New bass... Satellite Of Love

ICBM

As some of you will know, last month I broke my arm and haven't been able to play... but I had discovered that with the limited elbow movement I've got so far, I could play my bass if it was capo'd at the 5th fret. I then had an idea - since that's about 24" from the bridge, if I simply bought one of those old Tiesco-made Satellite 24"-scale basses I should be able to play that .

It turned out @JezWynd was selling one, so a deal was done - despite UPS having a go at breaking it, I now have this little thing!



Now I know a lot of you will say these are total firewood... but in fact, I've restored quite a lot of the guitar versions to decent playable condition, and I don't agree. It will never be a Fender, but if you take the trouble to sort out the various issues they have they can be made perfectly usable.

The worst problem was nothing to do with the bass itself, it was this - despite JezWynd having packed it pretty well in a box twice as deep as necessary with some extra protection, UPS somehow managed to flatten it enough to break the pickguard and the volume knob...



(I thought these weren't the original knobs, since I've seen a lot of the guitars with different ones, but having now seen some more pics of this exact version of the bass, I think they might be.)

I've just superglued it up - not a bad job, although it's visible from up close. The guards are quite fragile anyway though, so broken ones aren't uncommon and it doesn't look out of place.

After that, I did my usual job on these - first, take it completely to pieces, checking which of the screw holes in the wood are stripped - they often are since the wood is always quite soft. Clean everything. And...

Repair all the machinehead screw holes (all stripped); open up, clean and grease all the machineheads, and refit them.
Clean fingerboard - the frets were actually fine on this one, which can sometime be the worst problem.
Remove the strap button from the back of the heel (stupid place!) and fill the hole.
Plug and refit rear strap button with a much bigger screw (original was flimsy, and bent).
Fit front strap button on the body horn.
Make a thick shim for the neck - the angle was way too flat to get an acceptable action.
Neck screw holes not stripped, so no problem there.
Tailpiece back on and bridge temporarily (clearly going to need moving, they're always set too straight).
After the pickguard had glued - add a sheet of shielding foil over the control area both to shield it and add a bit of reinforcement.
The pots were fine, so refitted those (the volume pot had just been pushed through the guard, not bent); the jack was corroded as usual so I replaced that with a NOS Japanese one (I would normally use a Switchcraft, but this seemed more appropriate); and the switches needed cleaning, but now work fine.
Tighten pickup cover and polepiece screws, all a bit loose and rattly.
Refit pickguard - surprisingly, none of the screw holes were stripped.
Knobs - I used a pair of old Japanese ones which although not quite right for a Teisco are at least close to some I've seen.
Strings - the ones it came with were badly kinked over the saddles (thanks UPS) so they would need replacing. That isn't that easy - with a scale length of only 24", even normal short-scale strings are far too long and the standard gauges end up very floppy. Luckily, I had the bottom three of a set of old used 35-95 short-scale strings, so I used those for the *top* three strings, and made an E from a cut-down double-ball-end .125 B string I've had for years for unknown reasons...
Cut the nut grooves for the bigger strings.
The bridge needed moving back quite drastically, the E side as far as I could before the old screw hole started showing, and the G about half that.

That sounds like a lot of work - most of a day, although if I was fit then probably a couple of hours or so - but the result is a surprisingly usable bass. The only replacement parts needed were the jack and knobs. It's not perfect - the tuning is rather abrupt, and the intonation is a bit questionable further up the neck even with the bridge moved, but not too bad. The pickups are a touch microphonic with fuzz, and not hum-cancelling - and the sound is a bit muddy, but in a band mix it works fine.

Yes, that's right - I used it at band practice . It wasn't as good as my Rick, but given that I can't play that at the moment I think it's a fair compromise.

So to anyone who says these are worthless junk... sorry, but you're wrong! All you need to do is treat them like a kit which needs a bit of care to put together and you can have something with character that's fun but also quite practical.

JezWynd

Great job, looks like (almost) new. These are a lot of fun to play and it's nice to know it's being put to good use. hngbd!

thermionic

I had the guitar version of that, and also suffered a broken pickguard when my bandmate stepped on my lead and I turned round, pulling the lead and snapping it in two. It was at a rock workshop type thing where a very young Gruff Rhys was playing drums for us. His older brother (one of the organisers) lent me his Maya Strat for the rest of the day, absolute top bloke!

I also glued it when I got home and it survived a few more months and several gigs before I sold it. Maybe I should get another?

Winny_Pooh

You're braver than I am... the tuners on those are usually the worst part, are you keeping them?

ICBM

Winny_Pooh said:

You're braver than I am... the tuners on those are usually the worst part, are you keeping them?

Yes, I think so. They seem to work OK after being cleaned and greased, although the ratio is very low so the effect of only a small turn is dramatic, especially combined with very thick, slack strings!

It would involve modding the headstock to fit new ones, and although I would if it’s really necessary, I would prefer to keep it unmolested if possible - not because it’s valuable, just because it’s quite fun to make it work as it was intended to .

  

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

a scale length of only 24"

The bass player in the original incarnation of my first band had a bass like that. (He had the shortest scale length of all of us.) It was red/blackburst and carried no headstock decal. (Probably a Kay.) Intonation adjustment left something to be desired. Regardless of which combination of pickups was selected, the sound was a dull plonk. When reviewing ancient rehearsal tapes, it is easy to spot who played bass.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

The bass player in the original incarnation of my first band had a bass like that. (He had the shortest scale length of all of us.) It was red/blackburst and carried no headstock decal. (Probably a Kay.) Intonation adjustment left something to be desired. Regardless of which combination of pickups was selected, the sound was a dull plonk. When reviewing ancient rehearsal tapes, it is easy to spot who played bass.

One more like this?

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--7bPulmdB--/a_exif,c_limit,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,q_auto:eco,w_1280/v1490868992/qdimfdp9ovgvb7mnfmqf.jpg

I would quite like one of those - the 'Fender-alike' one I have is actually more practical because the longer upper horn makes it balance well - now I've moved the strap button - but the 'Mosrite-alike' ones look cooler.

Although not as cool as this...

https://wesleyguitars.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/kay_20b_08.jpg

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

One more like this?

Yup. The roughly equal length body horns. I recall our bassist having to press his right forearm hard against the body to combat neck dive.

ICBM said:

I would quite like one of those - the 'Fender-alike' one I have is actually more practical because the longer upper horn makes it balance well - now I've moved the strap button - but the 'Mosrite-alike' ones look cooler.

Sorry but I am unable to assist with this.

I am 99.99% certain that the Japanese short scale bass was sold when the original bassist went away to university. Next time I saw him, he had a stripped Fender Telecaster Bass with an added bridge position pickup. I am 99.99% certain that the Fender bass was eventually sold on too.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

Yup. The roughly equal length body horns. I recall our bassist having to press his right forearm hard against the body to combat neck dive.

...

Sorry but I am unable to assist with this.

I think the balance problem would kill it for me actually - I'm short and was sensitive to this anyway, even before I broke myself .

It's the toy Rick one I'd really like - just hilariously wrong and right at the same time . (I'd still have to put the strap button on the horn where it belongs though.)

Bridgehouse

So this was a Sleeping Satellite and now it's turned into an @ICBM and the Satellite.

Nice