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Highway Starbar - Deep Purple

I sometimes wonder if Bass Direct get a preferential buying rate from Dingwall. They always seem to have the lowest prices. Or maybe they take a smaller margin from the sale price on Dingwalls?

Yes I think you're right. Had a really good chat with bassbags who were very encouraging and would make everything easy. They would give me a call if their van was heading to Scotland, but even with shared travel costs it's going to be pricey. I'll keep my eyes out for a beater bass in the meantime to get started.

Trio - King Crimson

Think it is absolutely identical. Back pickups on Ray and Sterling USA models, whether H, HS or HH, are all in the 'sweet spot'.

I know about the different magnets - it was the placement that bothers me!

Well I've been putting off drilling the tuning machine holes .... it's basically a horrible job ... I used a 14mm twist drill bit in a variable speed power drill ... going as slow as I could, and eyeballing the correct 90 degree angle of drilling. Easy to go wrong, so slow but sure was the way. Well after a grimly intense 20 minutes I had the holes drilled and the tuners trial fitted ... only to discover a problem ... the rollers were WAY too long for the width of the pegbox. Not only would the holes for the steel rollers have had to go all the way through both sides of the box, but even then the tips would have fouled the brass plate on the other side! This is galling as the neck and tuners were supplied as a unit and clearly supposed to be fitted together. See image below ... the plate furthest away was stood off about 1/4 of an inch with the 'bearing hole' drilled as deep as I dare. I did however still have the set of tuners I replaced on my Stentor bass stashed away ... which, while individual on the Stentor as opposed to set and 'all on a plate' with this set ... the rollers were also 14mm diameter and fitted a pegbox the same width as the one on this Chinese neck. As luck would have it the tuners were identical except for the Stentor ones rollers being brass and actually fitting properly. RESULT!!! So I swapped the rollers over between sets and everything fitted perfectly! I could of course have used my bench grinder to shorten the steel rollers ... but who wants to work that hard? I think keeping the brass theme is nice too. I trial fitted the nut as well and was toying with the idea of gluing it in place as an 'end stop' to make the positioning the fingerboard for gluing a bit easier and faster. Still not decided on that one. The end of the fingerboard has been cut slightly out of the 90 degrees so I'll have to address that first - whichever order I fit nut and fingerboard and nut. busy busy busy 😁

Cool For KitKats - Squeeze

My long scale Wilcock

Marathon - Rush

But @NancyJohnson, ... I wanted to become 'The Man Who Used The Handy Bit of MDF', which has been stored in my garage for 7 years for just such a purpose. I will see what plywood my dad has in his garage (38 years of storage, so, more than 5 times more legendary...). More seriously, I plan for the outside to be the pretty veneered MDF, with the inside frame to be a hardwood (garage, 7 years...). The Rack Strips mentioned by @nekomatic looks like a useful addition too - no need to worry about threads on the wood failing then.

Agreed. She is definitely prettier than a middle aged bloke.

I've a brand new set of GB528's for sale if you're interested. I think they're the only set for sale in the UK at present.

I think you might be right - once the initial rush is over they might end up a little cheaper. So far: https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/dingwall-sp1-5-string-ducati-white/ 1950 - which is a wildly cheaper than the early stock in other stores.

Careless Whispers - Georgio Michaelis

And somewhat easier on the eye...

Yeah I was hoping it would appear for a bit less but world wide the cost of basses and almost everything else is getting silly…still wanna try one mind!