Finally making a post for my West P-Bass.
- The finish was listed as Lake Placid Blue, but who really knows. It's slowly turning into that funky blue/green already so I am happy
.
- My tech figured the bass to be from around 1980, but had no concrete evidence to support this claim - only circumstantial evidence.
- Pick guard is aftermarket vintage mint green
Backstory:
I purchased this bass recently on Reverb from a shop in California (breaking my own rule of not buying guitars/basses without playing them first). When it arrived in the mail, it was packed sufficiently and showed no signs of a rough transit. Upon opening the box, I was very pleased - loved the grain/finish of the maple neck, the Lake Placid finish was better than any pictures could show, I dug the little checks and marks from years of solid playing, and without plugging it in I could tell it had quite the natural "grind" to her.
So I took the bass into my shop of choice for the standard setup, a slight repair of the nut, and switching from rounds to half-rounds. The tech at my shop found that the truss rod did not turn and was having trouble getting it to move at all. Additionally, he found that the neck was a ONE PIECE - not a separate finger board but legitimately just one solid piece of maple. This proved to be a problem as this type of neck has far less "give" to it, especially being maple. In a moment of brilliant luthier-level improvisation, he went to the drum dept. and found a stack of washers (normally for drum tension rods) and proceeded to carve out wood around the truss rod until he could fit the washers onto it and get it moving again. He then also shimmed the neck, redressed frets 12 and above, and gave it a final setup.
BOOM. This thing screams P-Bass tone. It's got a nice, loud output from the pickups and the natural acoustic grind that it has really does come thru in the amp'd tone - think Gentle Giant in that Sight & Sound video on Youtube. Fat low-end, grindy/mid-rangey middle and high-end.
If anyone knows anything more about this company or this bass specifically (I know of one other post on TB about this exact bass), please chime in as I have hit a wall when attempting to learn more about it. The internet doesn't seem to have much info about it - maybe I just suck at googling?
Anyways, enjoy the pics and have an awesome day.
- The finish was listed as Lake Placid Blue, but who really knows. It's slowly turning into that funky blue/green already so I am happy
.- My tech figured the bass to be from around 1980, but had no concrete evidence to support this claim - only circumstantial evidence.
- Pick guard is aftermarket vintage mint green
Backstory:
I purchased this bass recently on Reverb from a shop in California (breaking my own rule of not buying guitars/basses without playing them first). When it arrived in the mail, it was packed sufficiently and showed no signs of a rough transit. Upon opening the box, I was very pleased - loved the grain/finish of the maple neck, the Lake Placid finish was better than any pictures could show, I dug the little checks and marks from years of solid playing, and without plugging it in I could tell it had quite the natural "grind" to her.
So I took the bass into my shop of choice for the standard setup, a slight repair of the nut, and switching from rounds to half-rounds. The tech at my shop found that the truss rod did not turn and was having trouble getting it to move at all. Additionally, he found that the neck was a ONE PIECE - not a separate finger board but legitimately just one solid piece of maple. This proved to be a problem as this type of neck has far less "give" to it, especially being maple. In a moment of brilliant luthier-level improvisation, he went to the drum dept. and found a stack of washers (normally for drum tension rods) and proceeded to carve out wood around the truss rod until he could fit the washers onto it and get it moving again. He then also shimmed the neck, redressed frets 12 and above, and gave it a final setup.
BOOM. This thing screams P-Bass tone. It's got a nice, loud output from the pickups and the natural acoustic grind that it has really does come thru in the amp'd tone - think Gentle Giant in that Sight & Sound video on Youtube. Fat low-end, grindy/mid-rangey middle and high-end.
If anyone knows anything more about this company or this bass specifically (I know of one other post on TB about this exact bass), please chime in as I have hit a wall when attempting to learn more about it. The internet doesn't seem to have much info about it - maybe I just suck at googling?
Anyways, enjoy the pics and have an awesome day.