The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Gibson Basses => Topic started by: slotrod65 on October 08, 2010, 07:27:11 PM
-
I recently aquired a used and abused Epiphone ET-280 bass.
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/MyET28001.jpg)
This was Epiphone's early 70's, Japanese produced, bottom of the line bass. Single coil PUPs, cheapo thin body, and like it's guitar cousin the ET-270, available in any color you like as long as it is Cherry-burst.
Mine has seen it fair share of abuse. Unlike many vintage instruments, there is almost no fretwear, or finish wear on the body. Instead, it came with typical teenager bonks and goofs, including a broken nut, several edge chips/digs, a loose pickup, a mismatched string assortment, and a slightly bent tuner. It was pretty grubby too, having probably spent some time in a basement or attic.
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/MyET28002.jpg)
The good news? Everything is there, including the original knobs and the bridge cover which was missing from all but one of the other ET-280s I look at.
Someone also had this apart at some point, as the phillips-head screws holding the pickup covers, the bridge and the bridge cover were replaced with not-quite fitting flathead screws.
-
The electronics worked, but they were scratchy and the bridge pickup had very low output. Examination showed that the pickup was loose in its cover, and the poles were not sticking through as they should. I decided to give this baby the full works, so it was down to the basement for a full disassembly and cleaning:
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/003-3.jpg)
After the strings, the pickup cover came off. Boy, them are some odd pickups: plastic bobbins wound with the coil, inside was a sheet metal u-shaped piece with the poles screwed in. On the bottom were two magnets. Not glued, or attached in any way...
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/005-2.jpg)
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/008-2.jpg)
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/014.jpg)
-
I soon found out why the pickups were loose in their covers. Underneath was ancient foam from 1972. The covers were screwed down, pressing the pickups against the foam, which is now shot. Both pickups ohm out to 9.7K, so at least they match.
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/015-4.jpg)
I removed the wire harness from the pickguard, and set it aside. Dig that crazy shield(?) wiring!
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/018-1.jpg)
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/025-1.jpg)
At this point, I disassembled and cleaned everything: the body, the bridge, the tuners. The chrome parts (pickup covers, bridge cover, bridge, tuners) were all polished to rid them of years of gunk and some pitting. The pickguard is all scratched up, so it was cleaned, and then polished with plastic polish. It will never be great, but it looks a LOT better..
-
Then everything was reassembled and the truss rod was adjusted. Tomorrow I will gice the pots a squirt of cleaner, and all solder joints will be checked and redone afresh if cracked or oxidized. I am not going to make a nut for this, so it is now off to my local shop...
My goal is to get this puppy working, and have some fun with it. The body is super thin, so I cannot ever imagine that it will deliver massive sound, but it could turn out to have some useful quirks.
-
Hey welcome aboard! Great thread taking us through getting your new bass up to speed. I hope you end up feeling at home here. We love our Gibsons and Epis!
-
Well, it was the Epiphone bass that killed the brand, but you'll find that I fly the Epi freak flag pretty high. Right, Dave? :mrgreen:
I've got the distant cousin, the ET-288M.
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/gweimer/basses/12-23-2006-03.jpg)
And the '63 Embassy.
(http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b170/gweimer/basses/Photo09121227.jpg)
My son has my EB-1 RI, which isn't all that great. The fretless I had before was really nice.
You're in good company here!
-
Cool old bass!
Welcome Here ;D
-
The body is super thin, so I cannot ever imagine that it will deliver massive sound, but it could turn out to have some useful quirks.
Both my SG Bass and Squier Vista Musicmaster have very thin bodies and can deliver the thunder soundwise, so if the PUPpies are any good you could be surprised ;D
My son has my EB-1 RI, which isn't all that great.
I had one and sold it off within a year. It sucks, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the action below 3mm and the stock PUP sucks........ All 'n all it's a cheap piece of doo-doo ...... :sad:
-
I was wondering.... would it be worthwhile to have the magnets re-energized? Would that help at all? Or could I mess them up? I know a guy who zaps magnets for slot cars, and is very experienced doing it.
Phred
-
Welcome aboard!!
-
You could consider replacing the magnets with some of a similar size, then that would mean you could return to the originals without having a no-return route...
Here is a crazy thought - anyone out there ever played with those viscious little magnets you find inside failed hard-drives - there's a pair in every one and they stack quite well - you also get the sideline of really quite unusual drink-coasters...
Welcome to the RatCave... ;D
-
Welcome to the RatCave... ;D
LOL! Nice.
-
Really interesting to see the inner workings of a bass that I have never heard of. Thanks for showing and welcome.
-
Thanks for the warm welcom guys! Here is the update from tonight's session with this poor abused bass:
Since I am doing a full clean-and-restore, I picked up some 0000 steel wool at the hardware store today. Then, I taped off the neck to keep the lil' metal bits sort of coralled, and was I ready to clean the fretboard and polish the frets. Note that in the below photo the neck is still on the bass, it is just taped and masked up like I am ready to perform surgery.
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/074.jpg)
check out those nasty frets all gooked up with someone else's 30 year old dried up sweat. eeeeeeeeewwww!
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/075.jpg)
I used the steel wool and a fingernail to get into the edges where the fret meets the board. That is where the all of the gook was. Then I polished the frets and the board crosswise, followed by polishing the length of the neck. This produced shiny, smooth frets and a lustrous fretboard. Who would have known that was under there?
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/077.jpg)
-
Cleanup was easy, as I just waved a magnetized screwdriver around and picked up all of the steel wool fuzz. Finally I took some 2" wide masking tape and applied it to the fretboard for a second just to get any teeny bits of anything left behind.
After that, I set to work on the wiring harness. My initial tests revealed scratchy pots, and a crackling coming from the jack. I heated up the soldering iron, and resoldered the joints to the jack. Once everything was cool, I sprayed out both pots and cleaned the jack with "TV lube". After everything dried, I reassembled the bass. During this process, I replaced all of the crappy flat head screws with the proper size phillips head screws: pickup cover screws, bridge screws, and bridge cover screws.
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/080.jpg)
The bass looks pretty darned good considering how it started out. It is clean and shiny, with just enough real, natural wear and pitting to give it some mojo. No fake relic here!
-
If the nut weren't bad, I would string her up and be playing right now. But, well... here is why that is not happening:
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Epiphone%20ET-280/086.jpg)
Tomorrow I will pick up some Lemon Oil for the neck, and I have an appointment to drop her off on Tuesday for a new nut.
I will post more then.
-
I'm with you SR65. I will have a go at a lot of things on my basses but nuts? nah.....! :)
-
The reason why alot of vintage basses have shitty tone is because the magnets used on the pickups are weak, I believe those in your bass are a kind of weak ceramic rubber magnet?
If you could find some narrow bar alnico 5 magnets that would fit on the side of the steel thingy that the four polepieces are screwed, that would improve dramatically the tone I think. Just remember to place them like a p-90 pickup, same poles (like north on the bridge, south on the neck) facing the steel thingy. Glue them there and test it.
You could consider replacing the magnets with some of a similar size, then that would mean you could return to the originals without having a no-return route...
Here is a crazy thought - anyone out there ever played with those viscious little magnets you find inside failed hard-drives - there's a pair in every one and they stack quite well - you also get the sideline of really quite unusual drink-coasters...
Welcome to the RatCave... ;D
Those magnets Kenny are neodymium, they have a VERY strong pull on the strings. I have a large collection of those due to my job.......
-
Yeah, I am thinking that these magnets are pretty weak. They are not rubbery, but are sort of a dark grey pot-metal, with a hole in the center. I thnk I saw a stack of them at Radio Shack!
Once the bass has the new nut, I will see how she sounds and go from there.
If the pickups bite, the first thing I will try is re-magnetizing, then I will try swapping in substitute magnets.
Phredster
-
Welcome aboard. I find this fascinating.
-
Well, I just fed the fretboard with woodwind bore oil. I let it sit a minute then buffed it off with an old T-shirt. I kept buffing until I was sure no surface oil was left. Boy, the fretboard is lustrous!
I know have several hours of cleaning, polishing, waxing, and oiling into this bass. It never had it so good! Despite the nicks, scratches, bonks and corrosion, the bass really does look great.
Tomorrow I take it in for a new nut, then she should be good to go.
-
I have been reseraching this bass on the 'net, and have found that the company that became Aria produced these for Epiphone. In fact, Aria made their own sunburst finished version, with a more Fender headstock:
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Ariasunburst301-1.jpg)
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Ariasunburst303.jpg)
I also found this neato one pickup, bottom of the line version marketed under the "Tempo" brand. The distinctive pickup covers, knobs, and bridge hardware marks this one as kin to the ET280 and the Aria:
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Tempo01.jpg)
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu49/slotrod65/Tempo03.jpg)
-
So... I had the new nut put on the bass. I was not at all happy with the "setup" job that they "threw in." The whole thing was under $40, so I am OK.
The truss rod still needed adjustment, so I did that... the bridge adjustment was not right, so the intonation was waaay off. Fixed that.
I went upstairs and plugged her in....
nothing on the treble pickup. no sound at all.
very quiet sound on the bass pickup.
I am not sure what is wrong, as I did test the pickups before assembly.
Any thoughts?
-
I'm pretty sure that the electronics are about as cheap as they came back then. Maybe the pots?
-
try the pups "hot wired" without pots with alligator clips. Maybe you can isolate the problem. lots of old wires that are probably very brittle.....
-
Those magnets Kenny are neodymium, they have a VERY strong pull on the strings. I have a large collection of those due to my job.......
I strip a lot of HDD's that come out of faulty DVR's...
Anyone ever tried them on a pup...?
... During this process, I replaced all of the crappy flat head screws with the proper size phillips head screws: pickup cover screws, bridge screws, and bridge cover screws.
Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with a good screw, or even several... ;D
-
wow that brings back memories,
my first bass, that I taught myself tp play on, way back in the 80's was a red ET-280 exactly like yours.
it sounded like crap, had a neck like a sausage, and was made of some kind of pine/concrete hybrid.
but it stuck with me, as my spare when I was gigging, and as a loaner once I started teaching friends and family how to play, and my first attempt at customisation was stripping the body back to bare wood and varnishing it.
Now I am teaching a bit at the school where I work it came back out of the loft again. while I was trying to set it up for a lefty to use I made a revelation. as stock the bridge was in the wrong place! by dropping it back 2 inches it stopped it sounding like a rubber band ,
I also took a plane to the neck and reprofiled it and suddenly it was a dream to play
unfortunately the only surviving pickup stopped hearing the A string, and when I stripped it down to find out why ,the electrics disintegrated in my hands. the plastic round the wires literally turned to dust.
as the weight is also an issue(I cycle to work with guitar and bass on my back) my plan is to replace all the hardware, chop most of the body off and make myself a very original 5 string travel bass.
so further to that, Slotrod if you want any of the original parts I have gutted from it, they're yours for the price of P&P. There's a single pickup (plus cover), bridge (no cover unfortunately), machine heads, scratch plate and pots/knobs. the nut unfortunately is not original, in fact it is a repurposed guitar nut that was on it when I inherited.
cheers
Red
-
Those basses are ugly in an endearing way! Everyone should adopt one.
-
So true. Who doesn't like that almost dead boing-ey "vintage" sound? :D
-
almost dead boing-ey "vintage" sound? :D
that was my point, move the bridge back 2 inches and it sounds like a real bass
-
Nice thread!! :popcorn:
-
So... I had the new nut put on the bass. I was not at all happy with the "setup" job that they "threw in." The whole thing was under $40, so I am OK.
The truss rod still needed adjustment, so I did that... the bridge adjustment was not right, so the intonation was waaay off. Fixed that.
I went upstairs and plugged her in....
nothing on the treble pickup. no sound at all.
very quiet sound on the bass pickup.
I am not sure what is wrong, as I did test the pickups before assembly.
Any thoughts?
It´s true that the electronics are not the best, but the pickups sound fine when they work.
I´ve got the early Aria Diamond model 1820, which is the same instrument as the ET-280 with different
headstock. I was 16 years old (back in 1993) when I tried to upgrade it by changing the jack, pots and wires.
But the PUP´s was very weak after the ´mod´and as with yours one of them stopped working.
A while ago I picked it up again, and it was now obvious to me that my ´mod´had killed it.
The magnetic wire was destroyed by my soldering iron back then, and the non-working PUP was really falling apart and could not be saved. I re-wound the thin sounding neck PUP with .058 wire, really hot, and constructed a new bridge PUP , equally hot but on a taller bobbin to give it some treble response as well.
I completely shielded the cavities as well.
It´s not a high end instrument, and not really that easy to play - but it sounds like bass guitar sounds like
on good sixties pop recordings - nice and smooth round sound. Warm, but not muddy on a good tube amp.
I like it and was glad I gave it a second chance, it blends better than I thought even on recordings with a full band.
Not something I´d marry, but still a nice week-end lover....
-
I've recently picked up an ET-280 bass and something to note about these basses are the pickups and how they work.
The biggest problem with them is the two magnet system. Both magnets need to be facing the same polarity, which means the magnets push against each other, so over time the glue can't hold the magnets and they shoot apart, making the pickups sound either wonky, or if the one magnet flips where they apparently stick together you get half the pickup out of phase with the other half, meaning weak if any output.
What you need to do is get both magnets facing 'north' lets say, which means they will want to push away from each other, but hold them together and glue/epoxy them to the pickup bobbin, then tie them up with rubber bands or string and let the glue dry as long as you can. After that's all said and done, and assuming the winds on both pickups are still good you should have serious output. Mine are super hot, hotter than my Precision bass with a Quarter Pounder pickup.
Also note that in order for both pickups to be Humbucking when used together you need one pickup going North and the other going South magnetically, so test them before you glue the magnets back on.
I'm super satisfied with my ET-280 and I regularly use it live and in the studio. Short scale just has that incredible rich low end that can't be beat.
Cheers,
-
Short scale just has that incredible rich low end that can't be beat.
You´ll love it here!
-
Reanimating a zombie thread for first post.
Was in my local independent mom and pop music store today to make a payment on a Hohner SE 35 six string semi acoustic I spotted a few days ago and put a deposit on.
Unusually the shop had no customers, usually always busy, and the owner was playing an Epiphone ET-280, the phone went and whilst he answered it Isat and played it and really liked it.
Turned out he'd sold it fifteen years ago to a customer who brought it back to trade five years later, it went to someone else who's brought it back ten years later for same.
That's how the shop works, no online presence, stuff comes back down the line and kind of stays in the family of long term customers, I've been using the place since 1983
and it had already been open ten years at that point.
Instead of making a payment on the Hohner I put a deposit down on the Epiphone and the owner happily agreed to let me pay up both at same time.
I have a really good relationship with the guy who does all the inhouse repair/customisation work, we've done eleven six strings together over the last two years or so
adding pups from Lindy Fralin, Jason Lollar, Sanford Magnetics, The Creamery, DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan, full rewires etc. They'd taken a well played bass and spent a lot
of time on it cleaning it up to as good as it could possibly get given its age, a quirk is that a previous owner has removed the neck single coil pup and replaced it with a
set of Precision style splits meaning it has three distinct sounds. This was one of the things which spurred me into an impulse buy, the second this week and it's only Wednesday! (Thursday, doh!)
It'll be a while before I get it as paying that and the Hohner up simultaneously but I'll get some photos of it up when time permits. I was playing an old Encore Precision copy
which an ex stole from under her brothers bed at the parents house, they'd both long left and the brother was teaching music and owned a couple of Status basses
and higher end classical acoustics so she figured he wouldn't miss the entry level Encore, over fifteen years after we split it's still here. I have a taste for things like the Epi though and about a year ago sourced a Westbury Track 2 bass online and bought that, still has the stock DiMarzios on it etc, this relegated the Encore to sitting in a softcase.
Really enjoyed reading this thread, about as informative as I could hope to find re the ET-280, appreciated.
-
Willkommen, but perhaps you should get out during the day a bit more?
(http://66.media.tumblr.com/30630ba77881e377e518dc4c83123747/tumblr_ochtisYZ0r1ut1d6co1_500.gif)
The ET-280 is a model in dearth of some affirmative action here. :mrgreen:
It doth have indie/shoegaze appeal though.
-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
:mrgreen:
-
I have fixed up/set up/ repaired/ refinished every instrument I own during the last 4-5 years. Except the 280! Maybe now it's time...
No matter how good I set it up it still feels somewhat... spongy? It does have that 'steel reinforced neck' that makes it a tad neck heavy, but that really does not make it stiff enough. So it's cool enough, sounds decent - but still a 'one song bass'
-
As I said it was the tweak a previous owner had done which sold me, the addition of the Precision pups where the neck single coil had been, the middle toggle position was my own personal favourite as it was quite different from the sound of either pup on its own.
Good luck with showing your 280 a bit of love.