The Last Bass Outpost

OK so I found a music store reasonably close to me (Hudson WI, 20-30 min. from home) I dropped this thing off in September, with the list of what had gone wrong with it. I just got a call Friday that it was done, so I picked it up today. I hadn't seen it for months (or played it for ...uh, a lot longer than that)


It sounds good, not as "snarly" as I remember the original pup (of the two it came with in, uh, 2012 one worked, and the other one basically fell apart when I took it out, I had it rewound, but when they did it, there was one single strand of thin wire inside the insulation... not enough to wire it back in. And the other one stopped working in the mean time) Anyway the electronics work fine now, it doesn't have "quiet strings" (output is even across all 4) The action is higher than when I got it, but way less than the last time I had it together. THe store guy told me they took out the shims in the neck pocket, but the truss rod is frozen. THey were gonna make a new nut for it, since I ruined the one it came with (and 2 or 3 of the blank ones I bought). Hee hee it now looks like THIS

There was one string guide already, and they made another one out of a dime! IT's attatched in the hole from the truss rod cover, so they didn't drill any new holes (not that it matters to me) and they told me they were only charging me 10c for the parts...
So I have another finished bass. Maybe I can take all of them and trade 'em for something...

I got my cleaning stuff out, and got all the gunk off the body, it was kind of gross. I polished it up, there's no scratches or anything on here, it looks great!


I also decided to take the pickups out, mostly because I was one of those kids who took EVERYTHING apart

Maybe everyone but me already knew this, but there was foam on the bottom of the pups, for height. I tried seeing how the foam was attatched, and pulled the magnets right off the bottom of the pup 

I glued them back on, but kept the foam pieces for a different set of pups.

I glued the (ceramic, not that it matters) magnets back on. Oops. Anyway, my other F style bass has a set of "EMG Select" pickups and I really like the way it sounds. I know, they're cheap imported copies of EMG's, mostly found on Korean stuff from the 80's, but I like they way they sound, so sue me. I had been looking for more, in case I screwed up the ones I had. I found a set of them, for the princely sum of $1.00, which should tell me what everyone else thinks of them... Anyway they had been clear coated at some point, half of that was worn off, and grunge everywhere. I tried cleaning them, but it didn't help much. Today I got out some 2000-grit sandpaper and just wet sanded them. They cleaned up just fine, and the "Scratch-X" I used on the body, polished them up nice.

I have a set of pots and an output jack on the way, so when those arrive, I will put it all back together and it should be pretty nice. I mean, for the $ it cost, I won't have any complaints whatsoever!

So I snuck away from all the festivities yesterday, to futz with the Austin. I got the guard off of it, I don't know why I'm still kinda weirded out that nothing is attatched to the guard...

But anyway, it APPEARS to be made of wood. I suppose there could be plywood under all the buffing compound in there, but I'm not worried about that

So 30 seconds after getting into it, I realized I wasn't getting any sound, because the ground wire was broken off the back of the pot...\

So my Dad has been retired for a couple years (good for him, 34 years in the Army, he deserves some time off!) Anyway lately his thing has been going to yard/garage/barn sales. He called me the other day to tell me he found a guitar, did I want it? Sure, why not? How much? "$65, but maybe I can get them down a little." So even if it's total trash, I can leave it out so my kids don't wreck my "good" stuff (ha, my $100 guitars aren't valuable to anyone but me) I kind of forgot about it, Kid #4 has been kicking our butts, not much time for playing, let alone building stuff. So I come home from work last night to this:

It's an "Austin" brand P copy, with embroidered gig bag, with a tuner/metronome, a bunch of tools (Allen keys, etc) a bass instruction book with extra sheet music and a couple CD's, and an amp! Jeez... Dad says he paid $50 for it all, the seller says "It doesn't work". Most of the screws are missing from the pick guard, but the wiring seems to be all there underneath. The bass itself seems to be a thin-ish body, the neck is HUGE, but feels really nice (the shape and either it was sanded down, or just has a really nice feeling matte finish), and was still (mostly) in tune despite being in the back of my Dad's truck for the last week, and then in my garage most of yesterday...

So if the little one gives me enough time, I bet I could get this to work...

I'm Super late to this party, but...Congrats on the new place, and thank you for posting the pictures! I'd like to see more of the area, too. The one place I've been outside of the USA was Scotland, and it was such an amazing trip I vowed I'd be back ASAP. Well, life intervened and it's been nearly 20 years now...
So yeah, show us more of your neighborhood!
We have a couple thousand squirrels in our yard, want me to box up this guy

and a few dozen of his friends and send you a house warming present? 

Why does it have 3 strings? I mean, besides that it's the Octo Bass, and can have as many damn strings it wants 
(I can't watch the video here, if it says on that)
Can anyone play it there, or is it something no-one can touch, like a normal museum? I remember seeing a bunch of instruments at the Boston MFA when I was there, a million years ago (including a 6-string bass, I joked that it was for the show-off in the orchestra who slapped, but none of the people I was with got it)

You couldn't give those things away on German flea markets in the 70ies. My, times have changed. Talk about reappreciation!!!

I often wondered what the "locals" thought of these (Hofners in general) since nobody knew anything about the one I had over here.