The Last Bass Outpost

https://www.ebay.it/itm/Basso-Elettrico-Gibson-BB20-4-corde-modello-steinberger/323896022139?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

She’s been really abused. The asked price is ridiculous for the bass conditions, considering that the original finish is gone on both body and neck, and upper register has been defretted. Also pickguard is not original.
The bass is a few km from my house. I proposed seller just 200 Eur, the value of pickups, tuners and bridge, but he did not accept.

I just had the possibility to buy at a very cheap price a Bach Precision 51 upgraded with a Seymour Duncan pickup and by sure I could not resist.
I am at my holiday house in Southern Italy a Ned the seller was only 40 km from here.
I am very attracted by Precision 51 and telecaster basses and this is my fifth, sixth if I include a Squier TB with the humbucker. Well I have also a Cabronita with fidelitron pickup, I was almost forgetting.
The baby is very nicely done , two pieces contoured body, I think it is alder, a very thin and wide neck, it looks that nut width is Precision size, while the thickness of the neck is more similar to a jazz bass. It features a 2 saddles bridge. Finishing of the body is fine, much better than the finished of their Bach I own, and is very difficult to notice the joint between the two pieces. The neck is in maple, at least if looks like maple, with a maple fretboard. I have not doubt about the fretboard, while the veneer of the neck give me some doubt. Strangely enough the neck has a binding, same color of the fretboard and back, but quite evident.
It plays very nice, much similar to my Fender jap Precision 51, with lot of growl and basses. This bass and my Fender are much quieter than my other 51 basses that are equipped by Badsonics overwound pickups done by myself however is very authoritative in my small bass cab that I have available here.
I will compare to other ones when I will be back to Milan and will post some picture of the telecaster family

I have found a battered EB1 that colui be good to restore.
http://www.ebay.it/itm/GIBSON-EB1-EB-1-VIOLIN-BASS-RARE-VINTAGE-/131872558274?hash=item1eb4378cc2:g:YXwAAOSwRJ9XgPEU

She is missing most of the hardware and has a very ugly cut (maybe relocation of the bridge). What do you think about difficulty of restoring?

And what is a fair price?

Anybody got a tracing or measurements of a 20/20 bass body?  I'm thinking of a project based on that bass. Very strange that this bass intrigues me. Probably is my past as a rower that returns.

Cheap Precision here in Italy.... I wonder how from the picture one can guess that the bass is the one of Kyuss.

http://www.ebay.it/itm/FENDER-VINTAGE-1976-PRECISION-BASS-CLASSIC-MAPLE-NECK-PLAYED-BY-NICK-OLIVERI-/300919214759?pt=Bassi&hash=item46102ed2a7

I was always intrigued by EB-6 and Fender Vi, but never had the possibility to buy one, and frankly, since I am a mediocre player, I always wondered if I was good enough in managing two strings more.

So I noticed that the headstock of Epiphone EB 0 can easily accomodate additional tuners, so i found a cheap EB 0 and modified with two additional strings, bridge pickup, additional tuners and controls.



It went out very nice, sorry for the pics that are crappy, and I wonder how easy is playing. At the same time is quite bassy. The pickups are Artec guitar humbucker and are quite hot. Still I have to solve some issues with wiring but i anticipate some pictures

Here is my last completed project. I bought wome time ago a Peavey T-40 on ebay, without pickups. It was perfect for installation of a couple of Hagostrom bisonics or Dark Star, but I had no chance in finding them, so I decided to make myself two of them.
So I collected documentation to reproduce them and tried, however I found some great difficulties in two main points:
the lamination cores machining and the pole height adjustement mechanism.
I decided to give up with the pole height mechanism, the screws that you see are dummy, and replaced the lamination with ferrite beads, they should do the work of lamination, maybe even better.
I used 6 mm alnico poles, and alnico bars and handwinded single coil at about 5.4KOhm, (really hand winding, no coil winding machine of any type) and finally wax potted the pickups. Finally I created a wooden ring painted black including a classic humbucker height adjustement possibility.

Then I installed on the T-40, with series/parallel option.
My craftmanship skills are not great and actually the appearance is not the best, the main problem was removing the wax from the front of the PU, however the results was better that expected and the sound, well the sound to my ears is great!
I have no experience of the real thing however these pickups have a fat deep tone that I do not find in my other bass, and at the same time a great clarity. The volume is terrific, expecially in series configuration, and the frequency response great. I really like the sound that now is coming from this bass. I would be really curious to compare with some real Dark Star or Bisonic. Here are few pictures
I started this project about 5 months ago, and worked in the few spare time from work and during holiday,and used  a drilling machine and a router to make the job essentially from plastic sheets, forbon, ferrite beads, alnico poles and bars, and AWG 42 wire.