Dave Vader

Haven't found any of that in my shed yet, will look deeper into the gloom Sounds good though, might well give that a go instead. If it's dirt cheap.

Thanks Bloodaxe, will try and be careful for once. Cheap neck so if it goes badly I won't be too bothered, just sand back to wood and try something else. But I will take your advice with the turps. Lucky we had that mild winter, no way it could have got cold out there...

I found a tin of Rustins Yacht Varnish in my shed yesterday, and being in the midst of a fretless project, which will end up being strung with flats, I wondered if anyone had slapped this stuff on a maple fretless neck before? The tin is very unhelpful as to what is in this stuff, just saying that it does not contain polyurethane. Just want to try and keep the fingerboard a bit shiny looking for a while, as I say it's getting flats, so shouldn't get chewed up anyway. Any one else tried it?

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='892584' date='Jul 12 2010, 10:21 AM']Can you print gold? I make my own black ones but can't do the gold infills. I have a "one off" I need done and was going to contact a guy on ebay this morning who I've used before (theclash1968) but if it can be done through Basschat.... :brow:[/quote] theclash1968 is a great guy, I've used his stuff before, really helpful guy, especially if you're rubbish at applying decals, 1st, second and third time round....

Glad to be of help.

We have got a few bookings through Lemonrock, couple of decent functions, probably only because we are an '80s tribute, and thus hard to come by down here in Devon. So internet search by the mid-life crisised women who need 80s bands at their birthdays will bring us up fairly quickly. Not tried goodparty though.

[quote name='BeLow' post='891329' date='Jul 10 2010, 03:15 PM']Den Glad you got it sorted - and hope you get better soon. Having seen you play a couple of times (including the same do as Dave mentioned) I would have loved to have done it but hampered by my lack of talent I doubt I could have pulled it off without quite a few rehearsals.[/quote] Spooky, do you work at the same school as my missus then?

I've got one in the bridge of my ropey old Jazz copy, I don't really like it. I read all the reviews about how brilliant they are, so figured for £25 you couldn't really go wrong. It's a bit thin, not much output. Maybe if it's in a matched pair (and a decent bass) it wouldn't be as bad, but I wouldn't buy one again. I'm starting to think that all those glowing reviews are written by people with nothing to comapre them to. However, at that price it's worth getting some just to try, if you don't like them you can flip them on for pretty much the same price easily enough on the bay.

Plenty thanks. Maybe cos I'm a good 20 years younger than the rest of the band, and still have all my own hair... Oh and the wife hates it, she doesn't come along because she like us, just to keep the women away.

Gigged it last night, sounded surprisingly alright. Lot more tonal variation in the SCs, and the pots have more range as well. I have a black thumb, and a white line on the top of the pick guard, but that is not a surprise, couple more sweaty ones and there should be a nice white thumbprint, and no more to come off. Plus thanks to Al Heeley, I have big springs on the way, so the pickup should stay down, and clean my tone up a bit. Good times. Oh, went with plan A, holes are drilled, is not so farty.

Top bloke, cheers. Friendliest forum on t'interweb.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='890715' date='Jul 9 2010, 07:26 PM']Is a bargain, was more so before he came & researched it here! [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=93928"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=93928[/url] J.[/quote] Damn you helpful people, should have told him it was firewood, and offered to take it off his hands for the price of a pint.

I would say this was a massive bargain. Sadly I don't have £150 about me at the minute, enjoy [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150465304122&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT[/url] 79 Roadster, or so it says.

[quote name='Al Heeley' post='890444' date='Jul 9 2010, 02:27 PM']I have a big box of assorted springs from ebay. Send me a pm with the width and lengh dimensions and I'll pop a couple in an envelope for you.[/quote] Thanks Al! Pm on the way...

HI, my rickenfaker came with springs that are too short to hold the bridge pickup down far enough. Sadly the ric springs I did have got cut down to fit my Seymour Duncan Humbucker setup, so I don't have any springs wide enough to fit round a Ric pickup screw, or long enough to hold the pup down. Does anyone know where I can get long, wide springs that will do the job from?

www.lemonrock.com Has a few on there as well.

Turned out nice in the end actually (well I say end..) See? Looks pretty good, here's come close ups... You can barely see the crack now. However, here's my leftover hondo plywood..... My stereo jack hole (which I may have mentioned, I did not do very well at all) looks a hell of a lot better than this one, which may be a hondo factory standard, or may have been done later by some muppet, judging by the paint, I would say hondo. Unlike them, usually their holes and pickups are quite good, if nothing else. Made me feel better about my chasm though. Now whether to sell it, burn it, glue it to a wall, or make something even weirder with it, perhaps a Rickenfender? Oh, and the other teeny problems with the Rickenbastard itself, stereo doesn't work (and I didn't test it before so it may never have worked) easily solved with a wiring diagram and a soldering iron I'd have thought. And, my pickup doesn't go low enough into the body, so we have Jack Bruce fartyness, and not in a good way. Check that out for close. Plan A for bodging is to drill 4 small cavities in the main cavity for the two scerwheads on the back, and the mounting bolts to go into, thus allowing longer bolts, and the pickup to lie flat. Plan B, is routing the whole cavity down a mil or two. But that relies on me buying a new bit for my router, after last summers bodge project "fitting a neck pickup to my old Ibanez Roadstar" which I mercifully took no pictures of, as it resulted in the end of my router bit. I do learn from these mistakes, honest... Will let you know if I get it right for the gig friday.

Gigging all weekend, so can't. But would point out that I saw Den with the Rock and Roll Outlaws last weekend at my wife's works do in Tavistock, and they are great. They do the songs properly, and I would be more than happy to take this dep, if I weren't busy. Little bump as well, in case it dropped down too far too soon.

[quote name='spinynorman' post='887951' date='Jul 6 2010, 11:50 PM']This is why I rarely attempt projects or mods. Good fun though, and if you're going to bodge it, you might as well do it properly. [/quote] I have a huge collection of bodged guitars ands basses, I live in hope of one day doing one properly and it all working out to the original plan. However, after 20 years of bodging, I can't see me getting any better at this.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' post='888038' date='Jul 7 2010, 01:50 AM']Index finger, I just use the two. A question for the 3 (or 4 even ) finger pluckers, do you not have problems with your middle finger being longer than the others and making notes uneven? I play with my bass at a bit of an angle so my index isn't that much further from the string, but my ring is miles away, if I played it with my hand more at a right angle, it's odd having my index and ring futher away. I'd love to be able to get it, for some reason, my right hand doesn't like fast groups of 3s (triplets or accents).[/quote] I did to start with, but much like flamenco guitar playing I just bend the finger joins to even the distance out a bit, and it all seems to come out fine and even.

Well, it's pretty much finished, but I didn't have a camera this afternoon, so you don't get to see the wrong way to drill out a big enough output hole for a stereo jack, nor how to drop soldering irons into ashtrays and break them while simultaneously burning the carpet. Also, you missed out on making bolts out of screws with a hacksaw, and a whole load more fun with files. Switch tips you can't switch round, and many more bodgit and leggit jobs. Will put up pics of the finished article tomorrow, for now, just be glad to know that after all that effort, the low E is quite farty. Might be the room, will take it to a practice on Thursday, and a gig on friday, just to make sure.

Use Flats on all my basses now, so never really. Don't like the zingyness of new rounds, they need to be played in for a week or two, then they sound good for maybe one night, and then they go off again, though I do sweat a lot, used to have to change my strings after every gig when I played guitar, or they would snap, usually they did anyway. As to string cleaning, WD-40, spray it on, wipe it down, zing comes straight back again. Perhaps not the most cosmetically pleasing option, but if you like your gear cheap and messy, it works.

[quote name='LukeFRC' post='887118' date='Jul 6 2010, 11:17 AM']slow drill speed needed on perspex, put some tape over it and drill through that and it should keep it from snapping.[/quote] Yeah, I remembered that, this morning, just after you mentioned it, not so helpful now. Not buying more bits, will work with what I have, and then spray the original TRC black when I give up...

[url="http://www.flickr.com/photos/50579126@N03/sets/72157624303698305/"]http://www.flickr.com/photos/50579126@N03/...57624303698305/[/url] You're absolutely right, I must have forgotten to paste. Doh! Here's my woeful evening's work on this link. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=94062"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=94062[/url]

Okay, so I decided to take my Rockinbetter (currently set up with Seymour Duncan Humbuckers, and a Hipshot bridge) and make it stereo and single coil with a Hondo rickenfaker I blagged from a mate of mine. I also wanted it fireglo and black, with a Rickenbastard TRC (like Lemmy's) and got Jon (Bassasin) to make me a TRC. Got the 2 fakers, got a can of black enamel spray for the scratchplate, all ready to go.... So spray away, away, away... Looks pretty good... And here's an unhappy rockinbetter, with all it's guts hanging out. Now comes the fun bit, getting the TRC in. I held it up to the headstock, only to discover that it was a bit too wide... Easy fix, here comes the hacksaw... And with a little filing, sanding and polishing... and recutting Jon's marvellous card insert (thanks for the extras, turns out I did need them) And so on to drilling the holes, this is where things took a turn for the worse this evening. Cut down so far, the drill bit decided to have it's way with the top of my TRC. As ever, undeterred, I went for the superglue, and I reckon I can get away with it, I'm not one to get precious over looks. I've sanded it off a bit since, and it looks a bit sh*t, but then after a while most of my instruments do anyway, so why not start as they mean to go on. I've also ripped the rest of the guts out of the rockinbetter, and started taking the hondo apart, more pics tomorrow if I get some more work done. Want it done for Fridays gig. Feel free to point and laugh at my shoddy work.