Spear Bass Gets a Little Love

I've got to admit that until the day it came into the shop, I'd never seen nor heard of a "Spear" bass. But here it was, all rusty and grimy; and begging for some TLC. A little research on the web revealed that "Spear" refers to "SPEAR Gitarren Händler Deutschland." Yes, that means it's a German company. This bass was not manufactured in Germany, though; as it says "Made in Indonesia" on the back of the headstock. 

Let's take a quick look at this four-string bass' features, then. The body seems to be solid wood, and sports a Fender-style bridge and P/J pickup configuration. Electronics are pretty straightforward, two volumes and a master tone; and a barrel output jack. All three pots are full-sized (24mm), kudos to Spear. There appears to conductive shielding paint in the pickup and control cavities. 

The maple neck is bolted to the body via four recessed screws, so there's no need for a neck plate. Truss rod access is at the headstock end. The fretboard is rosewood with a 34" scale, 14" radius, 24 frets; and whitish dot markers. Meanwhile, the headstock is angled and fitted with four proprietary "Spear" sealed tuners in a 2+2 configuration.

As received, the bass was dusty, grimy, and totally unplayable (corroded strings being the main culprit). The electronics didn't work either, and the cause was traced to shorted wiring. The fretboard and frets? Well, let's just say that not wiping down your strings and fretboard after playing has its disadvantages.

Everything was taken apart and serviced. The electronics worked fine after lots of contact cleaner and a full rewire. The fretboard was scrubbed clean and conditioned with lemon oil, and the dull frets introduced to good old Autosol. After reassembling the bass and setting it up with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, I put it through its paces using my little Joyo MA-10B practice amp. The fonky tones that emanated from the Joyo's 5" speaker had me grinning from ear to ear. Don't believe me? Well, do hop over to SoundCloud and judge for yourself.

LTD B-155DX Electric Bass Gets Deactivated

Before I talk about work done on this stunning 5-string bass, let's take a look at some stock specs, courtesy of Guitar Center.

Construction: Bolt-on
Body: Basswood/flamed maple top
Neck: Maple/'thin U' profile
Fretboard: Rosewood/34" scale/dot inlays/24 extra-jumbo frets
Hardware: Black Nickel/ESP tuners/ESP DB-5 Bridge (string-thru-body)
Pickups: ESP SB-4 (Neck/Bridge)
Preamp: ESP ABQ-3 3-Band Active EQ
Shielding: Conductive paint/Aluminium foil

I was quite impressed with the looks and sturdiness of this bass when I first laid eyes upon it, I must say. However, the electronics were another story. The owner, a soft-spoken Kemaman chap, was totally frustrated because his pride and joy was emitting all kinds of weird noises whenever he tried to play it. This had happened onstage many a time, much to his embarrassment.

After a thorough checkup, I realized that the preamp was toast and had to be replaced. But as that would cost a bomb, we decided to go with a cheaper alternative: dump the active electronics and rewire the bass as a passive instrument.

And so the bass was rewired with a 3-way toggle switch, master volume; and master tone. I was able to reuse the stock master volume pot, but needed to add an Alpha 500K pot; and replace the flimsy stock plastic-bodied stereo jack with a Neutrik/Rean NYS229.

All well and good, except that we now had two unsightly holes where the mid and bass EQ pots used to be. I offered to plug the holes with wooden dowels and stain them to match the finish as best I could, but the owner did not go for it. Instead, he suggested a 'dummy' pot/control knob setup matching the stock control configuration.Fair enough, I thought; and so two of the stock EQ pots were wired in with all six tabs wired to ground (ie shorted out).

It was a rainy evening when I tested this 'deactivated' bass and called it good. And guess what? Out of the blue, I got a call from the owner asking me if his pride and joy was ready; as he had a gig at 8pm. It was still drizzling when he came to pick up his bass, grinning from ear to ear. Somehow, I knew he'd be having a real hot gig that night.

Custom Bass Upgrade and Mods

I'll consider this to be a "custom" four-string electric bass, 'nuff said. It features a solid wood body, natural satin finish, tilt-back 2+2 headstock, rosewood fretboard, jumbo frets, maple bolt-on neck, twin humbuckers, monorail-style bridge, passive electronics; and zero shielding. The control configuration is two volumes and two tones, and the output jack is of the barrel variety; buried in an angled recess on the front of the body.

So, what's not to love about this bass? Lots, according to the owner. The "electronics suck," said he. There was no master volume to turn down during breaks -- he'd have to turn both volumes down, and in the process; lose pickup balance when he came onstage again. He was also apprehensive about using it live because of inconsistent signal strength and various annoyingly-audible snaps, crackles and pops. That, plus a setup that wasn't comfortable for slapping and popping (his favored style). I told him I'd have a look and get back to him ASAP.

What I discovered made me a very unhappy man. The routing and woodwork was generally slipshod and rough, pots were of the 3-bucks-apiece variety; and the wiring iffy. Next, I tried to remove the barrel jack in order to check it; but there was no way to do so. There was no access route, no nut; no nothing. I had to dig a hole through the control cavity wall to get to it and push it out from the inside. When it finally came out, totally mangled and unusable; I had a Eureka moment. The builder had simply drilled a hole from the front of the body and shoved the jack in, with just a piece of strategically-wrapped paper to keep it in place! 

With this new-found knowledge, we had a no-holds-barred discussion and decided to retain the pickups, upgrade the electronics, shield the cavities and back plate; and change the control configuration to pickup blend, master volume, and master tone. I'd also be plugging the existing output jack recess and one pot hole, and drilling a new hole in the side for a new barrel jack; amongst other woodwork-related tasks. 

That being taken care of, it was time to address the setup issue. Thank goodness the truss rod was working as it should, and tightening it up little by little over the course of a few days allowed for less relief and lower action. I strung her up with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys (50-105), set up the monorail-style bridge (a real PITA) and called the owner to take her for a spin. He was happy about the positive changes in his best girl, slapping and popping to his heart's delight; but nowhere as happy or relieved as I was :)

Fretless PJ Bass Project

Another first for me, this be. It all started when a young bass player named Fikri approached me with the idea of building a fretless PJ bass from kit parts. He'd already ordered a fretted Jazz Bass kit from Pit Bull Guitars (Australia): unfinished ash body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, white pickguard, electronics, chrome hardware.

As it turned out, all he intended to use were the body and neck. He specified a thin semi-transparent matt black finish that would allow him to "see and feel the wood grain," black hardware, PJ pickups, reliable electronics, and a minimal pickguard that "would not hide the wood grain." I eventually understood where he was coming from, and we got down to work. I'll outline what was done in the paragraphs that follow.

Body
The neck pickup rout was enlarged to fit a P Bass pickup. The required holes were drilled for the bridge, strap buttons, pickguard and control plate. The prepped body was then stained with indian ink diluted with ethanol. I could have used water as a solvent, but it would have raised the grain after every application. The final finish coats were clear matte, as that was what Fikri had specified.

Headstock/Neck
The paddle-shaped headstock was reshaped into a Fender 75-style with the help of a downloaded template, coping saw, files, rasps, and lots of wet/dry sandpaper. Holes for the neck screws were drilled into the neck heel using a drill press.

The nut and frets were removed carefully, and the fret slots filled with teak veneer strips.  Fretboard dots were removed and the holes filled with a rosewood dust-superglue mixture. Side dot markers were left alone. After the veneer strips were carefully pared down, the entire fretboard was leveled using a radius block and sealed with about 20 coats of superglue. After every 5 coats, the fretboard was wet-sanded. The final coat was wet-sanded up to 2K, and then polished to semi-gloss (as per Fikri's instructions).

The headstock face and back of the neck were finished in Tru-Oil.

Hardware
Hipshot A Style Fender® Mount Bridge
Hipshot HB6 - 1/2" Ultralite® Bass Tuning Machines
Hipshot O Ring Knobs
Hipshot Bass String Retainer
Hipshot Solid Brass Bass Thumb Rest
Allparts AP-0640-003 Black Control Plate for Jazz Bass®
Allparts AP-0670-003 Black Strap Buttons
Custom black plastic pickguard
Black neck plate and screws
Flatwound strings

Electronics
DiMarzio DP126 BK PJ Pickups
Alpha A250K volume and tone pots
K40Y-9 PIO 0.033uF tone cap
Switchcraft #4652 mono output jack
22AWG silicone-jacket hookup wire
Back of pickguard shielded with aluminium foil
Pickup and control cavities shielded with carbon paint

Ibanez GSR200

This 2007 black Ibanez GSR200 came in for a general setup and servicing as it had not been played for awhile. As it turned out, the stock Ibanez Phat II EQ and two of the pots were out of commission. We decided to go with the most inexpensive solution, which was to rewire the bass along the lines of a typical Jazz Bass (two volumes and a master tone). So, what we ended up with was an Ibanez PJ-style passive bass. And now, let's take a look at some pics.