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Messages - Alanko

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856
The Bass Zone / Re: Nina Simone bass?
« on: September 09, 2017, 01:59:42 PM »
I've screenshotted the bass for posterity:



It is an odd bass, with that large pickguard that doesn't cover a whole lot of the treble side of the body. If anything it reminds me of a Framus design:



Whereas the small boxy chrome bridge cover, chrome pickups and side-inlays on the neck match this Kay 5922:




The bass in the video doesn't seem to have a lower cutaway at all, simply a rounding away of the wood. The clownburst finish says 'Japan' to me.



857
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Couple of Jack Casady questions!
« on: September 09, 2017, 01:11:56 PM »
It is nice of them to preserve a period feature like that!

I'm not getting anywhere with working with the sanding sealer, so I'm going to have to do a full strip to get down to the actual wood. The sanding sealer is annoying to try and work with, as it is thick, hard but sort of oddly brittle quality as well. I've stripped a few solid bodies, and this Fullerplast-style filler is a pig to work with.

I wish acetone would simply wash this stuff away, but it looks like I'm going to need a wee sander and lot of patience.

858
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Couple of Jack Casady questions!
« on: September 08, 2017, 01:14:50 AM »
Alright, rushed these photos on my phone this morning:

The good:



The not so good:



So, still a wee bit of work to do. The issues at the moment are:

1) That dark bit on the back! As a result of using a heat gun I had a wee bit of the back de-laminate, and a bubble formed accordingly. The standard procedure here is to cut a line in the bubble and press glue into the void, then clamp and let it dry. I've done this but I had to put down a few small holes to get the glue in. I've lost a couple of bits of finish here, so I've filled with a contrasting rosewood dust/glue filler. It will leave an obvious mark (all of an inch long), but I want it to be visible as it has a story behind it. Stupid as it is.

2) The back of the treble horn. Argh! There was no sanding sealer here for some reason. The black finish was in the pores of the wood. They deftly sanded through the sealer coat in the factory then sprayed the finish anyway. I'm building up the area here with superglue as a new sealer, and will have to level it out.

3) The treble horn is a bugger to work in, and the finish is thickest in here for some reason.

859
The Outpost Cafe / RIP Holger Czukay
« on: September 06, 2017, 04:26:21 AM »
According to the news this morning, Can bassist Holger Czukay has passed away.



RIP Holger.

860
The Outpost Cafe / Re: Lemmy's equipment
« on: September 06, 2017, 04:13:47 AM »
Lemmy must have had a few basses, right? I've found there to be a bit of ambiguity as to the basses he used, and when. There is a video of a tour around the Rickenbacker factory up on Youtube, and they show the carcass of one of Lemmy's old basses which was in for repair. From memory it looked like a very dead 4001S. Likewise a luthier posted photos of a rehab'd Lemmy bass or two on his website, including the half-dozen snapped strap button screws in the body. I've also seen it mentioned that Lemmy used at least one Rickenfaker, and that the 'Out to Lunch' bass might not be a real Rick.

Some things are consistent. From the early days in Hawkwind he was playing modified Rickenbackers, and his Hawkwind Rick was used in early Motorhead as well. This looks to be a 4000 or 4001S with a Thunderbird pickup in the neck and an odd control arrangement.

861
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Couple of Jack Casady questions!
« on: September 06, 2017, 03:04:06 AM »
It is starting to look really good. I will post up some photos when I get it done.

I've sped up my workflow slightly. I hit the black finish on the back of the bass with a heat gun, until I see the black start to bubble. I then get a safety razor blade under the finish, and scrape it off in sections. This leaves a brown, caramelized-looking finish under the black. The brown quickly sands off, revealing the wood below the sanding sealer. This sanding sealer can then be buffed up. I'm not going for a plastic shine on the back and sides, just a sort of satin glow that lets the wood pop without looking too synthetic. Scraping inside the cutaways has been a pain as the finish seems thicker in them, and it is a tight area to work in without damaging the finish I want to preserve on the top of the bass or sides of the neck. Lots of taping and re-taping.

I've had to drop-fill a few spots where that damage was, that I posted earlier on. In doing so, and leveling it out, the sanding sealer is getting perilously thin and I'm worried I will end up back down at the wood. I might wipe some lacquer onto this section or go for a wider superglue fill.

The only other issue is where and how do I stop scraping?! I've scored the finish at the end of each cutaway, where the binding ends as it meets the neck. It makes sense to stop the natural finish on the sides of the bass at the same point the binding finishes. While I've scored the finish to give me a line to work up to, I'm not yet entirely sure about how to 1) remove the black right up to this line and 2) alleviate the subtle stair-step transition from scraped natural finish back to the factory black finish. I'm wondering

Lastly, in scraping the treble-side cutaway I've discovered that Peerless used a darker wood inside the cutaway, starting just shy of the point of the cutaway. On the original Gibsons this area was built up from what appears to be binding material, but Peerless/Epiphone simply used a walnut-coloured wood that is presumably more flexible.

862
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Couple of Jack Casady questions!
« on: September 04, 2017, 02:34:03 PM »
Hey hey that looks cool! That is the sort of wood that is slowly appearing from under the black.

I'm leaving the top black, but stripping the back and sides, with good success so far.

Any idea how the controls are mapped out? Presumably the transformer isn't needed any more as the Bisonic will be high-Z.

863
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Couple of Jack Casady questions!
« on: September 03, 2017, 01:57:32 PM »
Just to throw endless fuel onto the fire, I've stripped the finish around this damage, right back to the clear undercoat. The black finish is stupidly thin around the sides in this area for some reason. 1500 grit wet 'n' dry, in wet mode, cut straight through it for some reason. There is a small spot of damage down to the bare wood where the damage I posted here occurred. I will drop fill this with superglue. But....

Hnnnng! The contrast of the black top of the bass with the natural wood of the sides is really making me think. I think it looks good, and is more 'Gibson' than having an all over black finish. I'm going to keep the sides natural on this bass, as no amount of repair work is working out for me. Do I take the back to natural as well, and leave the neck black?

864
Gibson Basses / Re: It's in my back yard and it's killing me
« on: August 30, 2017, 01:13:27 PM »
That thing looks killer.  8)

865
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Random Project
« on: August 29, 2017, 03:39:48 PM »
Like this stunner?  :mrgreen:


866
Other Bass Brands / Re: Please play "Guess That Bass for me
« on: August 29, 2017, 03:38:54 PM »
The plastic is on the minibuckers, which suggests it is new (or a case queen). The oversized plastic surrounds on the minibuckers are the same as seen elsewhere on new basses, such as those Les Paul shaped Gretsch basses.

867
Gibson Basses / Re: 20th Anniversary JCS [new pics]
« on: August 29, 2017, 01:45:59 PM »
Duly noted, and thanks for jogging my memory banks! The semi-hollow I owned before was a Shine. The same model is marketed as a Douglas in the US.

The Strat jack was installed at the opposite angle to where it is on a Strat normally:



The pickups were something I rolled myself. I bought a few empty MM-style humbucker shells and installed a P pickup in one, the guts of an Epiphone T-bird pickup in another. That was actually a pretty good bass, and is hopefully still out there somewhere.

Lesson learned, the Jack Casady will remain undrilled. I'm waiting for an area of lacquer re-spray to gas off on it at the moment.

868
Other Bass Brands / Re: Please play "Guess That Bass for me
« on: August 29, 2017, 01:36:48 PM »
Revelation market a broadly similar bass here in the UK:



To wit, a generic Chinese hollow/semi-hollow bass. The blank headstock might simply mean that it was a sample or prototype for an importer, who would then have their logo installed on the headstock. Beyond that there is some random hollow Chinese stuff on Ebay sometimes.

869
Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs / Re: Random Project
« on: August 29, 2017, 01:32:30 PM »
PJ with dual trussrods? Alembic?!

870
Rickenbacker Basses / Re: Not a fan entirely ...
« on: August 26, 2017, 02:13:28 PM »
Quote from: uwe on August 25, 2017, 07:58:41 AM
Through all his overt (and partially tongue-in-cheek) Ric-bashing, you can read between the lines that he has a soft spot for them, probably going back to his first one and the Roger Glover inspiration.

He has his facts backwards there. Glover had a P bass in 1969/70 that was sunburst but with a maple neck, which is presumably quite rare?

He then moved over to the Rick, in 1970 (?), and later had it modified:



He claimed he didn't get enough low end out of them, but that is entirely his own fault for using Marshall amps and cabinets.  :mrgreen:

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