Upgrade Day! Anyone Else Upgrading?

I have not problem with many pearl pick guards, and some look nice IMO. like I think on my white EBMM Stingray, that came with a tortoise pick guard (I have a strong dislike for tortoise) and I didn’t want to spend $65 on a WD pick guard after seeing their quality in one I bought on Ebay, it wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t $65 worth by any means. The 10 Chinese Black Pearl that I put on the white stingray looks way better then a plain black would IMO. I would have bought the orange pedal for it, cuz that is literally the ONLY orange anybody anywhere has that is somewhat standard, even tho it is from a custom pick guard place, is it still a standard color, otherwise, there is no Orange for stingrays anywhere, so the pearl would be fine with me.
I think a black pearl looks better then black and white pearl better then white in most cases, just cuz it spices things up, and adds a little flair.
But I have extremely loud color taste, many people want all black or all white and thats it, and that is fine for them too.
but I do very much dislike tortoise, I couldn’t connect with that bass til the pick guard was gone, and I had it for a few months before I decided to just get the black pearl and now it looks great, I love it.
Of course, I put on Orange strings, and it has a maple fretboard, so it is loud in a quiet sort of visual way.

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Me too.

I did find one case where I thought it was kind of decent:

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but I think that is more because that Modena Red is such a great color. On the same bass in Forest Blue:

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just… no.

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I really like this bass John, and Red is usually not my thing, and Gold is usually my last pick for hardware, but just like the one Al @Al1885 built, that I first posted here right before he joined up, I am loving this whole build. I would totally punk out with that.

The challenge for both you and al now is to do a Primus cover

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Are those… are those gold strings? Haha amazing. That’s going to look very interesting.

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Yes they are gold strings.
supposed to be as bright as you can get.

and this one is about the only tortoise I can stomach

and like the Fenders, it is more about the body color than the pick guard.

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That looks pretty good.

But much like sunbursts, I just can’t get in to tortoiseshell. Darkbursts? sure, they look awesome. Sunbursts? Not for me. Same goes for Tortoise vs other pickguard patterns like mother of pearl. Those can look great, but tortoise just doesn’t do it for me.

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I like tortoise combined with an (antique) white body:


Besides that, not so much.

I think @John_E is going to look like the Liberace of the bass world :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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That actually works, yeah. Might look a little better if it were eggshell or something.

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I agree

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Leave it under fluorescent lights for a while, it will get there on its own.

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Oh I’m a sucker for white binding.

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I ordered a Hipshot Kickass bridge for my Mustang PJ and am planning on installing it next week. It looks like it should go on without needing to drill any new holes. This will be my first bridge replacement. Is there anything I need to watch out for?

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I’ve installed a Kickass bridge on 3 basses and it was pretty straightforward. Getting the string heights and intonation right was most of the work honestly.

I have a fourth bridge I might sell, I had planned to put it on my Paranormal, but when I got it the setup was perfect and I didn’t see how changing the bridge would add anything. So I didn’t.

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Thanks @Wombat-metal. I thought it looked pretty straight forward but it’s nice to have confirmation from people who have done it.

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Hold the screwdriver with both hands. One hand near the tip so it can’t slip and re-decorate your bass.

It’s very straightforward. The one thing I have found on one bass is I could not get the E string to intonate, couldn’t get it back far enough. It’s not a normal thing but does happen here and there depending on design of bass.

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Thanks @John_E. I’ve had that intonation problem before when setting up basses. I always just get it as close as I can and call it good.

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I have a stubby screwdriver and it’s perfect for this kind of work

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That is exactly what my EBMM Stingray SLO Special was. I could not fall in love with it until I put the black pearl pick guard on it, which is not my first choice, but much improved, and cheap, for a high quality pick guard.
There are a few fun patterns I would have liked to get like the Anonymous from V for Vendetta or the eye balls, or the comic strip, all from WD custom, along with quite a few of their other prints, but I am not gonna pay $80 after shipping for a pick guard of that quality, which is not as good as a pressed Chinese one. The WD one that I have on my Ray4, which cost $20 off Ebay, but was like a $45 print on the website (Faux Diamond Plate), is thin, and was left relatively unfinished, I had to use an X-acto blade to scrape the burrs off the edges, and finish chamfering a couple holes, plus the finish is wearing off pretty fast in my thumb area, where as the pressed Chinese $9 pick guard off e-bay was perfect fit and finish, and pretty much same quality as what comes on the stock off the shelf EBMM and SBMM. Its just too bad they are pretty limited to classic prints, white, black, parchment, white and black pearl, tortoise, and some limited colors or patterns.
Its really a bummer that pick guards for stingrays don’t have a lot more just playing color options from more locations then one online vendor which I already have a less then stellar opinion of, after getting their product from a distributor that was not them.

So. yeah, I still can’t do the tortoise on that white, and I tried with a legit EBMM Stingray.

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OK, I’m going in.

That’s freed up a little space.

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What did you do in there?

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