Stub Mandrel

You may also have been measuring the level of expertise in using a micrometer, if each person did their own...

It's interesting to think about what relief (concave) does. For a given amount of action at the twelfth fret, relief makes minimal impact on the frets near the 12th fret. As you move along the neck towards the nut, the action reduces more slowly than with a flat neck. This reduces buzzing on the lower notes and compensates for the longer the causing greater excursion (the amount the string moves back and forth). As you move beyond the twelfth fret, the action reduces more rapidly than with a flat fretboard. However, the extra stiffness around the neck joint makes this a less significant amount and the rapidly reducing excursion of the strings means this shouldn't be a big issue. Buzzing occurs when either the next fret (or rarely the next but one) is high, or a fret is low. The differences are often on the scale of a thousandth of an inch or even less. Assuming that the frets are decently levelled, buzzing on the higher notes usually means that there is too much neck relief (or there's a 'ski jump' as mentioned earlier). This is particularly likely if buzzing happens in multiple places. Similarly, buzzing on low notes (not open strings, which is a poorly cut nut) means too little or convex neck relief. One way of getting very low action is to set up the bass, then add a little more truss rod tension which will reduce the action by a 'smidgin' but barely affect the string angles on the highest frets. If this does cause a buzz on low notes, put the relief back on. In most cases it will be OK or a little buzz close higher than the 12th fret. In this case you may need to slightly raise one or two saddles, but should still end up with lower action than before.

That's a yorker!

I like a responsive tuner and I've never had an issue with a Snark. A few Fender ones are good too.

I only have two basses with the same finish. I like most finishes except anything with gross sparkles (but love CAR as that's subtle). Blue burst is a favourite, but I finished a guitar in it, so recently I went for this:

Switch on - expect a thump, but do all cones return to their 'resting' position'. Is there excessive noise or mains hum? Do all controls work? Mechanically and sonically. Expect a bit of noise when adjusting, especially linear graphic pots, but these usually improve with use/a bit of switch cleaner spray. If broken they can be expensive/difficult to replace. Are all sockets OK? If it has a fan, does it come on? No broken fuse holders/power sockets etc. (although can be replaced). Switch in the graphic, pre-shape etc. Does this change the sound. A normal bass should light the LED by the gain control with it on about three-quarters when played hard. Most important, can you play it at volume without unwanted/unpleasant distortion? A TE should be able to sound loud and clean. Don't be alarmed if it has been repaired at some point over the years, this is not unusual. Understand how a TE amp works, the gain should be set so it flickers on during louder passages. The volume will probably be set fairly low most of the time and still be loud. Pre-shape gives you the 'classic' scooped sound, and isn't as useful as you might expect for many styles. Parametric and graphic EQ work as you would expect. When I bought my TE 1110 GP11 combo there were a few issues: Knob missing - sorted thanks to a generous BC member. Speakers had been replaced, one was wired out of phase. Easy to correct (swap wires over). Some might say the speakers used weren't the best choice, but I never found a problem. When switched on, all the speakers jumped forwards by an offset (except the out of phase one which moved inwards!) This showed a DC offset caused by a matched pair of transistors going out of spec over the years. I was able to replace these, but if needed you could get a repair shop to do it for you. There was also another matter related to it being a non-=standard PSU/power amp, but this was not a problem.

Just a thought, the biggest barrier to low action is a poorly cut nut.

The relic P?

'New' bass on da wall.

3 Check intonation 🙂

Yes, this is my Flea bass:

Nice. They should have charged you extra.

I wish!

Eh? Don't you walk through my words, You got to show some respect!

I'd forgotten just how awesome Annie Lennox was with the Tourists.

I have a Squier jazz that showed the same symptoms, altough it took a few days to bow. I realised the end ancor of the rod was moving, crushing the wood. It is, luckily, headstock end adjustment. I took the neck off expecting to have to drill into the back of the heel to find the anchor, but the skunk stripe was about 5mm short and i could see the anchor in the gap. My kill or cure remedy was a cc or two of cyano acrylate into the hole (with truss rod slacked right off). The idea was to strengthen the wood where it was being crushed, not to glue the truss rod in place. I also added a washer under the nut to restore the full range of adjustment. I gave it a day to set and readjusted after a week. Since then over two years I have made a couple of minor adjustments, including slacking off so it seems to have worked. Not sure how you would do this with heel adjustment. Drill a hole and then plug it? Its pretty drastic, but as a last resort?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EAhcFUYZUGw

Looks like that's it. The pups are different on this one, bridge missing but the awful 'stop' tailpiece would appear to be original.

Lacquered and polished up...

I've made a few mods to the Harley Benton P-Bass. Original parts are neck, neck plate, jack socket, tone control and many screws. I have a custom engraved nickel neck plate on order... (I also have a s/h neck on order so soon I will rebuild the original bass but with a different neck) ... it seemed daft not to leave it as a pile of bits for the sake of £30.

I find Joyo XVI and Voodoo Octave get in the ballpark.