Thank you for putting up with my off topic posts.

[bloke]

I found exactly what I was looking for this morning.
- Jazz model like my four string
- even the color
- so far, no chips or scratches
- the neck is straight
- pots are clean
- round wounds (part of what I was wanting this instrument strung with) are in good shape
- anyone who remembers my blather will remember that I really don't want a low B string. I'm going to move all these over one string. I stopped at a guitar store on the way home and spent $6 on a high C string.
- I'm going to play it a little bit for a day or two and then I'm going to move the strings over, do a slight adjustment on the truss rod, and drop the action down a little bit

I paid "casual trip to Walmart grocery money" to buy this thing.

[bloke]

Those low pitches are alluring on the low B string, aren't they? But I just don't think they fit in to most of the stuff we play and this oldies combo. I like the idea of the C string (higher pitched than the G string).
OBVIOUSLY, I'm eager to adjust the truss bar, the string length (tuning) the string height (action) and the pick-up height (response), but...

...We're checking on one of our big air conditioning units right now. It's cooling this really large area of the house with a ridiculously high ceiling down to 80°, which may be the best it can do. It's a 26-year-old unit and it's 98° in the shade. Of course the house is in the sun. It's blowing out a ton of quite hot air, so I think it's doing the best it can do.
After this air conditioner chore (the drain from the evaporator coil is clogged, so I'm going to unclog that, and I'm going to clean the condenser coil) I'm sort of wanting to set this bass up nicely, but that Miraphone tuba is also screaming at me...

UPDATE...
OK...The Miraphone tuba sat, and I set this bass up (with the low B string).
It's MUCHO EASY-O to play-o, now.

Low B string...The jury is out.

POLL:
With the BEST I can adjust everything, I have to tune the OPEN low B below pitch flat, IN ORDER THAT all of the fretted pitches on that string are in-tune (rather than sharp). Is this a typical phenom? It's easy to deal with...EVEN IF I keep this bass set up this way, I would be playing very many open low B-naturals.

PURE SILLINESS:
I really like the look of my old USA Fender bass' neck (maple with black rectangular inserts).
I COULD buy this for Christmas for myself (with the imitation Kluson-style tuners), but this ebony neck plays VERY well, and that would just be dumb.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/178115911613

[ronr]

- anyone who remembers my blather will remember that I really don't want a low B string. I'm going to move all these over one string. I stopped at a guitar store on the way home and spent $6 on a high C string.

[/quote]

I play an acoustic electric upright and swapped out the low B for a high C. I use the high C much more often.

[bloke]

- anyone who remembers my blather will remember that I really don't want a low B string. I'm going to move all these over one string. I stopped at a guitar store on the way home and spent $6 on a high C string.

I play an acoustic electric upright and swapped out the low B for a high C. I use the high C much more often.
[/quote]

I hope you're doing okay, Ron.

[tubatodd]

PURE SILLINESS:
I really like the look of my old USA Fender bass' neck (maple with black rectangular inserts).
I COULD buy this for Christmas for myself (with the imitation Kluson-style tuners), but this ebony neck plays VERY well, and that would just be dumb.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/178115911613

First, congrats on your first 5 string!

Oof. The pictures of the neck in that ebay listing are inconsistent. In one picture they sneak in part of the Fender logo and in another it's not there. I wouldn't get that one.

[bloke]

@tubatodd

The Chinese are notorious for stealing pictures of stuff instead of taking pictures of their own.
They have pretty good reviews and they offer a whole bunch of different Fender style necks in four and five string and different finishes with both maple and rosewood. They also accept returns, but it probably costs too much to ship something back to China and then too long to get a refund.

$160 for finished maple 5-string neck with the black rectangular inlays including the Kluson knock-off tuners included (with tariff) is a pretty good price. Most necks on most basses sold these days are Chinese or from somewhere in Asia, so there would be just as good of a chance of it being a good neck as any other, I would think.

I'm really liking the way I've got this rosewood neck set up.
I'm not a trained luthier, but I know how to fix things and I know how to bend brass, and it seems a little easier to bend a hardwood stick of wood with an adjustable metal rod inside it than to bend brass.
Moreover, setting up a truss rod and a bridge and pick ups just seems like a logical stuff - rather than wizardry - to me.
Don't misinterpret this as bragging, but simply stating that I think this stuff is a lot easier than the stuff I usually do. The fact that it's easier simply defines that I'm able to do it. (Don't ask me to work on frets. I would leave that to the experts.)

That was a long paragraph to just say that I'm liking this neck - after adjusting everything - and it's very unlikely that I'll swap it out.

Hey: the three layer black pick guard is on its way, though.

[Mary Ann]

So, where did you find it?

[bloke]

So, where did you find it?

a pawn shop in dangertown

I had been there a few days ago, but was wrong about closing time.
(Pawn shops in Maim-fist used to close at 6, but - obviously - they've decided that it's safer to close at 5.
All the guitars were lined up against a row of plate glass windows (and I stepped behind some small shrubbery to read their makes off the neck plates), but THIS PARTICULAR ONE was just past the last window - over in the corner (so I couldn't see it).

They had a Eastman axial flow valve trombone in there, and a Shires trumpet, but the Shires was "Q"-series (Chinese) and the Eastman was (well...) Eastman.

There was ANOTHER pawn shop that had one of the recent vintage "bastard" Conn-Selmer trombones (a "Bach"-engraved student trombone which Conn-Selmer cobbled together from a Bundy-tooling bell and a Conn Director-tooling playing slide). The thing is this: I have a very desirable vintage Conn small-bore (Elkhart-vintage) professional BELL section (with a slide, but it could use a better slide). The slide on that "Bach" thing is VERY similar (correct bore, would bolt up, and extremely similar styling) to the oem "professional" slide for that Elkhart-vintage trombone...but (me: stingy) I'm not sure If I want to pay $80 for a slide, and have a left over Bundy bell. (I WILL think about it...I'll be back over there...)

noticed: Hammer-ons and pull-offs are WAY easier and WAY cleaner with round-wound bass strings.

This neck, etc...
NOW THAT I've set up the freakin' thing...
This bass plays MUCH NICER than any "professional"-line bass guitar that I played on (the other day) in Guitar Center.

[Mary Ann]

It's interesting that even though the greater Tucson area is approaching one million -- our pawn shops do not contain instruments worth buying. Phoenix, maybe, but I won't drive two hours in 110 degrees both ways to find out.

[bloke]

It's interesting that even though the greater Tucson area is approaching one million -- our pawn shops do not contain instruments worth buying. Phoenix, maybe, but I won't drive two hours in 110 degrees both ways to find out.

All pawn shops have guitars in them.
Most are crap, a very few are "behind the counter" ($2XXX/3XXX), and the good ones (usually) don't stay on display for even a full day.
I have NO idea why this one was still there...' hidden in the corner...?? NOT some eye-popping color...??

I'm not going to mention the (major brand - from bottom-to-top-of-the-line) names of bass guitars that I do NOT like (as - again - that sort of thing is THE MOST POLITICAL topic on this site). I LIKE Fender, and a licensed Asian Fender "line" guitar is OK, if it happened to have turned out very nice when it was fabricated, and hasn't been all torn up since.

again: I got really lucky...EXACTLY-EXACTLY (the silly "maple neck preference" aside) what I was looking for...

@tubatodd
(re: earlier topic, and your comments) The SECOND time I went through "Saturday in the Park" on this 5-string (I didn't bother playing through it BEFORE I did all the set-up work) - and had one "get used to it" run with BOTH the round-wound strings and the extra string...I played it as well as I had ever played it on the other bass. (I had assumed the learning curve would be much longer.) again...I had sorta forgotten how much clearer and easier hammer-ons and pull-offs are on round-wounds.) Interestingly, I LIKE (just as with the 4-string with flat-wounds) the sonority of the neck pick-up being turned OFF, the bridge pick-up being turned up, and the tone knob (to partially dampen the terseness of the tone of the bridge pick-up) being turned all the way to the left. (I read online about some super-duper-star bass player using this as the semi-default setting on their Jazz bass.)

Back when I was a little kid (5th/6th/7th grade) and taking guitar lessons in Memphis at (long defunct) "Paul Craft's Guitar and Drum City", they had THESE
https://www.sweetwater.com/c580--Ricken ... ss_Guitars
(brand new c. 1968 models, etc.) hanging up at the 8-feet-high level towards the back (so someone wouldn't grab one and and run out the front door).
- I didn't play bass.
- I couldn't reach that high to take one down and mess with it.
- I was afraid that I might scratch a ($600 - now worth c. $15000 if in new condition) brand-new instrument.

Paul Craft sold that place, moved on to Nashville, and went on to become this person:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craft

Paul sold it to Mike Ladd
(false information here...The original location - for a few years - was the same as Paul's, on Summer Avenue, and NOT on Elvis Presley Boulevard).
https://wreg.com/web-only/a-home-grown-workshop/

The first guitar that I bought MYSELF (with money from selling cigarettes and counterfeit pep-rally and assembly tickets) was one of these.
(from Mike Ladd)
It was just after they began being made in Japan (rather than Michigan), and (being Japanese) were thought to be "cheap".

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1y4AAOSw ... -l1200.jpg

This was before I switched teachers, and began studying so-called "classic" nylon string technique.

[ronr]

- anyone who remembers my blather will remember that I really don't want a low B string. I'm going to move all these over one string. I stopped at a guitar store on the way home and spent $6 on a high C string.

I play an acoustic electric upright and swapped out the low B for a high C. I use the high C much more often.

I hope you're doing okay, Ron.
[/quote]

Not lifting a horn for a while, but I’m doing well. Thanks