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Wal Bass Club.

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Caca de Kick... This is the photo I ended up sending to Philip for reference. It will be a fretted 6 string. I really love the knot in the wood on the upper horn and a lot of zig-zag in the wenge. The body, neck, and headstock are all getting a gloss finish. I am also getting a Matching headstock veneer. Black tuners, ebony fret board and stringers, and chrome hardware. Can't believe I finally did it. Funny thing is, my wife went through several hundred of my Wal pictures I have saved to my computer and this is the one she ended up wanting me to get...
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I told her I can save that for the 6 string fretless I order. :)
 

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View attachment 754326 Caca de Kick... This is the photo I ended up sending to Philip for reference. It will be a fretted 6 string. I really love the knot in the wood on the upper horn and a lot of zig-zag in the wenge. The body, neck, and headstock are all getting a gloss finish. I am also getting a Matching headstock veneer. Black tuners, ebony fret board and stringers, and chrome hardware. Can't believe I finally did it. Funny thing is, my wife went through several hundred of my Wal pictures I have saved to my computer and this is the one she ended up wanting me to get...
View attachment 754331
I told her I can save that for the 6 string fretless I order. :)

Don't forget to add the black string tree if your doing the black tuners :laugh: ;)
 
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BTW, it appears Wals went up another £200 this week.
For those keeping track, that's three price increase over the course of 1 year!

This bummed me out for a minute...but then I priced out a Masterbuilt Jazz bass fully spec'd with handwound pickups and my total was $8,592+shipping and a 2 year wait.

For anyone interested in making themselves feel better about the Wal price increase: Invalid Link Removed
 
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Finally! After 22 months I now have a new Wal! So, here we have my Mk2 with ebony fingerboard with Sycamore facings. Had a very good chat with Paul who is a truly lovely man. After a quick tweak to take the string height down it was all good to go. A truly devastating bass. Result! Rubbish phone picture attached from my studio.

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Looks great man. I really like the blonde look. I agree, Paul is one of the most genuine people I have ever met!
 
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Looks great man. I really like the blonde look. I agree, Paul is one of the most genuine people I have ever met!

In truth, it did come out marginally darker than I thought it might. Possibly that was down to the gloss finish, maybe not. It certainly brought out the grain lines that run almost parallel to the strings which is cool. It kind of looks like flame maple in many ways.

Certainly, I could have stayed a bit longer to chat, but I figured they were busy. At least 35 necks were in the rack and probably 6 or 7 bodies floating about in various stages of contouring and finishing. It certainly was eye opening when Paul said that they make the bridge saddles and everything. I presumed that the bridge was made, but not the saddles. I did make a joke about how much they must dislike people who order 6 strings as the amount of finishing on the saddles alone seemed horrific! Very, very interesting and worth the visit. Lucky for me I live over the other side of London so only 90 minutes to get there unlike some of you who have travelled from all over to pick up your new bass. Totally loving it. Hopefully will get down to recording some stuff today with it and I can try the DI as well.
 
Paul- actually Phil answered my questions about the lefty Wenge Mark1-
refinish costs are about $1,200 USD for neck and body.... not cheap!

Anyone ever strip down a Wal themselves?

Curious to know how many wires have to be unsoldered and how the position indicators (chrome pins that indicate position of knobs)
are removed...

Any other tricks would be appreciated!
thanks!!
 
Steven, yes I did do one. The only wires you have to unsolder are the three at the xlr jack...the rest of the boards is modular.
The indicator pins push out from inside the control cavity once the boards are out.
Get a new truss cavity "row boat". The new ones have three locating studs on the underside that hold em place. The old ones only have one stud on the pointy-end, and is why so many break loose or get lost.
 
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