Wildcard Week

 Eleven sobering days have passed, and we have made some progress!

I don't mean to be nostalgic, but do you remember when you could adjust your little rabbit ear antennae, tap the side of the television, and scroll from channel 2 to 13 and see somewhere between two to five NFL games on any given weekend? Now, even if you have cable (we don't) you have to subscribe to this or that streaming service for every separate game. (Grumble grumble grumpy old Gen Xer!)

So I am having my own wildcard game with the ol' Harmony H-805. Here are the finalists who have made the playoffs:

Original bridge Vs. stock Fender bridge from my Mustang bass.

Original string tee with no string slots Vs. Silly Stew-mac roller tee. The headstock and tuners cleaned up pretty nicely, I must say. I'll go ahead and tell you, the roller bolted right on and won by a safety.

And in the toughest division, Original Pickup, if it works (which also has a new sparkle) Vs. Active EMG 35-DC pickup Vs. EMG passive Jazz Neck pickup I had from an old project. Just look at that OG pickup! A glut of gutteral gasps and ghostly growls of last century's sounds may be waiting to be resurrected from its chrome coffin.

Now, normally, if I didn't know whether or not I was keeping an instrument I was refurbishing, I would try to keep it as close to the original as possible. But this is a gift, it has meaning, it is going to hang in the boom boom room and be played, not stashed away. So why not give it a better bridge? Or use the fancy active pickup with the biggest sonic range? Well, really, whatever will require the best tinkering should go on to the next round, right?

Starting at the bridge:

The string spacing difference (@10mm) was just too much for the Mustang bridge to overcome, as seen here with it partially strung and held into position. 

Now, what I don't like about the old bridge, aside from its inherent inability to fine-tune separate string length and height, is the weird protruding arm which was meant to bolt the original ashtray cover on. But outside of a $168 Hipshot bridge or somewhere around $100 for those separate bridge slots you can space as you choose (you see those on a lot of Ibanez basses) I have little choice. So I ordered a Fender '51 P ashtray cover for under $20, which may or may not fit over the original bridge. Time will tell.

So, the pickups. Well, I really wanted to bring the original back to life, even knowing it would probably be weaker sounding than the other options. That's what the volume knob on the amp is for, right?

Since the original wiring wasn't working, even with new pots, I set up a little cardboard breadboard-type situation where I could try different wiring schemes I found online without soldering and unsoldering wire after wire. I'm not very good at it, and I didn't want to mess up the new pots with piles of solder and such.

After some trial and error, and error, what ended up working was this, the schematic from the Peavey Patriot.

The Chrome Coffin creaks to life!

And it was one of my neater soldering jobs, despite how it looks. You don't want to see the bad ones.

In closing, last year, I was so good at Dry January that I finished it in 6 days. I must be getting worse, because it is now 11 days in and I've still had no alcohol. Seriously, did you know there are more than four weeks in this month? That would be 28 days, but somehow this January thing has 31. 

I don't want to get too cocky, but I think I hear some low-end rumble at the end of this tunnel! Knowing what pickup is going in, I can start the pickguard process. Then I'll finish the grounding of the body and bridge, string her up, and hope the neck stays intact when the string tension does its thing.

Since the Bengals are out, I must root for the other Midwest Feline Underdog. Go Lions! Or go play music. You know. Depending on what streaming service you have.

Next Up:

I Want You Back!