The Last Bass Outpost

I was in NZ a few years ago with the old man, and saw a mozzie being restored, when he sent me the pictures of these ones recently I assumed it was the same one, but apparently its a different one, so soon there will be 2

cheers guys,
when I looked closely at the nut under the string  there is a chip of plastic missing, a bit of a file has improved things a bit, so I'm confident a new nut  will do the trick

what is the opto-grab for?

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

Hi all, been lurking here for a while admiring the work and trying to get up the impetus to post my question...
  I work at a special needs unit for Autistic kids, and part of my work entails coaching several groups of kids playing together a la "school of Rock". I am a bass player primarily, but can play enough drums, guitar and keyboards to support them all as they learn.
 As I teach them I am perpetually having to swap back and forward between Bass and guitar which is a bit of a nause, and with my kids and their attention spans/patience levels can be very distracting for them.
 In an Ideal world I would buy myself a nice twin neck and all would be good, but on my salary/budget that is a pipe-dream.
my question is this....
 given that on thru neck basses the sides of the body are glued on, is there any reason why I cant buy myself a second hand encore p-bass and strat (or whatever) cut the top off one and the bottom of the other and glue/dowel/plate/bolt the two together to make a cheap and cheerful twin?
 I have stripped and resprayed basses before, and done enough joinery, rewiring  and bodywork to be confident I can do the job, I just want to know if there is any fundamental reason that it won't work.
obviously it's not ideal but it's the only work around I can figure given my situation.
cheers
Red