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Here it is
View attachment 3561452
and the bridge
View attachment 3561453
Forgive my ignorance but are the rusty hex heads the anchors ?
All I see on-line is what appears to be a sealed unit when the bridge is removed. Does the back plate come off or is access to the inside easier with it removed ?
I've been told i can expose enough thread with the bridge in place to do a decent lube job and am a little nervous to attack a set of small hex bolts that haven't moved in 35yrs.
Serial # is N0291 which puts in the first run of these as #N0308 was apparently the first official sale of an XP-2.
Thrilled to have it, certainly a different beast but looking forward to getting it up and running, thanks again for the help.
Here it is
View attachment 3561452
and the bridge
View attachment 3561453
Forgive my ignorance but are the rusty hex heads the anchors ?
All I see on-line is what appears to be a sealed unit when the bridge is removed. Does the back plate come off or is access to the inside easier with it removed ?
I've been told i can expose enough thread with the bridge in place to do a decent lube job and am a little nervous to attack a set of small hex bolts that haven't moved in 35yrs.
Serial # is N0291 which puts in the first run of these as #N0308 was apparently the first official sale of an XP-2.
Thrilled to have it, certainly a different beast but looking forward to getting it up and running, thanks again for the help.
Same here, I just did that recently, you really have to take it all apart to get out the grunge. It's a brilliantly simple design with only a few moving parts, most of them small, so go slow. I found mine still had some of what must be the original grease in there, looks like white Lithium grease. Pay attention to the sequence of washers on the knobs and screw shafts, they do serve a function, I lost one and now that tuner is slightly harder to turn. Been looking for the right size washer for a while. The knobs are held onto the screw shafts with a set screw that bottoms out on a flat spot machined on the screw shaft end, finicky to align, so don't take the knobs off the shafts unless you have to.Well, the XP-2 arrived yesterday. It's in very good condition for a 35yr old bass. Looks like it sat in its case for much of that time. Unfortunately I'll be waiting 'til Nov. for the La Bella's to show up so I ordered a set of D'addario's that will only take two weeks to come.Until then I'll just avoid the D string as best I can
It's currently strung with a set of GHS that just can't quite get up to pitch on the D and gets there with the G but needs to be maxed out.
So, in the meantime, can someone give me some direction as to cleaning the bridge ? i haven't found much on-line as to servicing these old ones. Does it come completely apart ? Can I back off the knobs and remove the post and claw or just expose them for cleaning ? Light grease or a drop of sewing machine oil ? Any advice or direction would be very helpful.
I'll post some pics in a bit and some close-ups of the bridge if that will help.
Thank you again..
As many tweaks as these systems had, I don't know if this was true across the line, but the original washers on mine were a white plastic, one of which eventually cracked apart, making the knob all but impossible to use under tension. On the advice of some utterly brilliant person I wish I could remember, I finally hit upon a good replacement by going to a plumbing supply store (yes, really - this was before Big Orange was everywhere). I took one of the original plastic washers with me, and found thin brass washers of an almost identical size. I swapped out the plastic ones with a pair of the brass versions on each knob, figuring the soft brass could slide against itself, but still hold a tune when set. They have worked perfectly for what must be 20+ years now. Holds its tuning rock solid, just like it always did.
Most definitely!
Yeah, washers like this have become much easier to find since the big box stores became a thing. Nylon might work, but can get a bit soft and/or sticky under pressure. Given the way my plastic ones went, I wanted something that wouldn't deform or crack under tension long term, hence the brass. (I'm thinking the original "plastic" ones might have been delrin, as they had a certain slippery-smoothness to them, but were still very solid-feeling.) The knobs would probably do fine with just one brass washer, but I was looking to maintain the smoothness of the originals, and pairing them up did the trick.
Update on the new arrival.....cleaned the tuning threads and added a bit of grease, the D'addarios arrived today and everything works great. Tuned up in a snap and off I go. Thanks again for the advice given. Much appreciated
Oh, btw....after years of looking and blanching at the prices I'd pretty much given up until a chance call with a local tech turned into this XP-2 that they were having issues with.
I offered to take it minus the cost of a calibrated set of strings and do what I could to get it working. They took me up on it with a price of $675.00 CA - that's about $500.00 U.S.
yeah, that's what did it. I was in a hurry during the middle of a set. Reversed contacts and out went the entire bass. Good thing I brought a backup that gig but damn, was that embarrassing. Oh well, we live and learn
The EMG in the WAV4 is passive, and somewhat non descript. It's the piezo, and separate tone roll offs for each pup that are the saving grace. I briefly considered swapping out the EMG, but the pup has the same Radius as the whole instrument, complicating things. I have plenty of tone enhancement on hand between bass and amp so I'm not suffering.
