Intro - Pangborn Bass related

[shufu]

Hi, my name is Steve. In the early 80s I worked for a couple of years or so with Ashley Pangborn in his small workshop in West Norwood building Pangborn guitars. When we eventually parted company he gave me a fretless warlord which I still have to this day, although I rarely play it and will probably sell it. We first met by chance in a music repair shop (Touchstone Tonewoods in Reigate I believe  - so long ago), where he was buying some potted active bass/treble units to put in his guitars.  As I was a qualified electronics engineer interested in guitar electronics (I was there buying some fret wire) I tapped him on the shoulder and suggested I could make these also. That began our working relationship for a while. I taught him proper soldering and electrical shielding etc. and he taught me some of the rudiments of guitar making. I actually made some of the fretboards and help assemble and setup finished guitars (Chieftains mainly) and did most of the electronics assembly etc. Profitable business was difficult in those days. Ashley was so talented he really needed to work for someone else and be left to only concentrate on guitar making and not business/accounting/marketing etc. Not long after I left I believe he shut down and ended up working for a famous US brand in Germany making specialist custom instruments. I went back to my usual industry where I worked in Aviation and Airport IT systems until I retired last year.

[SpondonBassed]

Welcome Steve.

[Kiwi]

I sold one of Ashley's basses via the Bass Gallery a couple of years ago, a graphite Warlord.   Is it possible it might have had a 3 band you worked on?  Did Kent Armstrong make the pickups?

 

Also, your user ID is interesting.  In Mandarin it means 'comfortable'.  Do you have any Chinese connections or is it pure conincidence?

[shufu]

Hello Kiwi,

 

Haha, yes I do have Chinese connections, my wife is originally from China (Tangshan)

 

I believe Ashley did the graphite stuff after I left (which was sometime in 1984 I think). The pickups were almost certainly Kent Armstrong but potted in black epoxy moulded from an original Ebony pickup cover Ashley carved himself. I seem to remember the actual ebony pickup covers on very early models) were problematic (resonance problems) which was solved by the epoxy. You may notice the impression of the grain of the original ebony former in the moulded pickup covers. 

 

Unless it has been replaced since, the 3 band you mention was actually a 4 band with both lower mid and upper mid filters controlled by one dual-gang log/antilog potentiometer. It was a bit experimental in those days but Ashley seem to like it. I am sure there are vastly better active units available these days.

 

Here is is a pic of my fretless ...

 

 

 

 

 

[shufu]

Correction ..  the 4 band equaliser had a linear dual gang pot not log/antilog for controlling upper mid and lower mid at the same time (wired so one went up when the other went down). The log/antilog pot was on the parametric equaliser.

[GeeCee]

Welcome and very nice bass.  Why the two jack inputs?

[shufu]

17 minutes ago, GeeCee said:

Welcome and very nice bass.  Why the two jack inputs?

Hi, thank you. The unusually situated jack is just where I changed the original three knob, four band equaliser to a two band bass/treble unit and stuck a jack socket there to fill the leftover hole. The four band equalisers I built had board mounted pots to save on wiring and reduce induced noise.