New Old Peavey Bass Day!
So, I’ve been putting this off for a couple of days. I think that’s had an effect on Adrian, perhaps. In a moment of weakness last week, I ordered an old Peavey T-40 that I’d been trying not to buy off of Reverb.(this pic was of no help to me)
I was having a difficult time saying no to it though. It’s a 1980 by the looks of things like serial number, contouring, and equipment etc. The color is called Sienna Burst, but I’m dubbing it “Stoner Burst”. It also has a rosewood board...not really “rare”, but not common for these in any body color, as they put out a lot of maple during the ten years these lumps of boom were churned out of Mississippi. Well, I’d been looking for a passive bass that I really liked for a long time, and after playing a friend’s 73 Ric I was thinking that I wouldn’t ever find something that looked, and sounded the part I wanted played.
This was gonna have to be close enough.
According to legend, these beasts are H E A V Y. This one is probably the heaviest stringed instrument that I own right now, but I don’t think it’s by too much. My Gladiator GG-258 LP-ish axe is pretty fricken heavy too. I don’t usually weigh my stuff, but I may soon...just for giggles. I’ll go on record as guessing that the Stoner Burst T-40 probably tips the scales between 12 and 13 pounds. I’ll see if I can dig out my fish scale to check at some point.
It arrived during a crazy storm we had on Thursday. It was well packed, and nestled inside it’s well worn Coffin Case. I was happy to see that it had survived the whole ordeal.
Most surprising, was the fact that I pulled it from the case to find that it was ACTUALLY IN TUNE COMPLETELY! It was in need of a set up, at the very least. The action was “ok”, but things didn’t look all that straight somehow. It played really well for the first few frets, then things got a little wonky at the high end of the fretboard. The neck was a bit bowed. A trus rod adjustment seemed to make an improvement, adjusting the neck tilt and bridge pieces further improved things, but it seems that frets 18 & 19 are a bit “proud” on the A & D strings. When I make all frets playable, I wind up with the bridge pieces set steeper than the 12 inch fretboard radius, and action is a bit higher than I’m used to. It’s not horrible, but it’s not great.
Another bummer was the fact that someone had replaced the original 3 way pickup selector with a 2 way switch
. Easy fix though...of course I didn’t have the style of switch that was called for(probably the same thing happened to facilitate the installation of the 2 way). Amazon came to my rescue with a Saturday delivery.
So, last night I tore into it, and didn’t take any pictures
of course. The switch was a breeze to swap in, the ground bus tie in was a bit more challenging but it came together.
While I was in there, and the iron was hot, I found a few cold joints and reflowed them.
Now all of the electronics are functional, and I’ve verified that all switching functions are working. I even sat and mapped them out for myself. This thing is wildly set up in the pickup selection area. There are a plethora of different options; hum bucking, single coil, mixed, and which single coils are active(via the phase switch magic) etc.
Today, it’s back together, and adjusted to the best set up I can seem to get out of it. I spent some time noodling around with different settings to find a few favorites. It is tough to choose favorites with this bass...it has sooooo many good sounds available. It really makes me wish I could play better.
Enough ramblings.
Pic’s!
I do have the truss rod cover.
The 5 string Peavey on the right, above, is not mine. I did gift it to my bass player years ago.
The Washburn has crazy awesome action, and set up...But the Peavey has SO MANY kick ass tones! I mean REALLY good tones!
So, I’ve been putting this off for a couple of days. I think that’s had an effect on Adrian, perhaps. In a moment of weakness last week, I ordered an old Peavey T-40 that I’d been trying not to buy off of Reverb.(this pic was of no help to me)
I was having a difficult time saying no to it though. It’s a 1980 by the looks of things like serial number, contouring, and equipment etc. The color is called Sienna Burst, but I’m dubbing it “Stoner Burst”. It also has a rosewood board...not really “rare”, but not common for these in any body color, as they put out a lot of maple during the ten years these lumps of boom were churned out of Mississippi. Well, I’d been looking for a passive bass that I really liked for a long time, and after playing a friend’s 73 Ric I was thinking that I wouldn’t ever find something that looked, and sounded the part I wanted played.
This was gonna have to be close enough.
According to legend, these beasts are H E A V Y. This one is probably the heaviest stringed instrument that I own right now, but I don’t think it’s by too much. My Gladiator GG-258 LP-ish axe is pretty fricken heavy too. I don’t usually weigh my stuff, but I may soon...just for giggles. I’ll go on record as guessing that the Stoner Burst T-40 probably tips the scales between 12 and 13 pounds. I’ll see if I can dig out my fish scale to check at some point.
It arrived during a crazy storm we had on Thursday. It was well packed, and nestled inside it’s well worn Coffin Case. I was happy to see that it had survived the whole ordeal.
Most surprising, was the fact that I pulled it from the case to find that it was ACTUALLY IN TUNE COMPLETELY! It was in need of a set up, at the very least. The action was “ok”, but things didn’t look all that straight somehow. It played really well for the first few frets, then things got a little wonky at the high end of the fretboard. The neck was a bit bowed. A trus rod adjustment seemed to make an improvement, adjusting the neck tilt and bridge pieces further improved things, but it seems that frets 18 & 19 are a bit “proud” on the A & D strings. When I make all frets playable, I wind up with the bridge pieces set steeper than the 12 inch fretboard radius, and action is a bit higher than I’m used to. It’s not horrible, but it’s not great.
Another bummer was the fact that someone had replaced the original 3 way pickup selector with a 2 way switch
. Easy fix though...of course I didn’t have the style of switch that was called for(probably the same thing happened to facilitate the installation of the 2 way). Amazon came to my rescue with a Saturday delivery.So, last night I tore into it, and didn’t take any pictures
of course. The switch was a breeze to swap in, the ground bus tie in was a bit more challenging but it came together.While I was in there, and the iron was hot, I found a few cold joints and reflowed them.
Now all of the electronics are functional, and I’ve verified that all switching functions are working. I even sat and mapped them out for myself. This thing is wildly set up in the pickup selection area. There are a plethora of different options; hum bucking, single coil, mixed, and which single coils are active(via the phase switch magic) etc.
Today, it’s back together, and adjusted to the best set up I can seem to get out of it. I spent some time noodling around with different settings to find a few favorites. It is tough to choose favorites with this bass...it has sooooo many good sounds available. It really makes me wish I could play better.
Enough ramblings.
Pic’s!
I do have the truss rod cover.
The 5 string Peavey on the right, above, is not mine. I did gift it to my bass player years ago.
The Washburn has crazy awesome action, and set up...But the Peavey has SO MANY kick ass tones! I mean REALLY good tones!
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