Shaftesbury Ripper Bass Copy

[Robert Vine]

My first post so please bear with me.
Having (stupidly) sold a Kimbara Ripper Bass in my teens and after nearly 40 years (on and off) searching, I have managed to buy an old Shaftesbury version (very likely to have been made in the same factory as the Kimbara). However, the varitone 4 position switch has been replaced with simple on/off switch, rewired and Mallory dial has long gone. Can anyone advise where to potentially get parts?

I shall post some pics shortly.

Rob

 

[John Cribbin]

Welcome to the forum.

Can't speak for bass, but I used to have a Gibson 330 copy back in the day with a Varitone circuit. A hell of a lot of those got removed as people found they didn't actually bring anything to the party. Once I'd got past the novelty of an extra knob to twist, like most people it got left in one position and got forgotten about.

Well I suppose it would be a nice project to bring back the bass to something approaching it's original format. You are looking at needing little more than a rotary swith and a handful of capacitors which should be easy enough to source. I'd look at the big online auction site for the switch at least, may not be a stock item at somewhere like Maplin if the're still going.

The plate may be a problem, can't see them being stock anywhere? The alternative would be to go the PRS route where they use a standard volume/tone knob for their 5 way rotary pickup selection. They use numbers 6-10 on the knob to indicate the positions.

Have fun with the project.