When I got it, the wood was scarred, the action was set very high, the strings were worn where they hit the frets, the bridge pickup metal and epoxy was worn from strings hitting them, and it was very dirty with a slight bit of corrosion on metal parts. When I first tried it out I was surprised that the electronics worked perfectly and there was no extraneous noise. Often older guitars at least have scratchy pots. Not this one. The only electonic part badly worn was the output jack which I replaced. The jack was mono and the replacement stereo, so I soldered the leads to the outside and inside connections, leaving the middle one unconnected.

I decided that this was not going to be a collector’s item, but my personally customized instrument. So I cleaned it, bought a 5-string set and used the bottom 4 as BEAD tuning. I had to file the nut and reset the intonation to do this. I also set the action lower by straightening the neck with the truss rod and tipping it back with the neck adjustment. I set the pickups higher.

I used a longer screw on the upper strap fitting and added a 1” bushing to make the center of gravity further up the neck. That cured its nut-heaviness. I moved the lower strap fitting 1 1/2” higher on the bottom of

the body to tip the top of the body better into my stomach when strapped on. I made a 4” wide strap from deerhide which helped relieve the weight.

I trimmed the body about 1 1/2” on the upper side and then bevelled it to fit

my stomach on one side and to give my plucking hand better access to the strings on the other. I also bored a series of 3/4” holes under the pickguard. All the bevelling and trimming removed about 1 1/2 pounds from the

guitar.

After renewing the finish on the body, cleaning and polishing the pickguard with plastic polish from an auto supply store and cleaning and polishing the metal fittings, the instrument shines like new. Ever since I got the new strings on, and before all the other modifications were made, this had become my favorite playing bass. It sounds beautiful, and has a nice range of tones. The BEAD tuning works well with it and suits the band I play with. We usually play in a church setting using an electric and several acoustic guitars and a keyboard. The highs and mids are nicely covered, but not the bass. I found that I hardly used the G string on my 5-string, but used the low B regularly. Now I have just the strings I need.

When I had it apart, I found the date 5-18-79 and the name Bill written on the back of the pickguard. So it is only 23 years old! Now it is like new, and I hope to have it for my main bass for a long time.

Construction	95%
(Excellent hardware & electronics, balance & weight could be improved)
Appearance	50%
(Just my taste)
Playability	95%
(Mostly a function of setup)
Sound	95%
(No noise, excellent & variable tone)
Customer Service	100%
(Manual & patents available free, quick response to question & truss rod cover
sent free)
Value	98%
(Used price cannot be beat, worth $1000 by comparison with new of similar abil
ities)
Overall	95%
(Great instrument probably will outlast me)