The Last Bass Outpost

Well it's been a while since the start of my new life, so I thought of sharing some stuff about it with you people.

You all know what's going on the south of Europe, so I'll just say I was a victim of it, I was without a job for over 2 years, helping my wife with her design stuff etc. Barely enough money to live, I had to cut all luxury stuff like new strings, but not coffee. Coffee is life dammit. After a while, I had the feeling that nothing is going better, so I had to take a decision, and that's what I did. I had started some German lessons with my wife "just for fun" some time ago, those help a bit to take the right decision of course...

I arrived at the south of the German empire on November of 2012. Got a small room in Nuremberg and started looking for a job, any job, like crazy. I guess I was a bit unlucky cause things weren't looking bright, but just some days before I got my return ticket got a call for an interview. Gone there, they liked me, they laughed with my crappy German and we shake hands. Got a "test" contract for one year ( Uwe: befristet ist das richtige wort, oder? ) with the promise to make it a normal contract after it expires. And that is what happened last month, got my unlimited contract baby, hell yeah!

Life in Germany is not so bad after all, I kinda like it, already got a lot of friends that have help me with almost everything, especially with the paperwork. Did I say paperwork? I meant PAPERWORK. Those guys really love doing paperwork, no joke. They drink a lot, but you already know that... "you've got the sun, we have alcohol" their words, not mine...

So, to cut it short, after some time I finally find a house in reasonable price (believe me, that's hard) in Erlangen, a small city full of universities and hospitals and I'm happier than ever. I may post some pics later... Things look bright after a big period of darkness! And hey, I think its time to buy new strings, woohoo!

Poor Henry!

"I need to get? my bassists one of those!"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20755291

We all know how hard is to adjust the damn thing, especially if you are a newbie on the gibson way of doing things. You can tilt the 2 big screws to get action to something acceptable, you can even do weird things like changing the order of saddles and tilting more the bridge (that helped me alittle bit) if you are desperate. But if you want REALLY low action, you must start filing the saddles. That could work if you adjust em for a type/thickness of strings, but if you start trying other strings, there could be fretbuzzynes again. Not cool. At all.

The following are my thoughts on solving this problem, my drawings are kinda crude, so feel free to ask if you don't get something. These are the measurements I took on a saddle, everything is on mm.



First thing I thought was cutting the upper part of the saddle and putting height adjusting screws between the upper and the lower part. I like that approach much at start, but then I thought that there's nothing except string pressure that holds that little upper piece where it suppose to be. In other words, break a string, lose the damn thing. Neeext!



Then I thought of stealing Leo, that is putting height adjusting screws thru the complete length of the saddle. I'm not so sure about that, because it removes alot of metal and creates weak points. Maybe with the use of good quality metal this wouldn't be a problem, but I'm not an engineer, so I can't tell for sure.



And then I thought about taking advantage of something else. Why not putting the height adjustm,ent screws to the "sides" of the saddles? This one seems more stable than no2, and also we can make the "sides" of the saddles just a little wider (0.5mm or maybe 1mm per side, I checked it, theres some room) to add some material there for strength. Check what I mean.



I am aware that the last 2 ideas maybe interfere with the angle of the intonation screw, especially if we start adjusting the saddle more to the back of the bridge (away from pickups). If we use a thinner intonation screw (Epiphone uses a 4mm one) that could be less of a problem.

Any thoughts?

Still alive and kicking this year in a festival in Greece, dunno how he does it, but he does.
Is this Mike Watt with a pee pup and no controls???