Claescaster

Back in January I bought a really nice Japanese made Precision bass for my friend Dani from South City Music. Well he paid for it but I had to order it since he doesn’t have an eBay account. He is as addicted as I am when it comes to buying instruments online so he doesn’t trust himself with an eBay account, probably for the best. It was pretty beat up but looked really nice in dark sunburst with a maple fretboard. It wasn’t a proper brand it just said Hobbs Music on it, which turned out to be Hobbs Musical store in Lancaster so I assume they imported it in the Seventies from Japan and put their own name on it. Anyway, the bass arrived but Dani wasn’t happy with the pickups so it was put a side for six months and now we ordered a set of Artec Alnico V P-bass pickups and new bridge and pickup covers from Custom world guitar parts. Dani fitted everything but passed the bass over to me to just look it over. He had done a good job, the wiring was correct and the soldering looked good. I did my best to clean it up, adjusted the saddles to get the action down and sorted the intonation. It’s a really heavy and solid bass, good wood for sure and the maple neck is amazing to play on. I plugged it in to check that everything was in order and sat for a half an hour playing bass by myself, something I never do. It felt quite a lot like my Japanese Jazz bass copy from 1978. It’s unbranded too, or rather someone has removed the logo on the headstock so I don’t know what brand it is. I can’t really jump to any conclusions from just two basses but I have a feeling that the Japanese basses are as well made as the guitars, even if it’s and unbranded instrument. I did an earlier post about the quality of Japanese guitars.

Friday night fun, Swedish beer and a Japanese bass from the 1970’s

The Hobbit, from Hobbs Musical store in Lancaster. Next step would be to get some new machine heads.

  Everything seems to be in order, Dani had done a good job. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the Japanese that routed that control cavity, seems like a pretty uneven job.

Dani kept the original pickup covers, really nice in black and white. Notice my best friend in the top right corner, nothing works better than an old toothbrush when it comes to cleaning metal parts. It works great for removing grime from the bridge, saddles, machine heads and frets. If they are really dirty, a bit of oven cleaner speeds up the process.