Let's see your guitar and bass gear!

Time for a new electric. Transparent Sapphire blue Player's Deluxe Strat. 12" radius neck and vintage noiseless pick ups. I'll probably never use the tremolo bar but It came with it. Push button to get 2 more combinations for the pickups , totaling 7 phases.

And it's shiny.

Something "new." Well, kinda new: 1987 Peavey Foundation fretless bass with flat-wounds.

In reply to David S. Wallens:

Looks nice David! I've been yearning for a fretless lately too.

I haven't been working in the new garage because I've been building a rehearsal space in the new basement so I can get rid of the place we are renting. Drummer and guitar player are "moving in" this week.

I did do a pano to try to view everything - you might want to open it in a new window.

David S. Wallens wrote: Something "new." Well, kinda new: 1987 Peavey Foundation fretless bass with flat-wounds.

Those old Foundation basses play and sound great, and are made really well. Nice score!

In reply to Gimp:

That looks sweet! Love the DK poster too.

petegossett wrote: In reply to Gimp: That looks sweet! Love the DK poster too.

Thanks. It's the logo for my (female fronted) DK tribute band - https://www.facebook.com/wellpaidscientist/

Picked up one of these over the weekend. Used, but mint: My main amp right now is a vintage Fender Dual Showman. It sounds decent into this amp, but I'm still playing with it. Right now, it's fun with the tone and gain controls dimed with output on about 6. Tons of gain.

SilverFleet wrote:

David S. Wallens wrote: Something "new." Well, kinda new: 1987 Peavey Foundation fretless bass with flat-wounds.

Those old Foundation basses play and sound great, and are made really well. Nice score!

Thanks. Yeah, went to our local shop Saturday. I put heavier gauge strings on the my Tele and wasn't sure if the truss rod needed adjustment. "Bring it by," he said.

While there he was like, "Hey, just got this in this morning. Why not try it out."

I took a photo of it while putting it back on the wall.

"Oh come on, just buy the thing," he joked.

So I did. Price was $199--not bad for an American-made guitar. It came with the original case.

I think I'm doing it wrong...

David S. Wallens wrote:

SilverFleet wrote:

David S. Wallens wrote: Something "new." Well, kinda new: 1987 Peavey Foundation fretless bass with flat-wounds.

Those old Foundation basses play and sound great, and are made really well. Nice score!

Thanks. Yeah, went to our local shop Saturday. I put heavier gauge strings on the my Tele and wasn't sure if the truss rod needed adjustment. "Bring it by," he said. While there he was like, "Hey, just got this in this morning. Why not try it out." I took a photo of it while putting it back on the wall. "Oh come on, just buy the thing," he joked. So I did. Price was $199--not bad for an American-made guitar. It came with the original case.

Slightly jealous. I love old Peavey stuff. Great find and a great deal!

I forgot to mention it before, but I bought a giant roll of copper RF shielding tape on Amazon last week. I'm planning on ripping apart that project Epi Les Paul Special II again soon and trying it out. It's unplayable right now because it makes so much noise.

Ok, not exactly new gear, but I think our sugar glider Theo is trying to steal my gig.

New pieced together setup. B-52 ST-60, 60W tube head with the hideous logo plate removed and a Sonic 2x12 cab with Vintage UK Celestions. Clean channel with reverb sounds super clean with the Strat and then overdriven with the gain up is bassy blues perfect. Really pleased with this one.

Ignore the slightly out of tune B string. This is clean channel, low volume just piddling around. Light reverb. Great low end and tone IMO for a head used mainly by metal heads. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ICFUgVvf4XM

Jumper K. Balls wrote: I have a sickness. I can't pass up a project guitar. Jagmaster for the missus. $15 CL score. Trem, tuners and screws included. She has always wanted "one of those Elvis Costello, Robert Smith shaped guitars" (her words, not mine) This will go in the pile of future projects and I will collect parts as I find deals. The silver sparkle is rad but really dinged up and missing large chunks. Thinking seafoam green with pearloid or Yellow with beef jerky. I already have 3 more projects behind the Epi Bass

And it is finally finished!

She requested a shoegaze machine. It got the GFS "liverpool" RetroTrons, beef jerky PG, Fully shielded cavities, Vox style knobs one volume, one tone and a selector switch. I have only plugged it in for a few moments but it is so quiet that I didn't realize the amp had warmed up. There is zero noise due to the shielding. Hopefully it will jangle and drone as well as I planned. I refinished it in Ford Wimbledon white via DupliColor touch up rattle cans with a clear instrument lacquer over the top.

Total budget hit right around $100!

I think this only leaves 2 current project guitars to finish

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Awesome!

So, a couple years back, I picked up a nasty (not in a good way) Epiphone Les Paul Special II. You know, one of these:

It started out looking like this:

Now, it looks like this:

One thing that's been driving me crazy since I installed the input is the ungodly amount of buzz. I tackled that tonight.

I swapped out the ground going to the input with a thicker wire and shielded it with copper tape.

Before:

After:

And that did it. No more noise! In fact, it's the quietest instrument I have now.

Next up is a set of new pickups, because the stock ones are pretty weak. I think I might do some GFS zebra-style humbuckers on it.

In reply to SilverFleet:

That had some serious fingerboard smegma when you got it.

In reply to petegossett:

Yeah, it looked like it was used as a snot rag. It was gross!

I need to go through my Epi Les Paul Standard next. That one is also a noise maker.

I might be jumping the gun on this, but I'll talk about it anyway...

Tonight, I might be picking up a Squier Affinity Precision Bass as part of a trade deal for an old practice drum kit I've been trying to sell. The guy says it has a "messed up truss rod", but I think he means that he stripped the truss rod nut. From how he explained it, that's probably what it is (he also thinks it's a Jazz Bass, even though it says P-Bass right on it). I know they sell them, and it's a metric sized nut as opposed to the US and Mexican Standard thread nut. The bass looks like this:

I'm thinking of making it a clone of this:

Or, if the neck is bad, this:

Stew Mac doesn't sell metric truss nuts, so any other place I should try?

Find a damaged/obsolete Squier?

I've been spending a lot of time on the road recently, and this little guy is making it a lot more fun to practice in hotel rooms. It's got a line in so I can play along with songs or backing tracks, and enough gain to fuzz up nicely if desired along with reverb/delay/chorus options. I just toss it in the guitar case beside a set of headphones and a 10' long 1/8" patch cord and I'm good to go.

SilverFleet wrote: Stew Mac doesn't sell metric truss nuts, so any other place I should try?

I would wait until you have it in your hands so you can find out exactly what the thread size is. 5 and 6mm are both common. Amazon and Ebay will have them

This one?

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Hopefully that's it. Thanks!

Worst case scenario and I can get one of these cheapo Chinese necks to try from Amazon:

Cheap Chinese Neck

This one is a Jazz neck, which I'm ok with. Probably less frustrating to replace than pulling the fingerboard and replacing the truss rod.

They also make Steve Harris signature pickups now, and they are under $100. That would also happen.

Blah, the guy dropped off the face of the earth when it was time to do the deal, so no P Bass project for me.

Anyone want to buy a cheap drum kit?

FWIW, I loooooove my P-basses. One is Mexican-made from 1999 or so fitted with a Seymour Duncan pickup. I paid $199 for the guitar. Love it. Sadly, though, I don't exactly sound like Steve Harris.