Shaggy

I'd assumed the thread was about the ex-Shadows bass player - as it happens "Jet" was also what my old Physics teacher nicknamed me, with my surname being Whittle. Just how many "boutique" Fender clones are out there?

Pic of the neck heel on my 450B, which is of the "chunky" type (same also on my 650B), so as suggested above I'm assuming the ebay one is probably a later model with a more sculpted heel. That's top dollar for a 450B, but I guess seems reasonable when compared to a Fender of similar vintage - and I know which one I'd prefer to have.

Much sage advice on this thread (as ever on BC ) that I can't really add to. Reading it though, kind of made me glad that when I started on bass, like a great many 16 year olds in 1977 it was forming a punk band in school. We could barely play a note between us, but it was such incredible fun making an unholy noise together, creating something original together and (unknowingly) rapidly developing musically, and also feeling that we were a part of some great tidal shift in music and culture that was currently happening. I did buy a paperback tutor for bass from the early '70's with a flexi-disc, which was the only tuition I've had then or since. It was some help - would have been more if I'd followed it properly. By the time I became a half-decent player I'd (a) learned a great deal about band-craft and gigging and (b) become far more confident as a person - I'd been painfully shy before - which for me personally was the right way around to do it. If starting now, I think my 16 year old self would be bewildered by the sheer amount of information available, and probably depressed by watching the "virtuoso" whizz-kids on YouTube (though my present self would tell him to ignore such cr@p) - not sure I'd have taken that first step to start.

Much as above; tuning to piano at home (I had to keep asking my piano-playing sister which was the right key), and lucky enough to have keys in my first band. I trained on violin, so well used to using pitch pipes. For many years I owned a mid-1960's Vox Special Mk.VI teardrop 6 string guitar which had wacky onboard active electronics, including a feature that if you pulled a switch on one of the tone controls you'd hear an audible top E tone to tune to. British engineering way ahead of its time.....

Mad I think WS and Leonard Nimoy must have had a bet on for who could be musically most bizarre Make Captain Kirk President, I say......

Pics needed for @Bassassin I'd say, could be almost anything!

Lovely - bit of Harmony / Ric vibe going on there......

Beautiful. About the only bass left on my bucket / GAS list

Blimey that takes me back - Eric's was such a small intimate venue, it was being in someone's living room! (a very dark, very sweaty one...) I was right at the front of the stage but don't recognise the back of my head. Amazing gig; the energy of the band and the raw angst coming off Ian Curtis was absolutely electrifying. Nice to see the old members notice too: OMD were pretty much the "house band" at the Uni Students Union back then - Echo & the Bunnymen, Wah Heat! and The Teardrop Explodes were frequently there too. Great days. Funnily enough was clearing out some stuff the other day and found my old membership card. Sorry for going off topic - I've never personally had great experiences with Hondos, but this is clearly a pretty special one to have.

Good score! I was lucky enough to see Joy Division live (Eric's Liverpool Dec '79) and am ashamed to say I can't remember what bass PH was playing......

Bass-wise I've only bought Luminlay inlays from Japan, but have bought a fair bit of vintage camera gear from there with very positive experiences every time; they seem to take communication and customer satisfaction very seriously

Had a FREE set of DR strings off Kim; I can only confirm the comments above - great guy, great communications, posted super-fast. Thanks fella!

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Stunning bass, congrats to all concerned Beautiful grain & figuring on that body (Claro walnut?) - too nice to put a pickguard on IMHO!

Apologies @BassTool - I'd completely missed this - I post so rarely these days that I inevitably forget about it when I do! That does look like a potentially neat solution, and as you say, is probably the only one there is.

Definitely this for me. Saw the Stranglers play Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1977 as a 16 year old violin player. Bought my first bass from the local classifieds the following week (a mid-1960's Kalamazoo KB1 for £25. I still have bits of it....)

A sneak peek at the next one that I've so far only done some body preparation on: custom single piece mahogany body Warmoth solid wenge custom neck with Hipshot Ultralite tuners 1990's active Seymour Duncan dual J pickups (3 built in microswitches to select voicing) Darkglass active 3-band circuit NOS Kahler brass bridge A bit more work needed with this one as the neck heel routed/ drilled for some custom neck whereas the Warmoth neck is Fender fit, and wiring will be more complex, but it'll be a nice little winter / spring project

Some really great recent bitsas on this thread! There was a time around 15 years ago I was building a bitsa pretty much every year, but lately been winding the bass playing down, got too many basses altogether, and spending time and money on other things....... However, I realised last year that I had enough parts lying around to build probably at least 2 complete bitsas - so thought I'd make the effort to make a final pair. The first, a fairly conventional Jazz-type, was really just a matter of putting the parts together; most of the work was in finishing the body. All parts previously used (mainly from here and eBay) except for circuit, control knobs, and neck plate. Ash G&B jazz body with rear-routed controls, slab top with tort binding (NB: top is not a separate facing / cap but the front of the body wood). Sealed with French polish- which nicely accentuated previous wear - and top coated with clear nitrocellulose lacquer. Squier (Indonesian) Jazz neck and tuners - surprisingly nice Passive Cellinder Jazz pickups, VVT passive circuit (CTS / Switchcraft) Badass II bridge Schaller strap-locks You'll notice it's not finished; I haven't cut out a rear control cavity cover - mainly as my garage has been too bloomin' cold! 🥶 But already using it as my home practice bass; it plays nicely, and as you'd expect the Armstrong-made Cellinder pickups sound sublime

Loving both of those bitsas Chris, but that natural ash Jaguar-eque P/MM fretless really is a thing of beauty Agree about the pickups - IMHO the Nordstrand Bigman is the best sounding MM pickup out there - I put one in my Warwick Streamer Jazzman LX (J p/up is a Bartolini B-axis)

12 years after the last one, another great transaction with Neil Had a Hiwatt practice combo off him for free (I just paid postage), arrived faster than the speed of light and packed more securely than a very secure thing. Definitely one of the good guys on this forum, thanks mate!

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