Just joined recently, it's pretty cool here. Thought I'd post pics of the poor, abused Explorer I rescued a while back. In other words, stupidly bid on and unluckily won. I wish I could say I was drunk at the time. I guess I have a soft spot for the cast off victims of man's cruelty, like the 3 legged stray cat I took in ..and this bass. I know they both are doing the best they can, the cat gets around OK considering and he seems very happy to have a home. Similarly, the bass sounds great when played between the 3rd and 7th frets, but isn't usable otherwise.
Yes. it's been converted to a 12 string. Not by me. I think it might have worked out if the guy hadn't decided to string it up with guitar strings and tune them to the pitch they would be on a 25" scale guitar, and leave it like that. Got tension? The fretboard looks to have started coming off near the neck pickup, and been screwed back down into place. When I got it, I couldn't even tune the thing in less than half an hour; there was no sense string-tuner arrangement, I had to physically trace the course of each string to find the proper tuner to adjust. I think his criteria there was just to get the guitar strings to reach the tuners.
I cannot get the bow out of the neck, the truss rod works but I have turned it as far as it wants to go, and being but an amateur don't want to push my luck. With no strings, I can adjust it so it it seems fine, but the neck has the strength of a wet noodle and doesn't even like being a 4 string.
I don't really consider this a "project" at the moment as I have no time or money to invest in it. I know a luthier who wants to see it, who can fix it if anybody can. I also know that if that doesn't work out, my brother has converted set neck basses into neck-through 8 strings before with Carvin necks, and that might be the most affordable route as I have the hardware already, but I'd lose the 32" scale which I like.
So, just thought I'd post possibly my dumbest bass purchase, maybe someday it will be functional (ugly I'm OK with) but figured the pic would be good for a laugh (or tear) or two.
