First things First!

So my first two repairs for The Lowdown Instrument Repair shop were a pair of basses from my buddy Frank Alongi's school program in Lemont.
First was a Dean Edge 4 string bass.  One of these guys

So got the bass and plugged it in and no sound.  Opened up the cavity and it was a mess.  Wires disconnected and worn out.  Started de soldering all the wires/pots/etc.  Found a wiring diagram from Talkbass.com and re soldered everything.  The output jack was giving me real problems.  The wire lead was two parts in one and it was super skinny (hot and ground). Also was having trouble getting a good connection between the output jack hot lead and the jack terminal.  Eventually got it right... but this thing could have definitely used a complete rewiring (wasn't in the picture because of a short timeframe). Then gave it a good ole setup.  Removed and boiled/cleaned the strings, adjusted the truss rod, action and intonation and tightened all the hardware.  Polished her up and sent her on her way.
Then came #2.  A Squire Affinity jazz bass.

This one needed a new tuner and a lot of setup work.  Was looking online for a direct replacement tuner and had some trouble. Turns out now Squier uses the crappy, flimsy tuners on these basses.  This was an older model with a more traditional full back mount, clover style tuner.  Found what looked like a direct placement from allparts but they were sold out.  So eventually just replaced the broken tuner with one I had from a scrap Douglas jazz bass neck I have laying around.

Drilled some new holes and voila, it was on.  Very slight difference in the look but not noticeable to the untrained eye.  Then went setup crazy.  Shimmed the neck, adjusted the truss, action, intonation and slapped some new D'Addario strings on it.  Adjusted the pickup height and plugged it in to check it out.  Sounded great but when I unplugged the cable from the jack the bottom of the control plate just popped off.  The screw at the bottom of the plate had completely stripped out of the body.  So plugged it with a dowel and some wood glue, let it sit for 24 hours, redrilled,  and it was fixed.  Did a couple plug/unplug passes to make sure it was solid.  This one was feeling so good when I finished it that I brought it to my church gig and played it.

1. Dean Edge 4 String
-Setup/Clean/Tightened Hardware
-Repaired Electronics
2. Squier Affinity Jazz Bass
- Replaced broken tuning machine
- Setup/Clean/Tightened Hardware
- Shimmed Neck