Stingray faffing

[beanydc]

Hey, finally took the plunge and pulled the trigger on a replacement pick up for my cheap Vintage stingray. Bought it as a project to do up over time. Firstly I gothed it right up by swapping all hardware to black previously. 

 

Im a serial faffer/breaker of most things i put my hand to but love to give it a go. Im never aiming for super high quality finish just to learn something along the way. 

 

Bought an Aguilar AG4M pick up to replace the stock one. While im at it I have replaced the pots and just mirrored what the AG4M diagram says to use. Cleaned and put sheilding tape in the cavity (not sure if it actually helps or not but looks better anyways. Didnt want to try anything too wild for my first attempt at something like this. 

 

Big thank you to the advice of a few members that i got on another thread i asked about soldering. 

 

All in all enjoyed this first part of the project and to my surprise everything actually works 😂 . Blanked off the other hole with something I found in work. It fits so it's ment to be. 

 

Not sure what to do next 🤔. Like the idea of brass nut but think that might be out of my depth. 

 

Few pics of progress so far. Needs a good clean up now its done for now 

 

Edited February 6 by beanydc

[PaulThePlug]

Loves a bit of modding and faffing... Looking Good.

[beanydc]

20 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said:

Loves a bit of modding and faffing... Looking Good.

 Yeah cant beat a good faff 😂  thanks pal

[Richard R]

Love the bolt head to blank off the hole!

 

[Si600]

Do you live in an old telephone exchange?

[beanydc]

47 minutes ago, Si600 said:

Do you live in an old telephone exchange?

No I work as a telephone engineer and only soldering iron I have access to is on the frame. Did it on my lunch if any top bosses are looking 👀😂😂

[beanydc]

5 hours ago, Richard R said:

Love the bolt head to blank off the hole!

 

Thanks. Its the perfect size fit so rude not too.

[Andyjr1515]

Nice neat job.  How does the Aguilar sound?

 

Did you ground the copper on the controls chamber?  I never was sure it made any difference, but I would have been tempted to copper cover the whole of the back of the controls plate rather than just a strip, and then add a copper nib to the chamber towards one of the screw holes to create a fully earthed 'faraday cage' using the earth connections from the pots.   As I say, I'm never sure whether it does make a difference...might be like banging dustbin lids in a field to keep the elephants away.  But, at least in the fields round here, there are no elephants...so maybe it does work!   

Edited 1 hour ago by Andyjr1515

[Hellzero]

On 06/02/2026 at 23:23, beanydc said:

Cleaned and put sheilding tape in the cavity (not sure if it actually helps or not but looks better anyways.

Good job, congratulations!

 

But I think you didn't earth the shieldings (yes, it's a plural).

 

If you didn't, the shielding is useless, so simply solder a wire from the pickup cavity shielding to the electronic cavity shielding and from there to one of the pots case, you'll have perfect isolation and it will be dead silent even with the hands off the strings. 😉