U.S. Peavey Club

[mech]

Today's project.....a friend of mine traded some bongos (I'm not joking) for a Squier by Youknowho a little while back. Liked the way it sounded better than the bongos. Well, with a little planning, some wood chips and plastic shavings it's now a 5 string with a T-40 and a split coil pickup. He did all the body, neck and pickguard mods for the 5 string part and I did control layout and wiring. Vol, PU Selector, T-40 Tone and Passive Tone. Here's the trick with the controls to keep the versatility of the T-40 PU. The PUs feed the tone controls which go to the selector which goes to the output jack. When either PU is selected it uses it's tone control. When the PUs are both on, both tone controls work. If the T-40 tone control is set where the PU is humbucker, no highs are lost and the passive tone control for the split coil becomes a master high roll off. This is a picture from when we just got the action roughed in enough to play. It sounds really good with either or both PUs and can be truly massive but bright with both. It's my first experience with the Squier split coil and I understand why folks like them. Trying to talk him into making a tort pickguard for it.

 

[Runnerman]

Today's project.....a friend of mine traded some bongos (I'm not joking) for a Squier by Youknowho a little while back. Liked the way it sounded better than the bongos. Well, with a little planning, some wood chips and plastic shavings it's now a 5 string with a T-40 and a split coil pickup. He did all the body, neck and pickguard mods for the 5 string part and I did control layout and wiring. Vol, PU Selector, T-40 Tone and Passive Tone. Here's the trick with the controls to keep the versatility of the T-40 PU. The PUs feed the tone controls which go to the selector which goes to the output jack. When either PU is selected it uses it's tone control. When the PUs are both on, both tone controls work. If the T-40 tone control is set where the PU is humbucker, no highs are lost and the passive tone control for the split coil becomes a master high roll off. This is a picture from when we just got the action roughed in enough to play. It sounds really good with either or both PUs and can be truly massive but bright with both. It's my first experience with the Squier split coil and I understand why folks like them. Trying to talk him into making a tort pickguard for it.

View attachment 1040604

Wow....sometimes I think you're a mad scientist mech. What an experiment!

 

[richntiff]

My Forum came in the mail today. $149, It's pretty mint and I like it a lot.
The set-up was painfully bad, but after 45 minutes of Allen wrenching it plays great
It does what I want, "bright punch". the active bass control is very good, the treble not so much, but who needs a treble boost on a bass so bright anyway?

Killer!!

 

[mech]

Wow....sometimes I think you're a mad scientist mech. What an experiment!

Well.....he's the mad scientist and I'm more the engineer type. Know just enough to be dangerous around almost anything. We've been planning a scaled down Dano Longhorn type project with a solid body and 30", 21 fret neck that will be 5 string. If the neck can handle it, it'll have a .145" B with the rest to match. The other T-40 PU that went with the one above will be in this one. The four piece body blank is glued up and we checked the layout for the last time this afternoon. Hope to have it up and running in a few months. This one has been really interesting.

 

[58kites]

Love that bass, except for the fifth string, I'm just beginning to get the hang of four strings.
Nice work Mech.

 

[DavidEdenAria]

My Forum came in the mail today. $149, It's pretty mint and I like it a lot.
The set-up was painfully bad, but after 45 minutes of Allen wrenching it plays great
It does what I want, "bright punch". the active bass control is very good, the treble not so much, but who needs a treble boost on a bass so bright anyway?

What year is it?

That is one good looking bass!

 

[DanAdams]

Today's project

What about the string spacing and the four string P pickup pole pieces? Don't you have inconsistencies between the strings?
On a somewhat related topic My project of putting a T40 pickup in my Patriot is slowly progressing

What year is it?
That is one good looking bass!

Regarding the Forum pictured earlier, a 95 I think. There aren't many soapbar Forums out there, earlier Forums look like bland Fender rip offs

 

[mech]

What about the string spacing and the four string P pickup pole pieces? Don't you have inconsistencies between the strings?

We figured out several years ago that since the magnets are equally spaced, even between the halves, the A string is picked up the same as the others. Can't tell any difference in volume or tonality. This works for all the P types we've used and all single coil J types where the pole pieces are the same magnetic polarity, too. It doesn't work for side by side humbuckers of any type where the pole pieces are in line that we have tested (very few). Since the magnets in the two sections are of opposite polarity, north up on one and south up on the other, there is a magnetic null in the middle as far as the vibration of a string is concerned. It induces opposite currents in each coil and the humbucker does what it was designed to do.....cancel any change in the magnetic field that is sensed as opposite polarity by the coils. It basically depends on how the coils are wound and the magnetic polarity of the pole piece(s). There's more to it than this. The distance between the poles of the two sections of a P type along the length of the string means they pick up different sections of the string that may not be in phase to begin with and are sensed as being in phase by the coils. Probably shear luck that the standard length spacing works. We haven't dug into this as far as length separation. Just know the standard configuration works. Maybe Leo was more of a genius than anyone knew.

Edit: Had to read this several times and correct to get it as I understand what's happening. Too early in the day to be technical.

 

[ctmullins]

I have experienced the same thing firsthand. Many people mistakenly correlate the visual arrangement of the magnets with the actual magnetic field coverage; the reality is that the field is significantly larger than what your eye would suggest, with the practical result being a relatively forgiving sensing area.

Unless you're running split-coil humbuckers (such as a DiMarzio Model J), as @mech mentions above.

 

[kodiakblair]

We've been planning a scaled down Dano Longhorn type project

Just changed the flats on my Dano Wild Thing for Fender Bass VI roundwounds. Man I'm glad to hear
you're doing a 5 string so swapping the bridge,that semi floating style Dano used is finicky to work with

 

[jimdgreat1]

Picked up an 87 fury in sad shape. Home made nut a 1/4 inch tall and the bridge cranked up to reduce the buzz on the frets(I guess). Got a new nut from peavey and with a tweak to the truss, some bridge adjustment, and a bit off the neck screw it's playing good. Need to strip and repaint the body as its rattle can blue right now.
Now for my question. The flatwound strings I have will put the silk up into the 4th string post. How do I get a long scale set of strings and inch shorter? Really like the look of the silk extending toward the nut.

I promise pictures and a write up later. Thanks in advance.

Still giving out numbers?

Edit to add photo

 

[mech]

Really like the look of the silk extending toward the nut.

Paint them. You can get them even with paint and use whatever color you want from a hobby shop. Degrease them as well as you can with rubbing alcohol and dry them with a hair dryer. Alcohol attracts moisture. I like the look of the silks, too, but don't like them fuzzed up like always happens and they limit your string choices. Put some paper between the strings and peghead. It'll flake off some over time so just touch it up.

Stealth TL-5 with the strings painted above the topnut and below the saddles.

 

[bassmachine2112]

Hiho,nice Forum.It is a Forum 95 and I have a white one.
Not seen many of these,that,s my white one round my neck in the wee picture at the side.
Very good basses with powerful 18v active,as you say it doesn,t have the cutting glass treble of a Musicman which I have as well.A/B them and the build quality appears to me to be very comparable.
Great bass and enjoy.

 

[mech]

Some local color with a little bassist humor in a picture from Friday night's blues jam at a neighborhood restaurant's bar. The two lead guitar players are having a good time wailing away swapping licks and I'm laying the groove down with the drummer and wondering when the front man is going to the next chord while he's lost in the moment. He plays great rhythm, even better harp and is very good with the crowd.

The Peavey bass part is that I'm playing a Millennium 5 frankenbass. USA 35" neck on a BXP 34" body. Just got it finished up last week. Had to modify the shape of the neck pocket for the square heel and move the bridge a little over 1/2" toward the butt of the body. Just enough room. The neck is what you would expect with quality fret work and it needed very little relief for low action. The J type import PUs were a little anemic for me so wired them in series with one volume, installed an EMG BTC tone stack and have the passive tone control before the tone stack to calm down the BTC's brilliance when the highs are boosted. That turns the combination into a high mid/low treble boost that's really usable. The best thing is that it's a real player and I don't have too much $$$ in it.

 

[ctmullins]

Niiiiice...

 

[PeaveyPlayer]

Paint them. You can get them even with paint and use whatever color you want from a hobby shop. Degrease them as well as you can with rubbing alcohol and dry them with a hair dryer. Alcohol attracts moisture. I like the look of the silks, too, but don't like them fuzzed up like always happens and they limit your string choices. Put some paper between the strings and peghead. It'll flake off some over time so just touch it up.

Stealth TL-5 with the strings painted above the topnut and below the saddles.

View attachment 1041512

You could have gotten DR black beauty's

 

[mech]

You could have gotten DR black beauty's

The finish starts flaking off well before it's time to change and they look like they have leprosy.....unless something has changed in the last few years.

 

[kodiakblair]

The coating on Rotosound Nexus holds up quite well but like any strings they don't suit every bass.
Look and sound great on my white Dyna but on the Zodiac DE with Entwistle PJ Neos they were way
too bright and zingy.

 

[mwbonsall]

The finish starts flaking off well before it's time to change and they look like they have leprosy.....unless something has changed in the last few years.

I am pretty sure they changed the coating recently.

Mark

 

[bassmanrocke]

This is a post 94 Fury that has been stripped and refinned. The last Fury I bought was for around $150 and in good to excellent Original condition. That was a couple years ago and they have gone up recently. Still, I would expect an original to go for under $250, and one stripped like that would be at best half that

Detonator had sold, back to the bass grind. The pawnshop about an hour away (when traffic is light, so closer to 2 hours when they are open) is pretty firm about the price on the TV silver bird that has been there a while, so it will stay there a while. I helped the other guy sell his fury on ebay, lowering his price to $200 was not low enough for me, but it might have been low enough for a lurker on this thread

So now that leaves the last remaining one, not counting the one missing the tuner. This one has been listed at $250 for over a month. But truth be told, I like the natural finish, looks like ash too. It is later 90s so likely has the cheap pickup and electronics, but if I don't like the pickup I would move my QP from the milestone to this, if I get it.

I am willing to go $150 again, but this is being sold by an antique store...

View attachment 1039845
The dark section on the back is a little suspect, what say you?
View attachment 1039846 View attachment 1039847 what would you guys be willing to pay for this?

Looking at it again, it must be a stripped bass refinished in clear, the forearm contour is a dead giveaway, but maybe that is normal for a peavey. For some reason it didn't stand out or I assumed it was a lighting thing. I may not be as interested anymore.