Maude

It would've been a good one I'd have thought as well. I bought the bass in my avatar from the seller and he was one of the genuine good guys. He sent the bass from Chester to Cornwall for free, accepted Paypal fees and accepted my offer of £100 under his asking price, answered any question and sent loads of photos before the deal was done. If it was white I'd have probably bought it, I was surprised at the price, £400, or is that what they go for now?

You think they'd just check the two fit together quickly. Unless it's a Covid19 related issue where they're in a warehouse somewhere inaccessible at the moment, possibly.

That was probably the one I mentioned. It would've been in the Chester area and the ad said something about Matt Bascetta from House of Tone doing some work on it. If it was it sold pretty quick, I was keeping an eye on it. 🙂

I actually had no real use for mine when I bought it, but I thought it might come in handy. It's been well worth the money.

Ooh ow ow ow! @thebrig I was almost predicting what you'd done as I read your post as I had a similar injury this time last year. Same familiarity with tools and not being a cack-handed fecker, but one slip with a hand saw and I'd opened up the back of my hand, sawn into the bone and cut the sheath that the tendon runs in, but luckily didn't damage the tendon, still took 3 internal and 8 external stitches to close it up though. The same finger as well. The tetanus hurt more than the cut, proper dead arm for hours afterwards. Hopefully all will go well with the tendon surgery tomorrow and it'll be nice and straight forward. The cut should heal really well, I was amazed how quickly mine healed, the body is amazing. Best of luck for tomorrow. 🙂

A sunburst 1024x has just sold on Facebook, he was asking £400. It was the chap I bought my 4005 from and he was one of the best sellers I've dealt with. I know, it doesn't help does it. 🙂

This is very, very nice. It's a a limited edition colour called Luke Blue. Modern enough to get away from my retro ice cream colour fetish for a minute. It's so annoying not having access to mixing paint at work at the mo, I'd just use a nice coarse dark silver with a splash of smokey blue and black in it and voila, a one off very similar to Luke Blue. https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/news/140487/

You've just hit the nail square on the head! I know I like a black body and PG Jazz with a black block maple neck, and I know I like a black body and PG Stingray (not seen one with blocks), so I know I'll like this all black with the block neck. But it is just so damn 'safe' when there's a world of funky colours out there.

Yeah, see it looks alright on a Jazz. Maybe I just don't like the look of the Ray scratchplate on the body, which doesn't bode well for this build.

Does black blocks and white paint work? Off to study images.

Erm, maybe Something simple like this silhouette.

@Ricky 4000, For some reason I can't explain, vintage white is pretty much my favourite colour for a bass but I don't like white Stingrays. I'm not a fan of modern white basses and for some reason a stingray always seems like a modern bass to me, I know it isn't but I never claimed my brain worked properly. Maybe it's the big pickup, I don't know. I'm having a bit of a run on retro pastel shades at the mo, my bass rack looks like an Italian ice cream parlour, but I don't think that style suits a stingray. I do have some of the duck egg blue BMW Mini paint in the shed I could use but I'm not sure about it. Regarding the 3+1 head, it work be some major-ish work because just removing one tuner from the side totally unbalances the look. All four would need plugging and redrilling. All the screw holes on the back would need filling so the back of the head would then need painting, along with the rest of the neck if an unsightly line is to be avoided. The HB head is remarkable similar in profile to that Stingray one you posted though, I hadn't noticed that before.

Hmm intriguing. I'm not sure I know what you mean about the head. Do you mean a paint design/scheme or an actual picture of some sort? If I go with the black colour I did think something like this raven as a logo, either in black against the natural wood, or stuck on, sprayed black and then peel the decal off to leave a natural wood raven against a black background, then lacquered obviously. You've also got me thinking about green. A nice dark BRG with cream scratchplate, I kind of Lotus Cortina theme.

Well here we go again, welcome to more lockdown inspired shenanigans. Having been using the spare time to finish lots of little jobs on builds and generally try to decrease the spare parts bin and increase the bass rack, I've decided to put together a Precision bodied, Jazz necked Stingray. I had an SX Precision that I picked up for next to nothing years ago which I intended to use for a project at some point, and a left handed Harley Benton 'deko' Jazz, which was similarly bought for peanuts, mainly for the Wilkinson hardware. Then I was reading the thread about Stingray pickup placement, that was hinting that the main thing to get 'that' sound was pickup placement. Yes body, bridge, neck, electrics, etc all play a part but a Stingray pickup in the sweet spot seems to get an unmistakable Stingray tone. Fleabag was praising the Warman pickup, which only costs £20, and my little brain started whirring. The P body was already in primer so it will need painting, but as I'm furloughed I can't lay my sticky fingers on any, ahem 'budget' paint. So this will be aerosoled, and if I'm going to aerosol it why not do it black so that it'll show every imperfection like the proverbial sore thumb. As the neck is a lovely maple with black blocks and binding I thought the classic black body and black scratchplate would work well. I love a funky colour but I really think just good ole black, black, maple will look great. Oh yes, the neck is a lefty so it will be a reverse necked PreJazzRay. Here's the main bits and a quick mock up. A black scratchplate is on its way, and once all the bits are gathered I can do some careful measuring, drilling and routing. The main thing is to get the pickup in exactly the right spot, regardless of where the rest the hardware is, if I need to make a one off scratchplate then so be it. The neck needs a little reshaping to fit the pocket end and some of the cavity will probably need filling along with some screw holes but it should all be quite straight forwards. Ha famous last words. I've flatted the face of the headstock to remove the upside down logo and I'm not sure whether to just re-lacquer it or do it body coloured, any opinions folks? Saying that any thoughts on body and scratchplate colours to go with the neck would be welcome as it doesn't have to be black, I did think a dark silver/graphite grey might be nice.

Thank you @Ricky 4000. Some instruments just deserve a nice paint job. 😄

I really like how you do the finishes on your builds Andy, it always amazes me that it is brushed/wiped on. It seems a very organic finish that really complements the natural wood. Top work 👍

Thanks to @AndyTravis, who saw one on ebay and was kind enough to message and let me know, I've now got a Bronco bridge on the way which should fix the string alignment without having to bodge the threaded saddle bridge. Cheers Andy. 👍

Well I've now got a neck with hardware, a body, bridge, control plate with electrics and a scratchplate. I'd better start a build thread. 🙂

I really, really like this bass. I bought it to put piccolo strings on, which I've got, but haven't actually done yet as I keep playing it as it is. It sounds ace played with a pick. I've just spent a couple of hours playing along to The Cure, Neds Atomic Dustbin (the high melodic bass), Joy Division and have just blasted through some early New Order, the frantic ones like Procession, Age of Consent, etc. The Hofner Club is nice but in a different way, it depends what you want. My Club has LaBella flats so is a proper thump master whereas the Talman with fresh rounds is really grindy with a pick. Put some flats on and play with yours fingers and it'll be thumpy like the Club, but put rounds on the Club and I don't think you'll ever get that grind, plus aggressive playing on a Club moves the bridge over time. Out of my shorties I had the Club with flats for the thump, Longhorn with rounds for the grind, and this Talman was getting the piccolo strings for some high up melodies but the Longhorn might get the piccolos now and keep this as it is, I don't know. I've also got the Kay but I can't for the life of me explain why. 😁

I haven't got any scales here but it's not a lightweight. It's about middle of the road I'd say. I've got some heavy basses and some light ones but this is somewhere in the middle. It's a big lump of a body even though it's short scale. You don't pick it up and think "ooh that's light" like the Longhorn or Hofner shorties I've got, but at the same time you don't think "shite that's heavy" like some. It's just like an average Precision really. Sorry I can't be more help.

The purple quilt looks great Stew, and the pickups look pretty meaty. How does it sound? I love a good budget bass. 🙂

Haha nice one 👍 But they're normal single knobs I assume, if there's another out of view then I guess it's volume, tone and pickup selector switch.

That looks cool, I do like Danelectros. What is the control on that one, just a volume?

After looking into it a bit more it doesn't look like I can put standard chrome knobs on it. It's got dual concentric knobs but rather than standard size shafts and grub screw fixings it got old radio style fixings. The outer control has two opposing cut outs and the inner control is a lot smaller than a standard 6mm knob. I did think I could leave the lower control as it's very dark brown and then just put a chrome knob on top but the shaft size is now the problem. I'm now on the lookout for some old silver radio knobs but I can see me buying a few before I find anything that fits.

Wow, I didn't realise how quickly a spokeshave would tear it down. As you say very easy to get carried away I'd imagine. That purple heart is very purple. Will it silver a bit or does it stay quite vibrant?