FARG - it's the First Act (is a) Real Guitar Club!

[BowerR64]

Its not a bad guitar actually.

The lower end ones ive come across were hit and miss though.

This is the first high end one ive had and i like it.

 

[Michael A.]

Finally got my hands on the elusive ME109.

The thing is solid with a pretty nice neck, as is usual, and decent fret work. Bridge is a little misaligned but not bad enough to do anything about unless I decide to upgrade the bridge. Neck will probably need to be shimmed, though it’s playable with the saddles lowered all the way. Pickup sounds decent and tuners seem fine. I love the look of this bass.

First Act only mass produced two bases that I know of: this one and the other (ME 105) with a more fender-esque headstock. This one (with the Delgado shaped body) is considerably more rare. I’ve only ever seen a handful come up for sale online.

I paid $100 for this one through Guitar Center plus about $30 in shipping. I feel this is a fair price for the quality of the instrument but I’m accustomed to getting a much better deal for First Acts. However this one is in quite good shape and plays well. It’s also very unique and I had a severe case of GAS for this bass.

Thanks for tipping me off about this model!

I've been wanting to find a cheap bass to modify and mess around with. Found a ME114 on CL about 1:15 drive away from me. It had been on there for 2 weeks, so I figured, what the heck, let's see if this seller ever comes into the metro area from where he lives in the boonies. As it happened, by offering an extra $10 over asking price, he was willing to bring it the next day within a 35 minute drive from me. He was late getting there, flat tire, but he did get there! $25 changed hands and I've got a new project. To be honest, I think the body shape is pretty uu-gg-ly, but it is cool in its own special way!

I didn't even know about the ME109/114 until your post, which made me realize the "guitar" on CL was a FA model. It is pretty rough, but I can salvage it and hope it will be a good player. The neck even has a bit of flame that a dye job would bring out nicely. First, an industrial strength cleaning and de-rusting needs to begin.

How much relief do I want to achieve in the neck? Total bass newb!

Anybody know a cheap source for a single replacement tuner and a set of flat wound strings?

 

[BowerR64]

This thing is a stew of a guitar, its 3 parts strat (neck, headstock, neck pickup) 4 parts Gibson (set neck, bridge, humbucker, separate volumes) and then it has some wolfgang/ Rickenbacker in it.

You guys need to get one

 

[Autolycus]

Thanks for tipping me off about this model!

I've been wanting to find a cheap bass to modify and mess around with. Found a ME114 on CL about 1:15 drive away from me. It had been on there for 2 weeks, so I figured, what the heck, let's see if this seller ever comes into the metro area from where he lives in the boonies. As it happened, by offering an extra $10 over asking price, he was willing to bring it the next day within a 35 minute drive from me. He was late getting there, flat tire, but he did get there! $25 changed hands and I've got a new project. To be honest, I think the body shape is pretty uu-gg-ly, but it is cool in its own special way!

I didn't even know about the ME109/114 until your post, which made me realize the "guitar" on CL was a FA model. It is pretty rough, but I can salvage it and hope it will be a good player. The neck even has a bit of flame that a dye job would bring out nicely. First, an industrial strength cleaning and de-rusting needs to begin.

How much relief do I want to achieve in the neck? Total bass newb!

Anybody know a cheap source for a single replacement tuner and a set of flat wound strings?

Whenever I need to set up a bass, I just watch this series of videos:



The only caveat is that he didn't loosen the strings before adjusting the truss rod. Maybe it's because he was loosening rather than tightening. I would not tighten the truss rod without loosening the strings.

Also some will want less than 0.015 for relief (0.012 is a common preference) and you most certainly could go a bit lower than 0.015 without buzzing if you were using flatwound strings, assuming the fretwork isn't atrocious.

You can get a tuning key from allparts:

https://www.allparts.com/TK-0794-L10-Treble-Side-Economy-Bass-Key-Chrome_p_3693.html

Can't help with the flatwounds as I don't use them.

congrats on your new bass!

 

[Tone Eee]

Got this Garagemaster for cheap, as the electronics were toast and the pickguards peeling

I redid the pickguards with Mod Podge, glitter, and poly.
Electronics are now a passive tone and volume, a coil split for the bridge pickup, and a MosFET boost circuit.

Crowned and leveled the frets, and popped in a Gibson 490 and a GFS Dream 90.

Yes, those are mirrors...

 

[TreblaNitram]

Got this Garagemaster for cheap, as the electronics were toast and the pickguards peeling

I redid the pickguards with Mod Podge, glitter, and poly.
Electronics are now a passive tone and volume, a coil split for the bridge pickup, and a MosFET boost circuit.

Crowned and leveled the frets, and popped in a Gibson 490 and a GFS Dream 90.

Yes, those are mirrors...
View attachment 554905 View attachment 554906 View attachment 554907

What pots did you use? I have a bucket/90 combo in my first act as well, went with 500k and while the bucker sounds great, the gfs surf 90 is pretty dissapointing. I read 300k is the sweet spot for p90s but I don't want to lose the tone I'm getting out of the bucker. Is that what the boost is for?

 

[Tone Eee]

What pots did you use? I have a bucket/90 combo in my first act as well, went with 500k and while the bucker sounds great, the gfs surf 90 is pretty dissapointing. I read 300k is the sweet spot for p90s but I don't want to lose the tone I'm getting out of the bucker. Is that what the boost is for?

I'm using 500k, and the single coil suffers a little. I put in the boost because I had room, but even at low levels it brings back the sparkle, and when the bridge is split it has a real tele-style grunt to it

 

[Michael A.]

Here's the more-or-less finished product after refreshing the ME114 bass in #563 above. I did a mild head stock reshape to something that to me is more harmonious with the body shape, but still gives a nod to the FA "pompadour". The odd neck coloration is from trying to dye the back of the neck and head stock to bring out the minor flame. I'll have to write another thread about how that first attempt went all wrong. I sanded it back, but could not get the dye out of the pores in a lot of places, plus the different piece of wood that forms the head stock absorbed dye a lot differently than the rest of the neck. In the end, I used an amber poly spray to finish the neck and head stock. It actually feels real nice now.

I did buy a $18 set of tuners and $10 set of MF strings (5-string). The rest is all original parts, other than some upgraded hardware from my spare parts. I think I'm all in for about $65.

Haven't yet watched the setup videos above, and dialing it in is definitely needed, but was able to play it some today. It is going to be fun having this to mess around on!

 

[modelmonster]

First act sale length list!
Please list the scale length of different models.
Especially 24.75 Gibson scale.
These seem to be less common.

Hello.
I am glad to find the first act club!
I bought a VW garage master
And fell in love with it.
I have 4 first acts now.
The thing for me is the neck profile.
I would like to find a Gibson scale length. First act to use the neck on a different guitar.
Does anyone have a list of the different models scale length?
Thank you!

 

[bondoman]

Wanna see something cool? This started life as a $15 dollar ME 474 I scored at Goodwill. Got some connections and scored a set of FACS Delia LS P90s. New Schaller hardtail bridge and some refinish and its a crowd favorite. If an amps on this one is usually plugged into it.

 

[Mr. Butler]

Wanna see something cool? This started life as a $15 dollar ME 474 I scored at Goodwill. Got some connections and scored a set of FACS Delia LS P90s. New Schaller hardtail bridge and some refinish and its a crowd favorite. If an amps on this one is usually plugged into it. View attachment 560077

Fancy meeting you here....

 

[Mr. Butler]

Here are a few of my recent FA mods.

Interesting. Thanks. I'm going to keep googling but maybe Mr. Butler will see this and add some insight. Thanks, again.

The Custom Shop Pickups are standard humbucker sized. The import pickups are slightly different. The pickup cavity in the guitar should be standard sized. If you want to install anything other than the stock import pickup you will most likely need a standard humbucker ring. If you need custom shop rings or pickups or sets, I have them.

 

[Mr. Butler]

Do any of you know the scale length of the Sheena sfa ce240?

25"

 

[bondoman]

Fancy meeting you here....

Small world. Hey That little black number is pretty sexy if I do say so myself.

 

[Andy Summers]

ME302 acquired for 80 bucks today. Amazed at how great it sounds and plays. Easily beat out any Squier I tried at the store. Noodling over a loop in this vid trying her out..Far from perfect playing here...haha...but just listen to her sounds!!

 

[brewsterallen]

First Act collection.

 

[Lockheed_Tvr]

Any one else notice this? First Acts seem to be fewer and farther between on Craigslist, at garage sales, and in second hand stores. I think we hit "peak cheap First Act" about 5 years ago. Garage Masters are being listed for $200-$250 at Guitar Center lately, craigslist in my area used to have 10 or 15 listed at a time, now there are usually one or two. I used to see them all the time for $25-$75 and now they are $75-$200.

I'm guessing that their peak production was about 10 years ago so about 7 years ago they started flooding the second hand market and that has largely dried up. Even the prices on the Korean models have climbed. I should have bought in when they were going for $200, now people seem to asking $500-ish.

 

[TreblaNitram]

Any one else notice this? First Acts seem to be fewer and farther between on Craigslist, at garage sales, and in second hand stores. I think we hit "peak cheap First Act" about 5 years ago. Garage Masters are being listed for $200-$250 at Guitar Center lately, craigslist in my area used to have 10 or 15 listed at a time, now there are usually one or two. I used to see them all the time for $25-$75 and now they are $75-$200.

I'm guessing that their peak production was about 10 years ago so about 7 years ago they started flooding the second hand market and that has largely dried up. Even the prices on the Korean models have climbed. I should have bought in when they were going for $200, now people seem to asking $500-ish.

It's probably this thread's fault, being pretty much the only info out there. Still seeing some of the lower end around for around 50 bucks, but nothing I've needed to have. I did score one of the mini acoustics in bright pink/butterfly sticker the other day for 5 bucks at a Goodwill, couldn't pass it up even though it looks and plays terribly. Is it even possible to intonate those things?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[Lockheed_Tvr]

It's probably this thread's fault

Lol, that might be true, I'm personally responsible for snapping up about 35 of them!

 

[floridapete]

Also a fan - here's a 222 tribute to a Sparkle Jet. Nice flame on the maple also.