Messy repair! Glue's everywhere! Gah!

[dlenaghan]

Well, so I guess I was supposed to play this JS-II like a toy or something..

But at least it's not permanent.

Here's the skinny: when I got it, I turned it inside out, cleaning it, finding proper size screws for the mismatches and places that simply didn't have any, etc, and lo and behold, the previous owner has taped the bisonic neck pickup into place. Looks like there's brown factory glue (attaching the beveled edge of the pickup to the underside of the chrome ring) that long since split or perhaps was bumped; in any case it took a bit of tape to seat the black pickup casing into the chrome ring that mounts to the plastic base that screws into the body of the bass. So when I took it in for a bit of refurb (new volume pots, etc, because I'm no solderer) I pointed it out to the shop owner and he said he'd take care of it.

The music got a bit heavy tonight at rehearsal, and it's gone and done it again.

So I've taken a razor and a flathead screwdriver and carefully, but firmly, scraped away all of the layers of glue (I'm clearly not the first to have tried this on this particular bass) on the pickup itself (though getting it off the underside of the chrome is proving to be really tough, so it's sitting in some nail polish remover right now), but I'm not about to repeat history.

Any other bisonic bass players out there ever had similar issues? Any recommended fixes? At this point I might just have to see if I can get a custom housing of some sort made up, though I have no idea how that would work.

Maybe I'll just sell the bisonic and buy a Darkstar...

 

[mellowgerman]

First of all we're gonna have to see a photo of the bass. we're big on pictures :wink:
I've owned 3 Hagstrom bisonics and 4 different Dark Stars if my memory serves me correctly (though I don't have any of them anymore )... but never had this happen with any of them. If you want to sell the bisonic, send me a PM!

 

[dlenaghan]

You... you got rid of that many bisonics and DSs? Oooh.. I don't know if we can be friends anymore.. :wink:

I was looking at the pics Fred Hammon has on his site, and his DS looks identical to the bisonics I've got (resisting using the abbreviation 'bs' to talk about that pickup..)

I might just send you that PM... this is the two-bar magnet bisonic, from a 1970 JS-II.. I'm going to try and clean the gunk from the pickup bevel first, but man, I really don't want to epoxy it back in place. I love the sound but.. this just seems like bad, bad design. I mean.. glue? Really?

 

[dlenaghan]

Ack! Where'd my pics go? Picasa won't work for this? Even if it's a public link?

 

[dlenaghan]

Ok, I give up. ImageShack has gimped out on me three times in a row. I'll try again later. But to describe: that black pickup in the chrome ring has become unattached to the chrome ring. Were (assuming you ever had a reason to look) any of your bisonics or Darkstars also glued into place? How were they secured? Hammon says there were three distinct designs for the bisonics; mine must be the latter considering the later date of my bass. But comparing my bisonic to the pics on Hammon's site, they look identical, except mine have two bar magnets, not the single bar design he talks about settling on.

Although before I take this further, Hammon does say that the Darkstars blow the Guild HBs out of the water, and I've heard his sound clip, but I've never heard a bisonic compared directly to a Darkstar. Since you've had both... how would you say they stack up?

 

[fronobulax]

Trick.

Whatever you are about to paste between the IMG tags, try the same thing as a browser link and if you get anything more than a picture, it ain't gonna work. The Preview function will also help you figure out image linking problems.

Since I have both Moderator powers and a lot of curiosity about this I looked at your post in edit mode to view the links you tried to use and have linked to the images below. Basically what you had was https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/X ... directlink when you needed https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-bjaj ... 525201.jpg which I obtained by right clicking on the image and saving the image location.

Regardless, here they are...

That said there are two points I would love to see discussed so the answers are in one place. First, since there are variations among Bi-Sonics, what are the differences, when where the versions in use (on Guilds and other basses) and can you hear the difference? I recall mellow talking about a change in the magnets but otherwise these are questions I cannot answer.

Second the claim that the Dark Star sounds like a Bi-Sonic is pretty much accepted as fact. Does anyone have experience comparing them?

 

[mellowgerman]

Yes I have gotten rid of that many DS's and bisonics... most of them were in basses when they left my possession and did so due to money binds that I frequently found myself in, being a college student. With that said, I just secured a full time job at a music shop and would like to add a bisonic or DS back to my collection. I'm relativey crafty too so I'm sure I'll figure something out to make it work and "stick". So as long as it works as should (electronically speaking) I'm interested
In regard to the glue, I'm pretty sure two of the bisonics I've had seemed to have the bobbin connected to the chrome frame by way of some brown stuff... probably the same glue you mentioned in your original post.
Furthermore on the topic, I have had the opportunity of comparing DS to bisonics 1-to-1... Fred Hammon even states on his site that they are not completely identical, which I found to be true. DS's are a bit hotter and bisonics a bit mellower. That's really the best way I've been able to describe it. You'd have to hear it for yourself really. However, in the mix with a band, especially live, I don't think you'd be able to tell much of a difference. The closest I've heard a DS sound to an original bisonic was when I special-ordered a single-magnet DS from him. He was nice enough to do this for me and it sounded very similar to the bisonic that was in my '66 Starfire bass.

EDIT: almost forgot, maybe half a year ago there was a Guild JS similar to yours on ebay on which I noticed the bobbin seemed to be backward in the chrome frame... perhaps this was another example of having come unglued

 

[mgod]

Second the claim that the Dark Star sounds like a Bi-Sonic is pretty much accepted as fact. Does anyone have experience comparing them?

I go back and forth between them without thinking about it. Dark Stars are a little louder overall, but at the age of the original Hagstroms, volume isn't consistent anyway so I'm used to not thinking about it.