| Author | Message | ||
| milkdudbass
New Username: milkdudbass Post Number: 1 Registered: 10-2014 |
Really beautiful Essence 5 at Music Go Round in Troy, Michigan. Looking good even after 22 years! http://www.musicgoround.com/p/341217/used-alembic-essence-5-wcase | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 481 Registered: 2-2003 |
Hi I sent payment for this today! Cant wait to get it  | ||
| edwardofhuncote
Senior Member Username: edwardofhuncote Post Number: 506 Registered: 6-2014 |
Congratulations & Compliments! That's a very nice-looking Essence. Be sure to post pics in the Showcase section. | ||
| milkdudbass
New Username: milkdudbass Post Number: 2 Registered: 10-2014 |
Nice! I'm glad someone snagged so it would stopped tempting me. Hope you enjoy it! | ||
| bsee
Senior Member Username: bsee Post Number: 2746 Registered: 3-2004 |
Pictures are gone, never got to see it. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 482 Registered: 2-2003 |
I'll direct you to an earlier thread about the bass. The first post has a link to pics. http://alembic.com/club/messages/395/209833.html?1433173815 If yu read through that thread...the bass has been restored to factory specs, the original owner found the filter pot so I had Chris at misic go round reinstall. So the bass is back to volume pan and filter...He also threw in the bass and treble pots for me. I got the bass for such a great price there was no way to let it go. I'll post pics once I have it! Thanks T (Message edited by echo008 on August 14, 2015) | ||
| edwardofhuncote
Senior Member Username: edwardofhuncote Post Number: 518 Registered: 6-2014 |
Ahh, yes... I remember that one now, you and Dan (frankfive) were eyeing it a while back. Beautiful bass there - Congratulations! Good that they put it back to standard with the filter, as that's a great simple circuit. I have that same V-P-F setup in my bass, but with an added 3-position Q. (my bass had an extra hole left over from an earlier hack job) Plus, (as pointed out in the older thread) with those Bass and Treble pots, you always have the option of doing an East-Meets-West conversion later. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 483 Registered: 2-2003 |
All good points, and thanks. I've had an Essence 5 before and loved the simplicity of the controls I may eventually end up sending it in for the EMW conversion The bridge seems to be very tarnished I don't think flits I s going to help. A small complaint overall but I was also considering getting a "bird" bridge for it. T | ||
| bsee
Senior Member Username: bsee Post Number: 2747 Registered: 3-2004 |
Nice bass - pretty wood! I have an all maple (Well, mostly maple, anyway) Essence five and I am having trouble getting my tone out of it. I think I need a fatter sounding body core, especially if there's no purple heart in the neck. Probably just need to find the right strings. As far as swapping in a bird, I wouldn't want to add holes. I wonder if you could send the current tailpiece to Alembic, or maybe a trace of it, so they could make you something with the holes in the same positions. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 484 Registered: 2-2003 |
I wouldn't add holes either. Sending a tracing at the least sounds right. T | ||
| fc_spoiler
Senior Member Username: fc_spoiler Post Number: 1769 Registered: 5-2006 |
There's a clearcoat over the tailpiece, you'll need to remove that before using Flitz. If you put in a little effort with Scotch Brite it will clean up and look like new :-) Most likely there will be an outline of the tailpiece in the finish of the bass, I think you will Always see that if you replace it with the bird style... | ||
| ed_zeppelin
Junior Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 35 Registered: 2-2010 |
Pardon me for protruding on your conversation, but as a repairman I am compelled to urge caution when it comes to Flitz or removing varnish from metal - especially On Alembics, the highest art in musical instruments. Don't take steel wool to your Steinway or Kwik-strip to a prewar Martin, either. Good rules of thumb. I would like to hear from one of the Alembic masters on this issue. | ||
| fc_spoiler
Senior Member Username: fc_spoiler Post Number: 1770 Registered: 5-2006 |
I did the tailpiece of my Orion a couple of days ago, this is only sanded down with Scotch Brite (removing finish and corrosion)  The clearcoat will eventually give in and has to be removed if you want things to shine again, here's the tailpiece of my (December) 2010 Elan:  You can see the corrosion starting at the edges, this one is next up to get the SB treatment. :-) I haven't used a polishing compound yet (I use Brasso)But I'm pretty sure that will get the mirror like finish back. (Message edited by fc_spoiler on August 14, 2015) | ||
| fc_spoiler
Senior Member Username: fc_spoiler Post Number: 1771 Registered: 5-2006 |
This is after Brasso ('83 Spoiler hardware)  | ||
| edwardofhuncote
Senior Member Username: edwardofhuncote Post Number: 521 Registered: 6-2014 |
Flitz seems to have the blessing of the Elves as an approved polish for the metal parts on Alembics... http://www.alembic.com/prod/polish.html I do agree with your general advice though, gotta' be careful with this stuff. I ruint (yeah, that's a word around here) the nickel plating on a Gibson banjo once with some kind of chrome polish. | ||
| stephenr
Intermediate Member Username: stephenr Post Number: 104 Registered: 9-2014 |
I am in the process of cleaning up my 78 Series I. Places on the back plates where the clear coating had come off had turned a dark reddish brown. When I cleaned the plates with Flitz the worn areas were much more shiny than the surrounding areas. I called Alembic and spoke to someone in the shop who advised me to sand off the clear coat with 320 grit sandpaper then polish and recoat with a light layer of clear spray lacquer so everything would look uniform. I started with 320 grit wet sandpaper then moved to 400 and finished up with a grey Scotch Brite pad before cleaning and buffing with Flitz. I did the rest of the brass parts and they now look shiny and new for the first time in the 30 years I have owned the bass. When I removed the tailpiece I realized that the center screw had snapped in half at some point and the remaining screws no longer held tight in the wood. Luckily there was enough of the broken screw protruding into the cavity for the batteries so I was able to remove it easily. I am about to plug the holes with dowels and re-drill so I can put the tailpiece back on and reassemble the bass. Mary at Alembic offered to send me a new set of screws for the tailpiece plus a couple for the back plate since one had fallen out. Can't wait to put it back together and play it. While it was apart I also cleaned and buffed all the frets, the fingerboard and cleaned the logo. Amazing to see everything with the layers of grunge removed. I'll post pictures in my showcase thread once the bass is back together. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 485 Registered: 2-2003 |
Hey all I have used Flitz in the past with very good results on my Alembics, I have no issue with using that, I know its a Alembic backed product. I will try the scotch brite Thanks FC! The bridge is pretty tarnished, and I hear you on marks potentially being left once its removed if I wanted to get a new shaped tailpiece... the rest of bass looks new, its amazing and very clean otherwise, sounds amazing and the filter is oh so very sensitive have to remind myself a little is alot. The bass is a beast and sounds like thunder. The icing on the cake is having the bass and treble controls. Down the road they will either be for sale or if I can Ill have EMW controls put in, I know that means a trip back to the factory and the bass will need to be re routed to accomodate.... Ill try and get new pics up. - T | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 486 Registered: 2-2003 |
Please post pics stephenr, would love to see it. - T | ||
| ed_zeppelin
Junior Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 38 Registered: 2-2010 |
Using sandpaper, Scotch Brites and Brasso on an Alembic is like using Ajax on a Rolls Royce. If it's your Rolls, knock yourself out, but that still doesn't make it a good idea. Even if it the metal on a customer's guitar is so corroded it looks like they store their guitar in a bus station urinal, the strongest thing I use is a little baking soda paste on a soft cloth, and soft, even rubbing. (There's a lot to be said for soft, even rubbing, and it's usually said by guitarists, I've found.) From "Antiques Roadshow:" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/tips/polishingmetals.html "Polishing Your Precious Metals" Ernest DuMouchelle, vice president of DuMouchelle Gallery in Detroit and an appraiser for ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, has seen more than his share of valuable metals ruined. Routinely, customers bring him their prized candlesticks, serving dishes, statues, coffee pots, and goblets made of brass, silver, bronze, or pewter. Often, the pieces arrive damaged not by time or the elements, but by ignorance. Some owners have scoured these objects with steel wool or Ajax. Others have ratcheted up the assault by plugging in their drills, attaching a round, metallic brush to it, and then assaulting their pieces with a gusto only a power tool can muster. Learn how to polish your valuable metals without ruining them "These methods put little grooves in your valuable metals," Ernest says. And such scratches, he says, are not a good thing ..." | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 487 Registered: 2-2003 |
Very cool, thanks for posting, I will try the baking soda approach. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 488 Registered: 2-2003 |
Double post (Message edited by echo008 on August 14, 2015) | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 489 Registered: 2-2003 |
Here is a quick pic, I need to clean her up a bit.  | ||
| enzo
Senior Member Username: enzo Post Number: 516 Registered: 4-2009 |
Wow, how beautiful! | ||
| ed_zeppelin
Junior Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 39 Registered: 2-2010 |
What a gorgeous instrument! Is that spalted something (walnut?) A variation I've used as a last ditch effort that works extremely well is *Dan Erlewine's (one of the Gods of repair, at Stewart McDonald http://www.stewmac.com/How-To/DVD/) Line a basin or sink with two layers of heavy duty aluminum foil (you can use an aluminum pan, but it'll be useless for cooking afterward - unless you like the taste of pocket change). Arrange the metal parts so that they're touching each other. Dissolve two tablespoons of baking soda and two tablespoons of peroxide in a quart of boiling water and GENTLY pour over the parts until covered. The alkaline environment creates a very weak electrical current that causes corrosion to migrate to the aluminum - as you'll plainly see for yourself. At the same time, it also causes the peroxide to give up molecules of oxygen that increases the corrosion's transference to the aluminum and causes a very weak electroplating of the materials, which helps fill in surface pits and increases the surface density of the materials. After soaking for fifteen minutes to a half hour, depending on severity of corrosion, remove, rinse and wipe with a soft cloth. It does an incredible job, with no abrasives. It works especially well on old chrome. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 490 Registered: 2-2003 |
Ill totally try that on the "half moon" thank you for all this info! Im a bit sketchy on taking apart the actual bridge"intonation" parts, the parts where the strings pass over. I may hit that with Flitz when I get new strings and see what it does. A little thrill today was cleaning off the logo which was caked, its nice and shiny now, Love it. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 491 Registered: 2-2003 |
BTW the top is Walnut, I dont know if its technically "superb" (an upcharge) or if this bass just got lucky... the body is mahogany and Ebony fretboard of course. | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 492 Registered: 2-2003 |
quick back pic (Message edited by echo008 on August 14, 2015) | ||
| echo008
Senior Member Username: echo008 Post Number: 493 Registered: 2-2003 |
oops.  | ||
| milkdudbass
New Username: milkdudbass Post Number: 3 Registered: 10-2014 |
Great Googgly Moogly that's a beautiful top! +1 for putting it back to the Q filter. | ||
| ed_zeppelin
Junior Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 40 Registered: 2-2010 |
I'm a repairman. Here's my hard-earned motto: "IF YOU CAN'T TELL WHAT I DID, THEN I DID IT RIGHT." As a musician or collector (or pack rat, as in my case), I hope you agree with the sentiment. That's what you want to hear a repairman say before he even opens your case, right? And I learned this invaluable lesson on other people's instruments. Can you feel me now? Full disclosure: my first bass was a 1962 Fender Precision bass my dad bought from a guy for fifty bucks in 1967. It had the rare four-color sunburst paint job, and whoever painted it was a Michelangelo. The colors blended so exquisitely that it was impossible to detect the layers. I spent hour and hours staring into it when I was a boy, when I'd put it on and couldn't even reach that darn "F." When I was 13 I saw a picture of Paul McCartney playing a natural finish Rickenbacker and immediately stripped the finish off my bass and slapped about three coats of Flecto-Varathane on it. Boy, I'm glad I just blurted my confession and got it over with. That's like 'fessing up to peeing on the Alamo while wearing a dress, which Ozzy Osbourne had to admit to, in open court. In. Texas. I've lived with the memory of my utterly brainless act ever since, even after some junky stole that bass during a break at a gig in Seattle in 1983. It haunts me, especially because nearly every day I open a case and see some similar atrocity performed on an innocent instrument by well-meaning sufferers of temporary insanity. But I understand it, down in the "lizard-brain" part of my limbic system: "ooh, shiny! Corky likes! Pretty!" When it comes to the "oh my god, what have you done?" Awards, I claim the title. Even in the special "married men" category, reserved for those of us with live-in judges. My penance is to educate, as many an elementary school teacher has muttered to themselves every morning. So I turn to the masters; Michelangelo. Cellini ( https://newtopiamagazine.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/cellini-salt-cellar.png ) Tiffany, without whom a whole generation of girls would be named something else. Alembic. So I must apologize for so casually throwing the boiling-water-with-baking-soda thing out there, even though I warned that it's a last resort (I didn't tell anybody the REAL last resort, which I've only used once). Don't do it. It's for rusty truck bumpers. Stuff you bring home from the junkyard and tell the wife; "I saved fifty bucks!" So let me reel this thing back in a little, before somebody fires up their tea kettle and breaks out the Arm & Hammer and takes a wire brush to their Series II. There's a big difference between tarnish and corrosion. Tarnish mostly comes from the air, corrosion from skin contact or exposure to moisture and sulfurous drummer-based gases in the air. This is corrosion on a Les Paul:  This is tarnish on an Alembic:  (Congratulations if you got that. "I'll take 'smug pedantry' for $200, Alex!") The best ways I've found to deal with tarnish is a little baking soda paste with just a drop or two of water on a soft cloth. 99% of the time that's all it takes, and you don't even have to grind away at it. The next level - the tailpiece on Echo's bass for instance - is the softest pencil eraser you can find. Those gummy white blob kind that are all the rage in the "back to school" section of your local mega-mart. (Not the pink ones.) You WANT the eraser to basically fall apart, because all you're going for is to remove the surface layer on the lacquer, not obliterate the lacquer itself. Just gently roll it, extra points for dabbing. You'll know if you have to bear down and rub a little. Remember that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was cleaned primarily with distilled water sprayed lightly onto tissue paper, allowed to soak a moment and gently lifted off:  (Conspiracy theorists: note the god/brain http://www.thecaveonline.com/APEH/michelangelosbrain.html ) That's what you're shooting for, especially with chrome. That's what you're looking at every time you open the case and look at your Alembic. You lucky bastard. ! On an Alembic, you should never have to remove the lacquer at all. Lacquer is made to shine, and a soft cloth is your paintbrush. When something shines, it's because light reflects evenly off it. Frankly, if you have to replate parts, take it to a jeweler. I've never met one who wasn't intrigued and flattered (and believe me, cultivating a relationship with a jeweler is always a good idea). They've always cut me a break on price, just because I asked. It's an Alembic. It's YOUR Alembic. Take an angle grinder to your Fender or Gibson bass all you want (in fact, I'll do it for free on the Gibson), but treat your Alembic like your baby. Except it cries in a much lower register. Now, about Pledge. Not Lemon Pledge. I'm going to do an experiment. Here's my Dad's guitar. https://imageshack.com/i/id6W6Pm3j It's been in the corner of my studio in what I call me "time out corner" for about fifteen years. https://imageshack.com/i/eyYyuuMEj My dad made those scratches with his belt buckle, in spite of my constant suggestion to wear his belt "Monkees style," with the buckle on the side. Apparently, that's for an oblique reference to a bunch of cats. The guitar was made for him as a gift by Emil Dopera. The scratches stay. https://imageshack.com/i/p1Alwolxj Questions? | ||
| wookie
Advanced Member Username: wookie Post Number: 235 Registered: 8-2010 |
Lmmfao! "Live in judges" And "pedantic" in the same post!!! I need to hang out with this guy! | ||
| wookie
Advanced Member Username: wookie Post Number: 236 Registered: 8-2010 |
Lmmfao! "Live in judges" And "pedantic" in the same post!!! I need to hang out with this guy! |
