d-basser

Very tempting, valves alone must nearly be worth that

Thanks 😊

Gorgeous, pointy basses and gold hardware don't normally float my boat but that's lovely

Jobs a good un Firstly, you do not get a lot of Luminlay for your buck I would also caution that its hard to cut without pinging it across the room, risking what little you get so take care. I cut it by scoring round with a Stanley then snapping with pliers. Drilling out the side dots wasn't as bad as I expected. I drilled a central guide with a narrow gauge PCB bit in a pin vice, then worked up to a 3mm brad point to leave a flat-ish bottom hole. I glued in the small cut sections (~4-5mm long) using epoxy with a black pigment to match the black outer on the material. Once set I trimmed them back with snips and a file, I would again caution anyone doing the same, using snips can cause them to chip, I wouldn't recommend trying to cut completely flush as you'd risk it chipping below the surface. Once close to the surface I used a small chisel and a Stanley blade to cut/scrape flush Once flush I sanded up to 2500 grit, then polished the whole neck back with T-Cut to blend out the work. Pretty chuffed with the results. As an aside, I was surprised to find a small shim in the neck pocket when doing the work. Not sure if I am more surprised that a new and presumably CNC cut bass needed a shim, or that a budget company went to the effort of shimming it.

I don't have any pre cut but I could probably look at laser cutting something at work. Does it have to be foam? I wonder if black acrylic would look better?

Happy to join the Lollipop fanclub with my Sire build (detailed in its own thread). Very happy with my choice

Ooh, I didn't realise that the Jive is just a SHO with clipping, adding that to my project list!

But what if the side dots glowed.... Luminlay rod ordered! We play in some harsh lighting conditions, mostly because I control the lights and have a taste for heavy strobes and sudden black outs. Luminlays are life savers

Nice, I have considered similar. With this bass there was a reasonable 'divot' in the finish where the wire had previously been compressed so I wasn't too concerned leaving it proud of the hole

Cheers. Hole isn't filled, just masked over during construction to allow me to draw on centre lines etc. Bridge is grounded, I used my standard approach which is to run a wire as per the norm and then splay the end out and tape it down with copper tape (making sure it has conductive adhesive). This has 2 benefits, in my mind at least: it holds the wire in place prior to bridge installation, it gives a larger contact point for the bridge ground.

Just after I've set up an ML5, typical

Cheers They are chrome yeah. Nickel is a slightly warmer colour and slightly less blue than chrome. Similar but if you put them both next to each other you can spot the difference. I have done builds with them both mixed when I had to but if you have the choice and all things are equal stick to one or other