Chiliwailer

It’s a bit quiet over here, just @Baloney Balderdash so far…. Mine’s on the way, taken on a life of its own really.

A couple of Rays, modded one from 1995, and the fretless is a 1994 & 1997 hybrid.

Nah, yours is fine, they’d stopped using lacquer by then (around 1993 I think).

I used Ronseal High Performance Wood Filler recently on a bass, it’s fine in deep holes in one application and sands nicely.

How about The Aguilar OBP-1 is pretty small, and has mini pots, I wonder if that’ll work for you at a squeeze? Then again, it has a million wires to make room for. But if you didn’t mind routing under the pickguard for a battery then it might work? That’s what I did with my Ray, I have 2 x 9v batteries under the pickguard. Yep - fretless is great fun thanks, with an equal measure of it laughing at me when my intonation sucks 😂 Hoping this one is a keeper, stunning bass 👌 Good luck with yours 👍

Thanks @lurksalot Oh, and no certificate required ta on my part, spare yourself the time 😊

I don’t know if this is relevant Chris, but I had a J-Tone once with CS Jazz pickups and it was great, but when I used it with Fralin dual-coil Jazz pickups the preamp couldn’t handle it and was popping and clicking when I dug in. I spoke to John, but he said he had no idea what the issue was 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thanks @lurksalot & @upside downer and all who voted - there was a brilliant mix of tunes this month, brilliant and eclectic as always!

Sold Mark a pickguard, very easy going sale and some good chat along the way 👍

Pleasure to meet Steve yesterday when he came to buy a bass from me. Easiest of deals, and we probably could have talk bass and such for hours if we were able to. Enjoy the bass 👍

Actually - just remembered, for anyone interested their new site is easier for orders - https://pickguardheaven.com

Just in case you didn’t know, the hex parts are likely original to the bass - in ‘95 most Rays were shipped without the mute kit, this may be because the ‘Flea bridge’ introduce in around ‘94 changed the string placement, and they no longer sat in the middle of the mute on all strings. BTW - if you want to get an original style matt pickguard, Planet Pickguard in the States made the originals and still make them to order - about £55 landed I think.

The original ‘95 pickup would need to be modded for coil split, but it’s possible as I’ve done it before. I wonder if the switch wiring is causing the issue though 🤔 If you tap the coils with something metal, like a screwdriver, it’ll let you know for sure which ones are on/off in each position. Odd that the blend wasn’t removed from the circuit tbh - maybe because the OBP-1 wiring can need a few changes when using different set up configurations, but it’s not that hard really, there are diagrams on their site. Anyway, lovely bass - I have a couple from that period 👌

Sticking with the theme of fretless Rays… I met @bernard_beard last night to buy one - perfect deal from start to finish - and it’s clear Mark is one of the good guys Thanks Mark - the bass is excellent.