Adding chrome pickup cover and ashtray without screws

[bonzodog]

I have just bought a nice Vintage V4 P bass fairly cheap with the intention of doing it up to my taste and I want to add a chrome pickup cover and an ashtray.
Rather than drill the holes into the guitar is there any reason why they cant be mounted using an adhesive or a strong double sided tape?
I supppose vibration may be an issue and the fact there would be visible holes on the plates where the screws should be but wondered if anyone else had done this. The ears on the ones I'm looking at are fairly wide so should be secure.

[Cat Burrito]

Carpet tape should do it - people have done this before

[SteveO]

I knew a guy who stuck his on with adhesive pads because he didn't fancy drilling into his bass. Last time I saw him they were still on there after several years. He is a bit anal about these things and hacksawed the heads off some screws and glued them into place. Looked 'real' until you got really close and saw the plate was a millimeter or so from the bass.

[KingBollock]

I don't know if this will help or not.

I needed some adhesive pads yesterday for something, where I needed to mount something while allowing a little clearance, only I had run out of the pads a few days before. So I made my own using double sided carpet tape (always have some of that around, it's very strong and incredibly useful. You can make it invincible by adding superglue) and some foam, I cut up some of those foam rings you get in blank CD cake tubs and applied the carpet tape to each side.

I think having foam between some joints can help absorb knocks, making the join last longer.

[gjones]

They do look nice, but the reason Fender stopped selling the covers with the bass is that it becomes very difficult to play the thing once they are fitted. It's also the reason they started to be called 'ashtrays' (they may be pointless fitted to the bass but do make very good ashtrays).

[KingBollock]

An idea for someone that wants to have the hardware for the looks, but also be able to remove them for playability, is magnets. My wife does floristry and uses these little magnets, they're 12mm across and 3mm thick, and they are incredibly strong. You're probably not going to want to do this with a prized Fender but it would be quite easy to embed a couple of these magnets into the wood of the bass, they are so strong that they would probably work just as well through a finish if you wanted to hide them when the trays aren't on the bass.

Anyway, it's just a thought, there are probably many problems with the idea that I haven't thought of but there it is. Actually, one worry might be that they might effect the pick ups or something.

Edit: Or Velcro.

Edited October 22, 2013 by KingBollock