Alan Z's 1985 4003

alanz · Post by **alanz** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:04 pm

I've only just brought it home; I picked it up from Paul W at NAMM today so I can't really give you a review of it yet; I'll try to get my amp out and hook it up later tonight.

When I disassembled the bass after I bought it last summer, the original bridge reminded me of a recycled pie plate. It had no mass to it; it "tinked" instead of "clunked" when I accidentally dropped it on the garage floor and in general it did not impress me. Plus, the Hipshot design struck me as overall better; certainly from an adjustment standpoint it is superior. And it has a real heft to it, too.

There is a fine tuning yet to be done on this bass; I need to locate the Pickguardian bridge pick up surround I bought and put it on, thereby eliminating the stock chrome surround and cover.

alanz · Post by **alanz** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:09 pm

Man, those JPEGS are artifacty; I'll post some better photos on my photo server tomorrow...

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:58 pm

Hey, congrats, Alan!

The bass is lookin' good! And what a great way to pick it up, from the Curmudgeon himself, at NAMM!

My 330 is next, and I can barely contain myself, LOL!

alanz · Post by **alanz** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:05 pm

Actually picking it up at NAMM has got to be one of the absolute WORST ways to get it back, but we managed to get it out with almost no hassle (almost).

ozover50 · Post by **ozover50** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 3:16 am

Looks really cool, Alan. Love the headstock - beautifully understated. Congratulations, mate!!

alanz · Post by **alanz** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:41 am

http://www.pbase.com/alanz01/rick_family

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:31 pm

I had no time to really set the bass up once it was finished in order to photograph it, so I broke one of my own hard rules...

The pics in Alan's link above are pretty good. The color is a sort of charcoal brown and the grain has a real nice depth.

Yer next, Melissa!

(I have to take CPR training tomorrow, so I will not be back in action until Tuesday.)

melibreits · Post by **melibreits** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:03 pm

Hey, glad you're back, Paul!

Did you have fun at NAMM?

bigbajo60 · Post by **bigbajo60** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:03 am

Hmmmmm...

...chocolaty!

alanz · Post by **alanz** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:00 pm

The blasphemy is complete; I removed the chrome stuff and added the black knurled knobs tonight. I should have repolished it prior to the photos I suppose but I was just happy to fix it and finish it.

With the chrome gone the true intent of the design is revealed; black trim and bronze finish with a 2 mm wide natural maple halo around the edge of the body. That was Paul's suggestion; it looks pretty damn cool in person.

Here is a really compressed 72 dpi JPEG; a better one is at the link above.

Paul, I fixed all the issues. The first was as we suspected; a pot body contacting a jack tang, the second was a ground loop in the pseudo-Faraday cage (the copper lined cavity). I also removed one lock washer per jack to give just a bit more room.