Simon.

Having been a huge Stu Hamm fan-boi in my youth, I always lusted after a Kubicki. So far I haven't had the opportunity to try one, but even if I did, I'm not sure I would want to, in case it didn't match my expectations... I did get to try a Lakland Duck Dunn, which I was very excited about, but ultimately didn't really get on with.

So many choices, but, keeping it fairly simple to start with: Ash bodied, modern take on a P-bass. Slightly slimmed down from normal, and chambered. Through body stringing, decent high mass bridge. 4-string. 3-piece, 22-fret neck with carbon fibre rods and 2-way truss rod, with adjustment at the head. Ideally a rosewood board, but intrigued by the roasted maple option. Quite a shallow radius on the board - at least 12", possibly more, but not flat. Pearl inlays and binding - not tied to standard blocks, but nothing too outrageous. A single bass clef or bass-clef love heart at 12th fret, if space allows. Fender-esque headstock with Hipshot ultralites. Medium-slim frets. String tree that covers the A string as well. I would like to try a Norstrand p-type pickup, but want something that's going to cover the spectrum from Stax to Steve Harris. Probably passive. Rear cavity to have the guts of Phil Jones Big Head installed, with recessed (or edge mounted) sockets for headpone & audio inputs, and also the controls. Micro switch to switch the pickup output between the main jack and the input to the Big Head. Lake Placid Blue, with matching headstock. Ideally the shade Fender Japan refer to as Old Lake Placid Blue, which is a tad deeper than the US version. Aged white pick guard (if the binding is cream) or Mop style. Hope that all makes sense!

Oh, exciting! Good luck. 👍

Lovely looking top! The Krell is probably my favourite ACG shape.

"quite nice" he says! 🙄 Deary me. Once again proving that you are a master of both your craft and the understatement! I'm not a huge fan of the single-cut style, but this is looking lovely. 👍

This looks very interesting! Loving the wenge / ash contrast. 👍 I'm curious about the idea of a timber bridge, as I can't really see how it would take the strain? Is the idea for an acoustic style bridge, with the strings anchored separately, or a single unit which hold the ball-ends?

Well, you did ask... Metal Badgers

That looks utterly fabulous! Well worth the wait.

You have learned well! 😉 Don't be a stranger!

Next week, @mhoss32 is going to wow us all with how he fletches his own arrows, as well! Brilliant work - it's just a joy to watch this come together.

I do like a bit of Scary Pockets. 👍 I've heard the MonoNeon name but not heard a lot of his stuff. Any pointers, because as tight and nice as the bass playing was, it didn't jump out at me...

I was really worried that shaping the neck would result in a lot of splintering and tear-outs as you shaped across the grain of the marquetry, but it looks to have gone really well! What a fantastic job. 👍

Still love these designs @Sidlanir Bass and bridge are both excellent. 👍

I can only think of a couple: Suede at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh, 1994. The band imploded on stage, with Brett Anderson in terrible form and flouncing off a couple of times, before they all tried again. Turned out to Bernard Butler's last gig with the band. Had seen them a couple of years earlier and they were outstanding, but this was just a mess. Roachford at the Assembly Rooms, 1998, I think. Girlfriend and I had a massive bust-up on the way there ( I wanted to see the support, she was only interesting in getting there 2 mins for Roachford came on). We lasted about 30 mins of very pointedly not enjoying each other's company, before heading off.

Standard issue for bass players! Welcome to the club, Col, and a great story. Years ago I was in a sort of ex-pat, pick-up band for a while. There was a guy who came along to jam at rehearsals, but was convinced he wasn't good enough to gig, and had been a bedroom player all his life. Truth was, he was superb and a 56 we finally persuaded to get on stage and play a couple of numbers. The grin on his face afterwards was blinding!

Ha! It's got a way to go to get to that level. I would definitely like to save it - it's got a bit of sentimental value as well, as it came to me through my tech work with Runrig. They were going to bin it, but I thought it could be worth trying to save. The finish has worn through on both sides, which is probably what has encouraged the splits to start. I don't have a clue as to how to start shoring it up, though.

I have recently come into possession of a somewhat worse for wear Tanglewood acoustic. It seems to be a decent, mid to lower end model, and I was hoping to get it up and running again, to let my lads use as a starter guitar. TSF-5X model, made in '99, according to the serial number. However, I'm not sure if it's actually worth saving, as there is a bit of structural damage to the top. On the bridge side of the sound hole, on both the bass and treble sides, there are the start of splits running towards the bridge. I'm concerned that if I re-string it, the tension will cause the whole thing to split! The dent on the lower edge I'm less concerned about, as it likely to be roughly handled by the kids. I have the Fishman preamp, and it looks OK, but there is no output jack. The bridge saddle is also missing, along with a few screws and nuts to mount the preamp and the screws from a couple of the tuners - how do you lose those?! I don't mind spending a few quid to get the necessary replacement bits, but if the top is a write-off, and there's probably not a lot of point. Thoughts?

Just.... you know... just... wow. So many great things about this build, it's difficult to pick out any one. 👍

I didn't know that! Thanks. Or as Bill would put it... Tåk!

Bill Bailey's musical output is always worth a look. Makes up a fair chunk of his stand-up shows, so he puts plenty of effort on to it. If you haven't seen it, his Enter Sandman is a work of genius, and his take on the Match of the Day and BBC News theme's are splendid.

Wow! You don't do things by half, @mhoss32 This is the gift which just keeps giving.

Is this a Korean bass...? Ho Lee Fouk! Sorry... That is an amazing piece of work. So many lovely touches. 👍

Not the same tune, but I had a similar issue with Frank Wilson's 'Do I Love You?' a while back, which is 8ths, but supposed to be 134bpm. I started down at about 100bpm to work out all the phrases, and then increased it by just 5bpm at a time. Sometimes the 5pbm increment felt like a huge jump, sometimes it seemed to flow OK. Got there eventually. Good luck!

Indeed, which to me seem a bit excessive. Then again, I don't know how many day in a year these things are likely to be out on hire, and at what kind of frequency they need to be replaced. If you have a bass rig that only goes out on hire for 50 days in a year, but needs to be replaced at the end of that year because it's been trashed, then yeah, 1/20th makes sense. If it's out for 50 days in a year, but will last you 10 years, with minimal maintenance, then it becomes a cash-cow. If you we looking to hire something long term for a show (more than 5 weeks), then surely it would make sense just to buy, new or 2nd hand, and then flog it at the end? Which, admittedly, wouldn't help @roonjuice any.

Certainly for the hire of marine survey kit, that was the going rate, but we are talking about equipment in the £5k - £50k price range, and quite a limited selection of suppliers. I've just had a look at the prices on a local PA / Backline hire company (DM Audio) and it looks like 1 / 20th is about the going rate, so my bad.