Onpa) have ink-stamped serial/date codes underneath but others don't. Apart from Maxon & Goto/Gotoh it's not at all clear how many pickup manufacturers were operating back in the day & it's thought some factories wound their own anyway. Really all that would've done is pin down a year, but I think it's safe to say it's late 70s, as the neck unit's a Hi-Gain clone, earlier basses tended to have toasters.

Good question. I can tell you what it's not: Fujigen (Ibanez, Greco) Matsumoku (Aria, Kimbara, Greco, various US brands) Kasuga Yamaki (JooDee) Gherson All of the above have distinct characteristics and are easy to spot. Although I'd probably still put a tenner on someone rocking up & saying "it's an Ibanez". But it's not. I'm 99.6% confident it's Japanese & mid/late 70s, though, so probably not Giannini. The closest match I've seen is Fresher, these are thought to have been made by Chushin Gakki. Some pics on a guy's Flickr here, apart from the logo I can't see any significant differences. The problem with Fakers (and other 70s MIJ copies) is that the more accurate they are, the harder it is to ID them. Fakers tend to have brands on truss covers - which have a tendency to get binned! Lots were sold unbrabded too, and it's possible/likely this one was. Have a look under the pickups - there may well be date codes stamped on them. Won't narrow down a maker but it'll give it an age.

Fella can sing alright, but to my ears it's identikit mawk-by-numbers, headed straight for a regular Jools slot. Nothingremotelyunusual/10

That "Overlord Of Bass" tuner/bridge is a clone of the Steinberger-licensed units used on the old Hohner B2/Jack and Steinberger Spirit. I have a B2 & a Cort headless, both of which use the original unit - it's incredibly simple and to be honest there's not much that can go wrong. I'm planning a headless conversion project & will use an Overlord bridge. I've had a fair bit of Chinese hardware for various projects and quality's never been an issue. Edit - actually I'm pretty sure that's what @Andyjr1515 used on that amazing headless singlecut he built for @TheGreek.

I believe he played an Aria ZZB when they played Reading in '87...

Lot of money for a bass that looks like a daft cartoon animal's head. Nice wood,though.

That's interesting & pretty cool - not the same bass as the OP's. Never seen an Eros P like this before.

Can't remember what the OP's bass looked like. Why not post a pic of yours?

The thing is, the two Japanese partner companies that constituted Fender Japan, Kanda & Yamano, are highly unlikely to have any awareness of, never mind interest in the vagaries of the semantics of potential interpretation of English language phrases. Most Fender Japan products were for the Japanese home market. It really does just refer to which factories made them.

So it is - I should've looked closer! Definitely worth more than £30, then - those are excellent bidges and not exactly cheap. @Hellzero No, mate it's not. The serial number dates it to November 1983 which was around two years after the Blazer disappeared from the Ibanez range - Blazers & Roadsters were both superceded by the Roadstar II line, of which this is an example Specifically an it's RB630, which I might have mentioned. The body shape is very slightly different to the Roadster and it originally would've had a BBOT bridge, which is doubtless why someone stuck a Schaller on it. I have been wrong about many, if not most things in my life but not about this.

And of course, that's why they started making them in Japan in the first place.

Like @BigRedX says, it's a reissue from 10 or so years back. Probably not too many around in the UK and it looks like the £400 bottom bid (if he'd sell for that) would likely be a bargain. Assuming you like this sort of thing.

It's the different factories that made them. MIJ Fenders & Squiers were originally made by Fujigen Gakki, who, as I understand it, have exclusive use of "Made In Japan" on their Fender products. CIJs were sourced from at least two other factories, Dyna Gakki and Tokai Gakki. I think MIJs largely stopped in the late 90s, so most recent Japanese Fenders will have been CIJ, with as far as I know, an occasional MIJ/Fujigen batch from time to time. There's not any quality differentiation between the factories. This was the case while Fender Japan was operated by Kanda Shokai/Yamano Gakki, I know that relationship came to an end a few years ago, but I don't know who's responsible for current Japanese Fenders.

Just about now, some insufferable know-all is going to steam in and say it was made by Fujigen Gakki, not Terada and will someone please correct the pernicious rubbish spread by the bloody Guitar Dater Project before it gets fire-bombed by militant vintage MIJ guitar fans. But not me, guv. I will say a couple of things though - it's not a Blazer, I think it's a Roadstar II RB630. The horns are a slightly different shape and it doesn't have the chunky brass bridge you'd find on a Blazer. It's a bit messed around but is worth a little more than £30 - Pity someone's butchered the headstock, but it looks otherwise intact, & with a clean and new strings/a decent setup it'd probably fetch £150 or so. I think if it was mine I'd reshape the headstock to look more like the original 1980 Blazer style. Just to confuse people like me.

Here's one for current-gen prog fans - Mariusz Duda from Riverside: Have done the lead vox/bass thing myself in a couple of bands, always satisfying to nail both parts without compromising either. Unfortunately no video evidence exists (at least not in a digital format) to back up these claims. Plus I have a rubbish voice.