3below

Sadly I am just too far away from East Sussex, seems a shame if someone does not use it for something.

IMO that is in 'lap of the Gods', however I could easily be wrong. Could you get a cheap p bass pickup, hack the case about and bodge it in to the Ibanez - depends on size of pickup routes available. What is the size of the sr800 pickup?

Why not get a pickup (or pickups) made that fit the sr800 and have P type winding and tone. Kent Armstrong springs to mind but there are other pickup makers as well. This way you keep the sr800 intact and save on the woodwork.

How have you managed to get my maple neck sunburst SB1 with the crackle scratchplate and smooth headstock? OK, just checked in my bass cave, and mine is still with me . Yours is the first I have seen in UK based picture. They are a great bass, I really like the smaller body compared to a Precision. My 5er is an L1505, not quite as 'vintage'.

Looks like oak to me... I have built an oak faced bass which (IMO) rather nice...

Have owned my SB1 from 1990, it is not going anywhere else soon....

G&L the hidden value for money basses - I have two.

In my first 5 string foray the 17mm string spacing defeated me, I just gave up fighting 40+ years on 4 string 19mm spacing. I had bought a really good value bass on BC, someone else (I forget now) got a good value bass onwards. My current 5er has 18mm string spacing and after about 2 years I am no longer mis-hitting strings or getting on the wrong string. Practice makes perfect I think. It surprised me how much the change of string spacing affected me on the 5er since I happily change between 4 stringers with very different string spacing. I find the 5er allows me to play mainly between position 3 to 7 where I get the strongest and most even string tones, this zone is the sweet spot on most basses for me.

Exploder bring it on

A large part of my youth late 70s early 80s was spent playing Ceildh / Scottish / Irish folk music. At that time there were certain tunes and keys that would have been easier / better sounding with a 5 stringer (or kit of the quality we have these days). These days I play rock / blues and enjoy the fretted E on my G&L 5er with a massive baseball neck and my small hands. I am not a fan of small / thin necks.

The build inspires me towards a FenderRD, FenderD? RD body and Fender neck, finding an aftermarket bolt on Gibbo 4 aside neck seems hard.

In this type of build if you wanted 'exotic', the ply top (and/or back) could be higher quality stuff e,g flamed etc. I really like birch ply edges in furniture, I keep thinking about this (as above) method for something semi-acoustic and large I have in mind. A very 'low rent' bass I owned in my youth (Kay? Woolworths type Kay?) had a neck made from edge on ply, Rock solid and not bad. Everything else hmm.

German Warwicks are out there for very reasonable money (I have two). I also had a Chinese Rockbass 5 string fretless (from this very forum) which was a) outstanding value for the money and b) staggeringly high quality build and finish. Prior to getting the Germans I bought (and still own) a Chinese Corvette which is about 90 to 95% of the German quality. It was also at giveaway money. Wait long enough and they appear at good money, I would buy German for long term value unless a Rockbass comes your way at a price you can not refuse.

Bought a phone from Martyn. Excellent communication, super rapid posting and arrival. Deal with confidence.

Still use my Peavey PA, with a QSC power amp it is pretty good. I suspect the DBX driverack has some effect Guitarist has Peavey subs, they are up for sale, for some reason (weight...) they do not seem to be selling even though cheap.

Can highly recommend Jon Shuker. Amazing fingerboard, truss rod replacement and stainless frets job on my G&L L1505, Better than when new. I had an incident with the truss rod and the fingerboard parted with the neck. PMd.

In 1977 I bought a spanking new Precision bass. The one in the advert seems to be very different in so many ways, so much so that I would stay a wide country mile away from it.

HAd the MK3 combo and then 300W version. Used the Mk3 from 1982 until 2008/9 ish. Bomb proof, fixable (though nothing went wrong on mine) other than the glue that held the speaker cone to the frame gave up (as did the foam insert inside the BW speaker magnet). If the cabinet was large enough (and ports suitably modified) these would be something else with an Eminence 3015 speaker. The only reason I gave up with them was the weight. Side handles an excellent improvement.

That is just so 'gutting' and upsetting. there are some very unpleasant people out there. Hope you get it back.

I would always use a discharge tool or at the very least check what (if any) voltage they are showing with a multimeter set to highest range voltage.