LeftyBassist.com

J-miester, it plays quite well after the leveling work Joe at Prana did. I'm still dialing it in though. Sound wise it really needs some help as the components are pretty old and it's on the really bright side. Since I'm dealing with electronics, I'm ironing that out now. It's very easy to get in and out of the cavity and pickups have screws going into threaded inserts which really makes life easy. I plan to run a ground just to give me some pickup options if need be as I'm not married to the Alembic pickups and electronics. Blasphemous I know but if they were the soap bars (which are still single coils) and an updated preamp, they would certainly stay.

ADSR, good catch. There was damage there at the output jack. When it arrived, I thought it was a bit silly until I dismantled it and noticed the damage due to a caved in jack. It probably occurred from being stepped on or fell over while plugged in. The owner (or their tech) covered the damage with a large Les Paul style pickup switch ring and then needed a long shaft output jack and a riser to then mount to the ring. A standard open frame 1/4" jack works but moves around a bit as the switch ring hole is fairly large. The switch ring is a decorative "treble bass" ring and it does look cool. Joe and Eli poured epoxy into the cavity and covered that hole, then drilled and reamed it back out. It's super solid now and we put the switch ring back in as it looked unique.

Thanks for the kind words !! Still a work in progress but for me that's a huge part of the fun.

lsimy wrote:Thank you all for the kind and generous comments !! That is all Joe and Eli at Prana for sure !

Five, the brass was polished out carefully by Eli who is a machinist. He noticed it was a dense marine brass and really went to town on it.

Just curious - after the brass was polished, was there some type of sealer put on the brass pieces? As you know, if left unsealed, brass will begin to dull, and, if sweat/moisture contacts the brass, it will eventually dull for sure, and turn green... but, for now, the brass looks fantastic!

I believe they did but that would be a Joe question. I know it was polished out beyond what it would be on a new instrument as Eli really knows his metals.

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. As far as the brass we decided to lacquer a few coats over the headstock logo but for the bridge and tailpiece which did have something at some point sprayed on it which turned to gum we did not. I have a shop partner who is a machinist who feels that the brass in those bridge pieces were of really high quality possible navel brass. That being said and knowing how (Mr. V) takes care of his instruments we decided to forego the spraying of the bridge pieces. If it's wiped down semi regularly it's really all you need to do with that and as I understand it (Mr. V) is going to play it and have fun and not worry so much over it. I think that's awesome.

I wasn't sure if I should put his name out there on the webs so the owner of the said instrument will remain at this time as (Mr. V)