New bass arrives, work begins ... another bass is for sale ...

Monday, June 15, 2015 -- My new-to-me Bridgecraft PBass arrived Friday morning and I immediately began work on it. As you can see in the photos, the bridge was missing a saddle. I

ordered an entire new PBass bridge the same night I won the auction. I have to say, the replacement bridge was a perfect fit.

The body of the bass is finished in a transparent red finish. It looks nice, but it has some pretty good dings on the body and lower edge of the body has paint loss. I'm tempted to refinish the body in a solid red, like Fiesta Red and clear coat it. Then it would look very much like my old Musicmaster bass, though it has a full-scale neck.

Once I installed the new bridge, I decided it was time to check the electronics. The best I could get was a rather distorted, intermittent sound. I'm not sure the pots are bad or what's going on. One problem may be a lack of a ground on the bridge; when I changed the bridge, there was a ground wire that had been stripped of insulation that provided ground to the bridge.

When I had the guitar hooked to an amp, neither touching the strings or the bridge quieted the 60 Hertz hum from the amp -- which spells trouble.

The G string was broken, which was probably why that saddle fell off over time. Tomorrow I'm going to the local music store for a set of strings, and I would like to do some troubleshooting.

My plan is to remove the remove the bridge and make sure it has a good ground. When I had the amp plugged in, I could hear my taps with a metal screwdriver on the pickups, so they are working in some manner. PBass wiring is extremely simple and straight forward, I just need to pull the pickguard and double check the wiring.

BASS FOR SALE. I've listed a ESP bass on eBay to sell. It's brand new, and beautiful; but its more bass than I want to use. The thing really is gorgeous, but its a bass best suited for someone with

longer arms and larger hands. The thing weights 12 pounds, its pretty massive. My wife bought it for me, not knowing what I wanted. I never played it, but reboxed it up and its been setting in a closet. I want to use the proceeds to buy another guitar.

So what am I looking to buy?? I am going to buy a Chinese built Gretsch 5120 from AliExpress.com. I don't want to pay full price for a hollowbody guitar, so buying a Chinese one at an attractive (i.e. low) price sounds good!

There are some other options that are on eBay that I might pursue, like an Epiphone Emporer Swingster. Its a pretty decent clone of the Gretch 5120. The truth is I can buy the Chinese Gretsch clone guitar for less than the cost of the Swingster.

I'm also going to put my original Oscar Schmidt OE-30TS semi-hollow body guitar up for sale. I'm tempted to keep it, just because it was purchased new, but I'm thinking I would rather help fund my guitar fund. I should be able to get $200 on eBay for the OS.

Of course, I'm tempted to get an amplifier instead ... I would like something on the order of 100 watts and 2-12s.

First things first, of course ... buy the strings tomorrow, and then work to see what's up with the electronics.

OTHER GUITAR STUFF. Speaking of the Oscar Scmidt, I'm really enjoying my red one a great deal.

In addition to my new bass guitar, I also received additional parts -- two new nuts for my Ibanez Gio GAX30. I bought two in the event I messed one up. The nut on the guitar has had the crap filed out of the E and A slots, and the low E suffers from fret buzz. I'm going to put that project on hold until I get the bass working to my satisfaction.

Speaking of the bass, I also need to buy a new set of PBass knobs.

Rock on, dudes and dudettes!