The Last Bass Outpost

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 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:





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:

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.

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

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:



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.

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.



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!

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.



check out those nasty frets all gooked up with someone else's 30 year old dried up sweat. eeeeeeeeewwww!



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?

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

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.

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.



I removed the wire harness from the pickguard, and set it aside. Dig that crazy shield(?) wiring!





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..

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:



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...

I recently aquired a used and abused Epiphone ET-280 bass.



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.



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.