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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 12, 2009 23:27:36 GMT -5
 ...but it sure was cheap. The guitar was marked at $99.99, the strings (Fender brand shortscale starting at 40 guage) at 37.98. I got the whole thing, plus a fairly extensive setup for $117. If you value the setup work at $15, that's $64.02 for the guitar. I made that dude work, too. The neck was crooked in the pocket so that the G string was almost falling off the fretboard where it met the body. He straightened that out. While intonating the thing he found that two screws at the front of the bridge were sticking up high enough to keep the saddle from getting where we needed it. Oh, and they were stripped out. No idea who made this bass as the headstock only shows one letter clearly. It's about 28-30" scale. I've been looking for a short scale bass for a while, and when I saw this one I just couldn't pass it up. Partly because my wife wasn't there. Y'all may tell me I got jacked on this, but it plays really nice and sounds surprisingly good. The pickups are extremely microphonic. I found this out at the store when I went to flip the switch and heard my fingers touch the pickgaurd through the amp. They are also not a hum-cancelling pair! The noise isn't actually real bad as long as I'm touching the strings, but is definitely louder with both pickups selected. Next step will be to open it up and determine if they have 2 wires or 1+shield, and whether the magnet can be flipped. If so, I get not only that project to try for the first time, but also potting. I'm sure I'll be asking advice on both. If not, it's a great candidate for trying "guitar" pickups on. The pickguard is cracked across where the tone pot is, and the finish is scuffed and dinged in a number of places. Well, these have to go anyway. I've been thinking about refinishing the horrible tobacco burst thing on my big bass for a while now. Seems like this one might be a good candidate for a trial run. Where do I even start with that? I've got no experience in this field. I've got the thing tuned up a 4th: A through C, even though the strings are a bit fatter than you'd see on a normal 6 string set. The shorter scale compensates this a bit. They feel a little tight maybe, but still very playable. |
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Post by ux4484 on Jan 13, 2009 8:42:53 GMT -5
Has a Danelectro/Silvertone look to it, but they rarely used a hold down bar above the nut, that seems more Kingston/(K/Kay/Kawai)or Taisco like. Switches also seem Taisco like.
I had a Kingston Hofner copy that had that same hold down bar and switch setup (and the pups looked very similar). I wonder if those pups orginally had covers, because I tried taking mine off back then, and they were microphonic as well (but were then much louder so I left them off). No Gnutz in those days (late 70's).
I took the Bass into electric shop and fished out the wiring through the pup holes and ended up changing the traveling ground to a central point ground (which we all call a star grround here) which got rid of most of the microphonic noise from removing the pup covers (but not all of it).
It was a solid bass with a wide span of sounds from it's switch and tone settings (had a decent Ric like sound for early Rush). It was fun to play, the only reason I got rid of it was that when we mic'd it through the P.A. it would resonate and feed back on high notes.
I do have a soft spot for older shot scale basses, looks like you got your moneys worth on the setup ash.
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Post by gitpiddler on Jan 13, 2009 13:11:55 GMT -5
I still use a volume pot I cannibalized from my brother's Kingston bass, which was what came to my mind seeing the pic. He had already dumped it for golf, and the nut broke under the low B.  |
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Post by andy on Jan 13, 2009 13:36:40 GMT -5
I can't help much on what that bass is, but my friend had a guitar very similar to it from before I even started playing. I always thought it was pretty cool looking, but it goes back far enough that I can't really judge it's tone. We couldn't even tune a guitar back then!
Anyway, the point is that I've seen a few popping up on ebay and places, always without names, but presumably from a reasonably sized, consistent production run. Someone out there must know its origins.
And I still think I looks pretty cool...
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Post by newey on Jan 13, 2009 14:13:28 GMT -5
So what's the letter?
Kingston is a reasonable guess. It's almost certainly Japanese and probably early '70's vintage.
IIRC, Kingston as a brand name was made by someone else, and with Japanese guitars/basses of that time, the same model may have been sold under several different brand names.
For more definitive info, post it to the VintAxe forums, Steve there can probably tell you exactly what it is. The link there is on our links page.
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Post by ux4484 on Jan 13, 2009 14:38:52 GMT -5
IIRC, Kingston as a brand name was made by someone else, and with Japanese guitars/basses of that time, the same model may have been sold under several different brand names. That would be Kawai, which is what I added when I added to Kingston/K/Kay in my post. |
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Post by lpf3 on Jan 13, 2009 23:38:52 GMT -5
I think it's cool lookin ' too . Sure looks to me like something from Teisco Del Rey . The most I could find was what Wiki had to say : Enjoy the good deal .  -lpf3 |
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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 14, 2009 0:01:45 GMT -5
I've been in contact with a number of Teiscos and Del Reys, and that's kind of what I thought of when I saw it too. I'm not sure that I remember them having contoured bodies, though. There's actually a couple letters. It appears to have "nder" in a script font, though only the d and e are complete, and underneath it appears to say "butt".
There's no good reason to believe that this particular neck was originaly sold with this body. You can't really see in the picture, but it's actually got a pretty nice binding on the fretboard.
I like the shape of the guitar, but I can't take the burst!
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Post by newey on Jan 14, 2009 0:24:33 GMT -5
"Sta ndell", perhaps? Just a guess, A web search is clearly in order, but I'm going to bed. 
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Post by andy on Jan 14, 2009 13:30:46 GMT -5
[/size] In that case I think we can safely assume that is is a priceless prototype of the Fender Jazz Bbutt. Problem solved, and well discovered there![/size] May I be the first guitarnut to suggest a re-spray in any of the appropriately 60's classics of white, black, red, or seafoam green? I could dig it in any one of those too!  |
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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 23, 2009 16:05:37 GMT -5
Had some minimal progress on this last night.
Finally got around to cracking the thing open. The wiring freaked me out for a minute. I eventually determined that it's wired so the pickups are in series. Each switch (SPDT on/on) shorts across its respective pickup to turn it off. This seems to be a common practice in this "class" of instruments. Now that I know about it, I can definitely hear it.
I also verified my suspicion that the pickups were the same magnetic polarity. The neck refused to let me flip its magnet. The bridge, though, was more than happy to oblige. I reversed the wires for the neck pickup because the bridge has its signal return soldered to the side of the volume pot, and I wasn't in the mood to mess with that. Now it's truly humbucking with both pickups selected. I have to thank all you folks for giving me the confidence to attempt this. I managed to break off all 4 of the tabs which hold the cover together, but it's not such a big deal.
These pickups are constructed to look like they've got individual pole pieces, but they don't. It's a metal bar with "crenelations" on one end that poke through the holes in the cover. The magnet sticks to the other end, and the bobbin slides very easily on and off.
The question I've got now is regarding potting. The thing is extremely microphonic, to the point where I can hear my flailing fingers hitting the pickguard and bridge as I play. Do you think it will be sufficient to just dunk the bobbins in hot wax, or should I immerse the whole bobbin/bar/magnet assembly? I'm thinking I probably don't want the coil to be able to move at all with respect to the magnet, right?
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Post by cynical1 on Jan 23, 2009 17:17:11 GMT -5
Ash -
You want to dunk the entire assembly. Pull the plastic covers and put rubber bands to twist ties on any tape that may be on the pickup. You can leave metal covers if they won't come off easily.
There's a load of pages on the Net detailing how to pot a pickups, but they all say pretty much the same thing.
140o-150o in a double boiler. NO GAS BURNERS! We used to have a crock pot for potting pickups. We kept a thermometer in the pot to make sure it didn't get too hot. Keeping the wax from getting too hot is critical.
Once the wax is hot it takes about 20-30 minutes for all the bubble to stop coming out. You can jiggle the pickup to accelerate this process. Once the bubbles stop, you're ready to take it out.
This is where the fun starts. Hot wax is a mess. Cleaning the wax off the pickup is a mess. I found that shop rags worked the best. Paper towels and normal towels lint all over the place. Try and wipe as much off the pickup as carefully as you can when you first take it out. It's still a mess later, but not as much of a mess... We had a small plexiglass homemade scraper to clean up the wax after it cooled. We also found out that a regular pencil eraser works good at getting the last remnants off the bobbins and baseplate.
And if you ever plan on using the pot again clean it while it's hot.
We used regular canning wax, but I remember reading somewhere that you can mix 20% beeswax into the mix. Never did it, so I can't comment as to what the difference is.
One thing to remember. Once you pot the pickups never leave your guitar or bass in the car in the summer, or by the woodstove in the winter. The wax will melt back out and run everywhere...and it ain't fun digging wax out of a humbucker cavity...
Happy Trails
Cynical One
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Post by ChrisK on Jan 23, 2009 21:30:42 GMT -5
Paraffin, the ingredient in wax is a hydrocarbon fuel. Paraffin vapors are explosive in a "burn you skin off and then your house down" kind of way. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParaffinTo reiterate what Cyn said, NO GAS BURNERS! NO OPEN FLAMES OR SMOKING. Only crock pots or a double burner on an electric range top. |
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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 23, 2009 23:43:42 GMT -5
Well, what about a gas furnace less than 10' away?
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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 24, 2009 0:40:21 GMT -5
I've attempted the brain scan thing on this a couple times today, and keep getting stuck. I spent way too long tonight trying to get readings which would allow me to use the LP-style version. This is extremely frustrating. Partly because the volume pot is (audibly) unreliable. While I'm turning the pot it reads one thing, occasionally going OL. When I stop turning it, it seems to settle toward a value, but I can never reproduce this value. I don't have any way of knowing exactly where that Rmax value is. I guess, since it's all just kind of for fun anyway, that close enough should be close enough. But it's not. I spent even longer today swimming in a very deep pool of algebra trying to figure out how to determine the three unknown variables in terms of the three known variables. I keep thinking I'm close, but... So, I'm starting a new thread in hopes of getting a couple hints and possibly of generating a new Reference article re: Brain Scan for Series Pickups. |
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Post by cynical1 on Jan 24, 2009 0:46:39 GMT -5
Well, what about a gas furnace less than 10' away? ...depends on your insurance company... Should be fine. Just keep the pot around 150 o and shut it down once you're done. Any open flames near the hot wax and it's single coil flambe... Example...ah, what we do for better tone... Happy Trails Cynical One |
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Post by newey on Jan 24, 2009 8:09:54 GMT -5
Why have paraffin-based waxes become the standard for doing this job? It would seem to me that just about any non-conductive thermoplastic material could be used to equal effect.
Did some tone snob suggest that, somehow, paraffin produced a more "vintage" potted tone?
I have lots of odd pieces of ski wax lying around, since at some point the bar of wax becomes too small to hold to the iron without burning one's fingers. It is a non-paraffin based wax, has a lot of silicone in it to facilitate skis gliding. I could pot pickups with this, unless someone can think of a good reason why that wouldn't work.
Obviously, whatever is used should remain stable and not soften/melt below about 115°F.
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Post by cynical1 on Jan 24, 2009 10:45:51 GMT -5
Why have paraffin-based waxes become the standard for doing this job? It would seem to me that just about any non-conductive thermoplastic material could be used to equal effect.
Did some tone snob suggest that, somehow, paraffin produced a more "vintage" potted tone?Because it's cheap and readily available in large quantities. Don't forget the first law of mass production. DiMarzio used to use a silicone sealer in their very early pickups. Although effective in potting the pickup it essentially created a time capsule that you can't take apart to rewind...without a shape charge. I've never used ski wax to pot pickups...or for anything else for that matter...so I can't speak to its effectiveness. That being said, in theory it could work. It may be a better medium to pot pickups then plain paraffin wax. More then likely it's the cost involved in using ski wax that explains why no one seems to use it. Try it and see if it works. Let us know. Might improve your slide playing... Happy Trails Cynical One PS: Found a link on making your own ski wax. Scroll down on this link until you find the post from John Provocative said: THIS WILL PUT THE SKI WAX COMPANIES OUT OF BUSINESS |
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Post by ChrisK on Jan 24, 2009 13:30:31 GMT -5
Hmmm, ya know, it seems like there may be some capacitive filtering afoot here.
Is the tone control all the way up/off so that the resistance thereof is at its largest?
Does it settle faster if it's at its full on/lower value (take the tone pot resistance out of its maximum reading settling effect)?
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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 24, 2009 20:59:42 GMT -5
I'm several miles from my meter tonight, so I'll have to wait a day or two to give it a try. There wasn't any meaningful change at all when actually turning the tone pot. It was the volume pot which had the weird "settling" effect. As I said, it's audibly scratchy and unreliable. Not a big deal to me, since it's likely to be replaced with a rotary switch anyway.
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Post by ChrisK on Jan 24, 2009 22:39:07 GMT -5
Absolutely. The volume pot is varying the resistance to the tone cap from the bias voltage from the meter. This causes an interactive balancing act. Once the volume pot stops changing, the tone cap finishes charging.
As there shouldn't be. Changing the series resistance to a capacitor in an RC circuit will have no effect if the charge on the cap is not being charged/discharged and has already settled.
The time constant of a 0.047 tone cap and a 500,000 Ohm resistor is such that the cap has reached 97% of its final value after 1 second. This is also slowed by the current output of the meter and the increasing effect of the volume pot as it's turned down.
About the only way to speed this up is to have the tone pot set to its minimum resistance.
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