Recent Acquisition (New-To-Me Fretless Content)

[sloop_john_b]

Excellent buy Joshua. I stared at it for a good 10 minutes (been wanting to play some fretless lately), but the P-Bass route scared me away. How bad is it really?

As for strings, have you tried the Thomastik Jazz Flats yet?

[cassius987]

Excellent buy Joshua. I stared at it for a good 10 minutes (been wanting to play some fretless lately), but the P-Bass route scared me away. How bad is it really?

I haven't bothered to look yet, but eventually I will whenever I take the guard off to get it replaced with something slightly different. It's been patched apparently but not refinished, and regardless the bass sounds and plays excellently.

As for strings, have you tried the Thomastik Jazz Flats yet?

Yes, and my *only* major gripe with them is that the A and E strings are noticeably lower in tension than the D and G strings (by about 5-6 lbs). I am a bit obsessive when it comes to balanced string tension, probably more than most, but I can really tell the difference when I get something perfectly balanced strung up. GHS Precision Flats may be an option, they offer them in 45-60-80-105 single string gauges which is a proven recipe with most conventional strings.


By the way, anyone else who gets a bass with sharpie marker on the binding: I took it off in under a minute with this proprietary compound called "Goof Off" and it looks as good as new.

[cassius987]

Has anyone tried Pyramid BFL40s? The gauges seem very, very well balanced...

[cassius987]

Well, here's a pic just to keep people engaged as time goes by...



Notice where there used to be a P Bass rout. It was patched with wood filler, except for a small amount contiguous with the RIC neck pickup rout. For some reason it looks like someone used a Forstner bit on the wood filler as if to undo the patch, then stopped. A small amount of bare wood was factory, as it has a clear coat, and I left it exposed. The other bare areas were made bare by various owners and I thought it best to seal them even though they weren't going to be seen. I didn't want moisture flux to be an issue.

You may notice a couple of things about the finish matching in the "under the hood" regions... My wife, who took care of putting a color blend on the visible surfaces of the instrument where there were dings and scratches, left me to do my own thing with the stuff that would not be visible later. I had a couple of goals: firstly, to seal any bare wood, and secondly, to cover the carbon paint that was applied in the harness cavity so the jacks would not be resting precariously next to the stuff. I tried to match the color with the first part but failed to really nail it the way Megan did, getting things a bit too yellow for my taste, but no big. I could re-do it but I'd have to buy more GM White, and frankly since it's not going to be visible I don't care that much. With the harness cavity I just used straight GM White--anything as long as it covered up that carbon paint resting near the jacks, and I went ahead and did the whole "floor" but not the "walls" of the cavity.

The wiring harness was wired correctly, technically speaking, but very sloppily, with ceramic caps and polymer-coated wires smaller than 22 AWG that had lots of burns and loose connections. Using the perennial resource Joey's Bass Notes, I wired up the three original pots (2x volume, 1x tone) and a 500K push-pull from RIC, mimicking the current 4003 wiring. I did not have a 0.0047 uF cap, though, so I had to use a 0.01 uF cap--it was the smallest value I had (wonder how this will sound?). All caps are Sprague Orange Drop. Pics later. I also used "vintage" cloth wire, 22 AWG, with black and white cloth insulation from basspartsresource.com. The original wire was plastic-insulated and seemed to clickety-clack around in the cavity whenever I played the bass hard.

The pot I chose to remove for the 500K push-pull was a 250K CTS pot from 1977 with a split shaft--I have listed it for sale in Second Strum. It's not the right kind of resistance value nor the right kind of shaft. I don't recall if I posted this anywhere, but the three original CTS pots are dated 5th week of 1976.



The bass is strung with round core Pyramids right now (jury's still out on them--definitely great strings, and I prefer them to TIs by a lot, but I'm wondering why I don't just use LaBella DTFs). I won't really know if they're "the ones" until I get to install the pickguard, pickups, and harness. Waiting on the pickguard to arrive from Tony Dudzik...

[rickenbrother]

Joshua, I'll bet you can't wait to put it all together. It would be cool if you did step by step posts with pics as you put it together.

[hieronymous]

Looking forward to the final result, if not the progress pics!

[rickenbrother]

How's it coming along, Joshua?!

[cassius987]

Sorry guys, I have started a new project at work and it's been pretty taxing to get it started. I've had to look up a lot of previous literature to write up my protocol, and as other scientists will attest, things rarely work as you intend even when you do your homework on a particular experiment.

Here's what I've got for you:







Note that while the wiring shot shows Gorilla brand duct tape on the bridge pickup (Tony didn't understand that I wanted that pickup to mount *exactly* like the neck pickup), I was able to drill the proper holes with a special bit and now it works exactly like a stock mount for a neck pickup in plexi and I filled the other two holes (for traditional phenolic plate mounting) with 10-32 x 3/4'' bolts and locked them in with washers. The other, flush-mounted tape is just to dampen vibrations if they were to happen.

Apparently the treble pickup, but not the neck pickup, is shorting out somewhere to ground... I'll have to get in there this weekend and find the problem (I suspect based on fiddling with the controls that it is related to the switch). The sound of the neck pickup is marvelous, and goes really well with the Pyramid "new formula" round core flatwoud nickel strings (a tad cheaper than the old ones luckily). I will try to post recordings later, probably only after getting the short on the bridge pickup sorted out. Fortunately the neck pickup has a really good SNR in spite of its low impedance, which is very pleasing.

Summary of the work/condition:
*Pickups are (obviously) not original, although they sound rather similar to the originals that came with. The originals were getting "wacked" by the strings because of the high A and D pole pieces. The Toasters measure 6.89K (neck) and 7.11K (bridge).
*All pots original except treble tone (was a Gibson 250K, now a RIC push-pull 500K).
*Switch and jacks are original and in perfect shape; I did clean everything with contact cleaner, just to refresh everything.
*Caps were replaced with cheap Radio Shack ceramics, now Sprague ODs.
*Wires have been completely replaced, with 22 AWG cloth-covered wire.
*Megan touched up the small dings on the visible area of the finish, and I touched up the interior to seal bare wood.
*I opted to replace the knobs with the "other" kind commonly seen on Ric basses, still have the originals.
*The Hipshot 27-tooth tuners and bridge are staying in place... they work great. Also the bridge is the only Hipshot 4000-series bridge I've ever used (of several) that doesn't saddle wobble, whatsoever. I have no idea if it's alum or brass.
*I have not adjusted the rods whatsoever and at this stage doubt I'll ever have to. Neck is solid as a rock and interesting the width at the nut is a bit narrower than the usual Ric bass.

I hope people have enjoyed seeing this bass get put through the restorative paces. I know it's not in trad condition, but I like it--a hell of a lot. As long as I own it it will probably remain in this configuration, but it could also be modded to look fairly stock if it had a 1960s style pickguard a la Dane's 4004CiiV63, and of course if the bridge and tuners and pickups were restored to stock. I'm not sure if I'll hang onto the original pickups or not.

[rickenbrother]

I've seen much, much worse looking pickguards put on 4001's. I kind of like that one. It reminds me a little of a 4002 type of pickguard, only shifted towards the neck.
Enjoy the heck outta that FL, Joshua! I enjoy looking at it!

[cassius987]

It reminds me a little of a 4002 type of pickguard, only shifted towards the neck.

That was my take on it, for sure. I kind of wanted to get away from the usual bling, and you've probably heard me pine for a 4002 before...

Enjoy the heck outta that FL, Joshua! I enjoy looking at it!

Oh yeah! Like I said I'm excited to share some recordings soon.

[FretlessOnly]

Your luthier skills are rapidly approaching your jazz skills. Nice work, and a really original-looking bass with the spirit of a 4001 and the soul of a stranger waiting to blast the back wall out. In other words - cool!

[cassius987]

I've had to go back and rewire a few of the connections the previous owner did that I took for granted, especially with regard to the jacks. Stuff kept coming loose, causing me to lose output, and I found I had more carbon paint left to cover with GM White to prevent shorts. Anyways, I've come to a final conclusion: the cavity doesn't seem big enough to handle the push-pull pot I bought from RIC. Whenever I toy with the mini-switch via pushing or pulling, I tend to short the treble pickup somehow (and later on parts jiggle enough that it comes back). Anymore I just don't bother using the push-pull for fear of losing output.

However I'd really like to have a cap in-line most of the time because it makes the two pickups together sound so much better. What is a weak cap I could use instead of the .0047 uF in order to run the pickups together to get that nice tonal blend from changing the phase and low-end output of the treble pickup? Should I use a bigger value or a lower value?

[cassius987]

Here is a slightly better, more recent photo:

[FretlessOnly]

Nice! You liking the Roto 88s on that? DId you widen the nut saddles or replace the nut for that?

[cassius987]

It didn't need a nut replacement to fit the strings, but the nut was bad anyways, one of those 1970s types with weird slots, so my luthier made an ebony nut to replace it with.