LR-Down Low-Wednesday 09/19/12

Thank you for your pictures and disaster stories yesterday!

This time last week, the temperature was 95. This morning we had frost in much of Northern Minnesota, a welcome change after one of the hottest summers ever! Lunch today will be a bowl of Chicken Noodle soup, my old standby.

Today is bass day for the low downers. Instead of gear failure we are turning to gear restoration.

I have said it before but the bass and the drums supply the grove for the band and it is essential to have a groove. Many of you also play bass and today lets show our stuff. Here is my L-2500 in action:



I have owned many basses over the years and picked up this L-2500 new, last fall. All the others have been sold except for one which will be part of the non G&L topic today. The neck on this L-2500 is special to me compared to the others that I have owned. It is quite flat on the back of neck giving it almost a shallow U feel. The bonus is killer tone. Now, it is not a bad looking rig to top it off. Many musicians have asked about it at gigs and Ii am always amazed how many people do not recognize the G&L product. So, I know that we have seen some of your basses before but lets light up the forum with your G&L basses. Lets see them again!!!

A couple of non G&L topics today. First is the restoration of a Stingray5 that was rough when I bought it. It was picked it up as an experiment to see if I would like a 5 string. It originally had been a Clear Amber color and had been painted Black. The black had some major cracks in it and my intent was to repaint it. It was difficult to strip but after stripping, it was evident that this would be a solid color due to some minor damage to the body that had previously been filled. The neck wood is beautiful but the finger board was badly oil stained. I asked this forum for advice on cleaning the oil stains and had many suggestions. I tried them all but the most successful was a suggestion from Bassman. His suggestion of using Windex was the best that I tried. It is now pretty decent and here are some photos of where I am at:




The body will be Baby Blue from my old Cadillac and I am going to tint the neck with an Amber tint under the clear coat.
I plan to have this finished soon. I am almost ready to shoot the sanding primer on the body. I will post some photos as I am doing this for those of you that are interested.

Second non G&L topic is Baritone guitar. I purchased a John Mayer Strat last fall with a bowed neck. I had the neck steamed and it is fine but the truss rod is tighter than I like. I have decided to order a Baritone neck from Warmoth and I am going to have a John Mayer Baritone. I plan to have that completed within a couple of months.

So, post your other basses here, project or whatever, and if you have a Baritone guitar, we would love to see it.

Ole and Lena probably lived in Minnesota so I am leaving with some Ole and Lena today!

Ole died. So Lena went to the local paper to put a notice in the obituaries. The gentleman at the counter, after offering his condolences, asked Lena what she would like to say about Ole.
Lena replied, "You yust put 'Ole died."
The gentleman, somewhat perplexed, said, "That's it? Just 'Ole died'? Surely, there must be something more you'd like to say about Ole. If it's money you're concerned about, the first five words are free. We must say something more."
So Lena pondered for a few minutes and finally said, "OK. You put 'Ole died. Boat for sale.'"

Darwin

I'm glad the Windex worked on cleaning up that MM bass neck. It did wonders for an OLP 5 string bass that I bought used with a dirty fingerboard.
The Music Man Stingray 5 should look sweet. You may want to check out some of the new colors that they are using.
A solid Blue metallic color would look great on that bass.
I'll post some pictures of my basses later. I am pretty busy at work right now.

Baby Blue will look great with a amber tint neck!!

Sorry to hear that Ole died

The tale of Ole reminds of a story I heard recently about a man who lost the entire left side of his body. Don't worry, he's all right.

Agree with you on the importance of a tight rhythm section.

I'm not a bass player myself and don’t own any … why would I when I have access to our bass player and his great collection of bass gear and he can actually get the best out of it!

I agree with Bassman – I think a solid blue metallic would look cool on the Stingray … not a flake mind you but a nice metallic.

I didn’t know anything about Ole and Lena so had to resort to Wikipedia … its all clear now. So in the spitit of sharing, and sticking with the general theme ….

Ole gave his mother-in-law a cemetery plot for her birthday. Next year he gave her nothing. When Lena asked why not, Ole answered, "Well, she didn't use the present I gave her last year”

cheers, Robbie

Ole gave his mother-in-law a cemetery plot for her birthday. Next year he gave her nothing. When Lena asked why not, Ole answered, "Well, she didn't use the present I gave her last year”

cheers, Robbie

LOL You got the hang of it pretty quick Robbie! Before you know it, you will be going ice fishing to hone your Lena and Ole skills

- Jos

Bassman, Windex worked!

Lefty, Ole always resurfaces.

Good one Brock!

Robbie, I apologize. I had assumed Ole and Lena had international fame. You found a great joke by the way. Most of the Ole and Lena jokes we hear in Minnesota couldn't be used on the forum .

Jos, Keep us informed on you damaged guitar and ice fishing is on the horizion in Minnesota.

Thanks folks.

OK, I'm a day late but somebody has to post some pics!!!


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lets light up the forum with your G&L basses.

This one should light up the Forum!


If the ASAT is high noon, this Lynx is midnight:


A '00 L-2000 fretless:


Somehow this is the only photo I've taken of the '80 L-1000:


A similar shot of the '81 L-2000E:


This SB-1 is very likely the prototype for that model:

So, post your other basses here, project or whatever, and if you have a Baritone guitar, we would love to see it.

I have one project G&L bass in the pipeline, a swamp ash/ebony L-1000 from very early '82:



This bass was ridden hard and put away wet (or more accurately, spray painted purple and put together wet) by a previous owner. It still had all of the original parts when I found it on eBay, but it was basically unplayable and the price reflected that fact. I was looking for a project, and more than anything didn't want to risk this instrument going to somebody who would part it out.

I've removed most of the spray paint, including about 1/8" of it in the neck pocket, and managed to extricate the pickup (which was below the surface on one side and clear of the body on the other). As you can tell from the photo, the body has a really nice grain pattern but has black paint deep in the grain. I suspect that somebody did a really good job of stripping an original red finish, painted it black without sealing the wood first, and then sprayed metallic purple from a can over that.

If I can get the black residue out of the grain, I will probably go with a transparent blue finish to stay true to the '82 color chart. If I can't get the grain completely clean, I'm tempted to go with either Fullerton Red or Viking Blue. Although it's not period-correct, blonde would also be tempting.

In the meantime, I'm using a badly modded mid-90s MIM DuoSonic for a practice run and father-son project. No photos of that yet, but after an insane amount of effort I am finally down to only having the original finish left on the inside of the cutaways. I wouldn't have stripped it, except that the previous owner had done a pathetic "relic" job and also done some inexcusable drilling on the body. He actually tried to modify it to be string-through, working free-hand with a power drill. He must have tried a different neck at some point too, because the neck attachment screw holes were moved slightly (also free-hand). This will be a good chance to show my son how to use a drill press, and it has absolutely convinced him of the stupidity of making ameteur modifications. I think this will turn out to be a nice player though. It will probably end up somewhere close to Belair Green.

Ken

Had a hard time reading you post Ken. "Lighting up the Forum"? That bling in that sparkly bass of yours must have overstimulated by optical synapses. Everything looks blurry to me. Under those circumstances, it is hard to type too ...

- Jos

OK, I'm a day late but somebody has to post some pics!!!

...
I have one project G&L bass in the pipeline, a swamp ash/ebony L-1000 from very early '82:



...
Ken

Ken,
You mentioned your control plate was chrome for this one.
Here's the L1000 plates I have , I'm thinking of flipping the lefty knobby one and
loading it with the 'lectronics from the righty , so I'll have a black smooth finish available.
PM me if you decide to go with the black.



I really like the old knobby style plates...I think that would be a great thing to put on a special run of
throwback reissues.

I'll see if I can add some more pics to the thread, no promises ...things here have been busy and a bit chaotic.

Elwood

Elwood and Ken, thanks for checking in. I know that both of you have vintage stuff! Ken, your Sparky lights it up! The one you are refinishing is interesting. It could be cool with black in the woodgrain. You have av bunch of neat basses Ken. Hey, thanks guys for posting!-- Darwin