polvo

Thank you to everyone above for your help! But now comes the follow-up question, where I try to understand what I've done wrong and how to fix it... EDIT: Removed the rest of this comment and moved it to a new thread here:

Thanks, but I want to give this a go myself. I make a complete hash of it then good to know I have a backup option!

Is this about the new blend pot somehow being consistent with the volume & tone pots? Or just about upgrading the other pots since I'll have them out anyway? I hadn't planned on that... but will think about it if it makes a noticeable difference. Great tip!

That's mostly just me holding the bundle of wires out of the way to take a clearer photo. But a few of the black wires go into the body to connect to the pickups - as I've since learnt, these are extra grounding wires.

Before I get to my main question - what is the point of 2 separate volume knobs rather than a blend knob? It really annoys me that I can't quickly & easily adjust volume without impacting on the tone, or vice versa. I can't really see any advantage of double volume knobs but it's so common... what am I missing? Ok, and now the main bit. The plan is to turn the 1st pot into master volume and replace the 2nd with a blend. But I'm kind of confused by the wiring under the hood, and it doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing in the diagram... . Based on that, I was expecting to see three wires connected to the 1st pot (two from the pickup, and one going to the 2nd pot). But instead I have one from the front pickup (yellow in the photo below), one going to the jack (white), and one to the 2nd pot (white/red). The front pickup also has another two other wires (both black), one going to the 2nd pot and one going to the tone knob. Does anyone know why the wiring seems so different to the diagram? Or am I missing something obvious here? And any advice on how to approach the rewiring? Thanks!

Actually, I just took another look and I don't think that's the same bass. This one has a humbucker but the ones in that catalogue (and the reverb link) have split pickups.

Good sleuthing, thanks!

It's not very helpful in this case...

Does anyone have any idea what model this might be?? Looks similar to the B-10 but I can't find anything online about a single pickup model.

Yeah this is a good point. Whether I stain it or do a decal I'll need to sand it down first, and that might be enough to solve the immediate problem anyway. Thanks

I don't really have a colour in mind, just something that will cover up the white mark where the decal used to be. Lots of good decal suggestions in this thread, but I think I'd rather go with staining it if that's an option.

Picked up a dirt cheap bass that I want to start modding, but I hate having a website logo on the headstock so I managed to remove the decal. Now I want to stain the headstock to cover it completely. Any ideas? Bonus points if I can use tea or coffee or something I already have lying around the house! I might also just try to cover it up with some weird artistic decal, but haven't been able to find anything good online (most of my searches just show fake Fender decals!). So if you have any suggestions for online shops that do good ones, that would be awesome!

I've ended up buying a logarithmic pot as a replacement, from what I've read online that sounds like a better choice for me. Decided to stick with 250, since that's what was in it originally (unless the previous owner replaced it at some point). This is really useful, thank you! Where did you get this from? And which model is this for specifically? Mine is a B4 Plus AS RM.

Sweet, got it, thanks! It's a B250. Now just need to figure out if it's short/medium/long shaft length, but I'll check with the ebay seller about that. On another note, the ebay advert says "I would check what pots you have installed first before you choose your replacements. Most bass guitars are actually fitted with all A250K pots as with an audio taper the treble is decreased much later in the turn of the knob proving more useful for bass players". I'm curious what basschatters think... is there any advantage to the taper instead of linear? I would have thought linear is better - I'd rather my volume knob only controls volume, so I can EQ separately.

All it says on the back is 'A' The bass is a Cort Artisan B4, so I'll do some digging online and see if I can find any specs about what kind of replacement pot I need.

For anyone following this thread, you may be interested in the latest tragicomic development... I bought it and then broke it within 10 minutes. Goddamit. It played beautifully for those 10 minutes though...

Just picked up a second hand bass, tested it out and it was all working fine. And then I went into idiot mode. I decided to switch out the volume knob, but the knob was really stiff and hard to lift off the bass (me being an idiot, I only noticed the little screw in the side afterwards). I managed to get it off... but something has come loose and now there's no sound coming from the bass at all. A few other symptoms... The volume knob just keeps turning now, it has no minimum or maximum. The internal part of the volume knob (don't what this bit is called) can now lift up or push back into the bass. I'm assuming it should just be staying pushed down? The volume pot inside the bass has also come a bit loose. All the wires still seem to be connected but it has a bit of wiggle which none of the other pots have. I think I must have just pulled something loose... any ideas how to fix this? I'll take it to a tech if I have to, but would like to have a go at fixing it myself. If this is a risky procedure I have a crap £10 guitar I can experiment on first...

Does anyone know what the difference is between the Cort Artisan B4 plus and the B4 element? And is there a third type of Artisan B4 (maybe older) which is neither Plus nor Element? I'm tempted by this beauty, which is just listed as "Cort Artisan B4", but can't quite tell what model it is exactly. Any clues which model this might be, and whether £230 would be a good price?

Are the inlay stickers a decent option then? I'd kind of assumed they'd be a bit rubbish, but maybe not.

It seems like the only really positive thing you have to say about it is the inlays... and the inlays are weirdly missing from the one that's for sale! I actually made a separate post about that here: Sounds like it might not be such a great deal after all. Thanks!

I'm looking at a "1970'S CIMAR JAZZ BASS MADE BY IBANEZ" as a restauration project. Does anyone know anything about these? I can't find much online but what I've seen sounds promising. It's in pretty bad shape and will need a complete servicing but I'm willing to give that a go. For the price (£150), I'm willing to take a bit of a gamble on the chance that it might either be a disaster or might turn out to be a great deal. But am I overestimating the quality I could end up with, assuming the restauration goes well? (Bonus question: is there anything I should ask or be careful of when buying? Anything that is just not fixable? The only things I'm aware of would be the truss rod not working or the neck being twisted)

I'm looking at getting a 2nd hand bass as a bit of a restoration project. I've done little bits & pieces before, like resoldering loose wires, tweaking the action and fixing the intonation, but it's my first time actually restoring a bass. Most of the issues described in the bass I'm fairly confident with (or at least, I know where to start). But I'm thrown by what looks like missing inlays on the fretboard. First of all, does anyone know what could have caused this? Did the original bass (apparently a 70s jazz bass) just have inlay stickers that have since been removed? I always thought the inlays were physically laid into the wood of the fretboard. And more importantly - what do I do about it? Get new stickers? Maybe stain the entire fretboard to cover this up (and then add simple dot stickers)? Or is the only solution that will actually look good to just replace the entire neck of the bass? Help me please, fellow basschatters!

Yeah that's pretty much my plan I think. What's 'BiN' though?