1984 Mapleglo v63

[bottom4]

The early V's represent the closest thing to an original RM1999

I certainly agree Wintz! I paid $900 for nine over 30 years ago. That's approx. $2k in today's terms. I'm good with that...

[Kopfjaeger]

UPDATE

Not too much to report other than Lollar declaring my horseshoes mostly dead. FML!!! MA had Jason try to re-gauss them but they barely improved. Not sure how long this process takes but I know Tom Brantley put my nearly all dead 68 shoes on the charge over night twice and they came back nicely!! I know Lollar did not have them for more than a few hours so I'm not declaring them MACCA dead, yet. I do have a spare pair of early 60's shoes but the polarity is opposite of what my other shoes are. Not sure how that will affect tone. Anyway, it's far better than spending $700. on a pair of Lollar shoes. I'm sending Mark the spare set. keep your collective fingers crossed that they work well!!

Sepp

[stevebasshead]

UPDATE

Not too much to report other than Lollar declaring my horseshoes mostly dead. FML!!! MA had Jason try to re-gauss them but they barely improved. Not sure how long this process takes but I know Tom Brantley put my nearly all dead 68 shoes on the charge over night twice and they came back nicely!! I know Lollar did not have them for more than a few hours so I'm not declaring them MACCA dead, yet. I do have a spare pair of early 60's shoes but the polarity is opposite of what my other shoes are. Not sure how that will affect tone. Anyway, it's far better than spending $700. on a pair of Lollar shoes. I'm sending Mark the spare set. keep your collective fingers crossed that they work well!!

Sepp

Jason Lollar knows more about horseshoes than I do and I certainly won't disagree with him - but - you've nothing to lose by trying to remagnetise them yourself when you get them back. Try either this method viewtopic.php?f=33&t=347319 or using the hyperstrong magnets from old HDD's which I've also done (I think Johnallg suggested that somewhere on here). It should only take a few hours to recharge shoes but you've nothing to lose by leaving them on for weeks, maybe months assuming someone who knows the laws of physics doesn't tell us that "time makes no difference, they'll either take a charge or not"

If they really are dead you could always stick some small rare earth magnets underneath them to act as permanent keepers thereby maintaining the visual appearance of real shoes, and so long as there's no detrimental affect on tone you're good to go.

[teeder]

I do have a spare pair of early 60's shoes but the polarity is opposite of what my other shoes are

I believe that is what's "wrong" with my HS. Maybe our shoes are opposite and we could just swap them?

[Kopfjaeger]

Stephan,

I do have a few old hard drive magnets but I'm having a real hard time figuring out what side is + and what is -. The Stew Mac polarity tester goes bonkers as soon as I get near it. Any thoughts??

I think the negative side of the extra (source magnet) goes to the positive side of the horseshoe and opposite for the negative side of the shoe. I think it would be pretty straight forward if I had a stack of magnets the exact width of the shoe opening do charge both side at once.

Not sure what Jason used or how long he tried to charge them. Mark just stopped by to pick his brain so I'm guessing it was not that long. I know Brantley had my 68 shoes charging twice over night and they turned out real well. I think those were stone cold dead, IIRC.

Kevin, do you have a polarity tester?? The spare shoes that I sent to Mark were on my 65 and she sounded fine. I remember Mark Walker doing a video on the tone of his 68 and the effects of different polarity on the tone. All my other shoes are + side showing and negative side to the aluminum base plate.

Sepp

[stevebasshead]

Hi Joseph,

I tested polarity on my hdd magnets using an old compass starting a great distance away & bringing it closer until I got a reading then flipping the magnet and doing it again just to confirm. Nothing greatly clever but enough to convince me I had them the right way around.

You will want to put positive on the hdd magnet to negative on the horseshoe in order to charge them, I stacked a couple in the gap as you describe to do both sides at once.

I also recall that JH posted on here a while ago that the best way to store horseshoe's is to flip one over and then place the open ends together so that each acts as a keeper for the other.

And yes, once installed the North side is showing and the South is underneath, in the pickup cavity.

[jps]

...once installed the North side is showing and the South is underneath, in the pickup cavity.

Does this hold true for those South of the Equator?

[stevebasshead]

...once installed the North side is showing and the South is underneath, in the pickup cavity.

Does this hold true for those South of the Equator?

Yar...unless it's a leftie...then it all flips again...

[jps]

...once installed the North side is showing and the South is underneath, in the pickup cavity.

Does this hold true for those South of the Equator?

Yar...unless it's a leftie...then it all flips again...

Makes perfect sense!

[teeder]

Kevin, do you have a polarity tester??

No, I don't. The HS sounds great by itself, but is completely whacked when combined with the toaster. I've tried swapping wires around on the switch, but that didn't help. I'm down to polarity unless someone has another suggestion. Mark Walker checked out the HS (he built it) and says everything is fine. All I know is the bass is completely useless with both pu's combined.

[Kopfjaeger]

She's back home!! Mark did a masterful job of correcting the neck angle. According to the Dr. the neck angle was bad the day she left the factory! It was not caused by excessive string tension. The action must have been horrific before one of the prior owners ground down the bridge in an attempt to make the bass easier to play. Even with the bridge modification the action was still pretty bad. This is probably why the bass is is as pristine as it is.

I'm going to ejoy her for a while and wait for a nice day to take some close up outside fotos. Needless to say, Mark Arnquist saved this bass and made her playable!!

Sepp

[s4001]

Awesome!

[JakeK]

I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Great news, Sepp!

Couple o questions that I have been wanting to ask now that its playable:

1. How do you like your new toy?
2. Will you be gigging with the bass?
3. How does this instrument compare to Snow White and which one is the better bass? (Technically two questions here, I know...) this bass was done at the beginning of the run of V63 basses, and IIRC, Snow White was closer towards the end of the run.

[Kopfjaeger]

Jake,

Hmm, interesting array of questions. I owned Snow White so long ago so I'm not sure I can really compare the two. Snow White was very modified. She had a newer toaster in it and I think a treble pup wound by Sergio Silva. The neck was slimmed as well. Snow White's neck was moving, no doubt about it. The finish cracks at the neck joint/body wings is evidence of that. I know Dale Fortune did a bit of stabilizing but it was not nearly as inclusive as mark Arnquist's repair to this v63.

The neck on this v63 is quite chunky. it;s a solid "C" profile. I'm not a huge fan of the neck on this bass. it's not uncomfortable to play by any mans but it is not my favorite, not even close. Action wise, I can get the strings to lay on the fretboard, if I wanted to. I'm running Kalium .102's on her. I could have gone with .106's with no issues. She sounds great and she plays very well. Will I gig her?? Maybe. i need to figure out what she does best. I'm still madly in love with my 72 4001 so this bass is going to have to be spectacular to have me put the 72 down for a few songs. I'm thinking maybe for the Beatles tracks like Day Tripper and Come together. Dial up the neck a bit more or tone the treble down. I need to toy around with her a bit more.

Not sure how long this instrument will stay with me. I'm on the first run list for a Walnut S bass from PotR and I have a pair of 60's spec Classic Amplification pups waiting for that bass as well as a 60's spec harness from Dane just waiting to go in.

Tone wise I remember Snow White being very aggressive sounding. I have one You Tube of her where I did Edelweiss with her. I'll have to compare the two. In my opinion, this v63 sounds a bit more mellow, but I've not played around with her enough to rule out how aggressive she can be.

One this is for sure, mark saved this bass and he was able to right what RIC did wrong when they made her.

Sepp

[Kopfjaeger]

As promised, fotos!!

A little bit of birdseye figuring.

A shot of the very rare original magnetic horsie pup for the very small number of first run v63's