Ander87

… and a new Pearl pickguard for the Cruz teal boy… Personally I think this is a much better fit than regular white:

Thank you! taken a lot of work and the right opportunities but I think in my heart these are the top two colours for that generation if not ever (to me)! Ander.

Ah...! First couple of days with the 5HH and loving it - took it to practise yesterday... It came really well set up and I didn't have to touch the action, just the truss rod a tad bit when I changed the strings to Chromes flatwounds... Slamming tone and lots of flexibility thanks to the extra pickup. Depending on the type of player you are, one pickup is plenty - I don't see myself using them all in the 5HH for live gigging in my punk rock band, but I will defo use some of the tones in the studio. Positions 2 and 4 (inner and outer coils from each pickup combined) add a very very cool character! What I'm saying is, if you have a chance to get a HH version go for it, but if you want to scratch the itch of having a Stingray and you only have single pickups you will not be miserable. For me, it does the job where my base sound is on the 4H, whilst the 5HH lets me do other genres (soul/neosoul forays) and different tones out of the pickup positions. I can see myself using both evenly, keeping the 4H with NYXL's - the string choice adds a lot of flavour of course...! I will change the pick guard to pearloid most likely, and that switch tip to black of course, why'd they use white when the hardware and knobs are black....!

The Bongo Bros!!!

Damn… 😍

Thank you and yes it is indeed! very dark and even, could've believed it's rocklite or something!

This - I have jumped between 50-105 and 45-100 and in between with rounds steels flats.... Most of the times the 0.005" variation doesn't amount to much... You may be lucky? long as the string sits in right, you've got a lot of room to adjust truss rod string height and others.

Most definitely....! Digging in around in forums etc it also seems that the newer generation of 'select hardwood' bodies it's cause they ran out of the swamp ash they used in 2018-2019 (wood shortages etc). Now I sound like I'm ranting against all that is not mine, I don't mean to - I am sure they are absolutely amazing instruments to the highest standard, but paying 3k£ I'd expect to almost have a picture of the bass the woods come from haha!

Hey bud! the charcoal sparkle and dropped copper were second hand at 1700£ ish, seems going price. The brand new Cruz Teal was from N Stuff Music, Pennsylvania, post taxes looking at £2,290ish, cheaper than my 5H Special back then (£2,299 from GAK). These days UK new prices for Specials is £3k+, I've seen £3.2k to £3.5K for a 5HH....! This Cruz Teal was 2400$, discounted down to about 2150$ if I remember? converted to 1800/1900£ plus customs.... Can't remember the figures down to detail but certain £2,290 at home