Happy Birthday Fretless Stingray!

[plopswagon]

So back in early’89 I bought a brand spankin’ new Music Man (by Ernie Ball) Stingray fretless bass.

I had a 78ish P-Bass that I loved but you could park a Buick in the neck pocket and the neck would shift off kilter mid show. I always liked the sounds of David J of Bauhaus, Jah Wooble of PIL and Mick Karn of Japan though I didn’t have any ambitions to be all muso-artsy-fartsy I just like the sound of a fretless

8 years on the road and 38 years of less than great care took a toll on it so it was time to clean it up and give it a refresh. Also I had used Rotosounds on it for a time and that put some pretty nasty ruts in the fretboard. Also as I explained to my Mrs. it was time for it to grow up and lose the stickers.

Here’s the before pictures.

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When I pulled the neck I discovered that today is the neck’s birthday and tomorrow is the body’s!

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I assume the handwritten 10/13/88 RM is the assembly date. The electronics were dated 8/18/88.

[plopswagon]

Getting the stickers off took a bit of the paint with it.

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Also I didn’t realize how much body damage was hiding behind the stickers.

I gave it a full sanding with 400 and 600 sand paper then wet sanded it with 800, 1000 and 1500. After that I did the full routine of Maguires finishing products. There’s a lot of blemishes and defects hiding in the paint. I see why they say that black is the hardest color to do. But I’m much happier with the state of it now than before.

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[plopswagon]

On to the neck. I was initially a bit hesitant to sand it but I had gotten a small fretboard leveler and it did the trick easily. There’s still some slight gouges but I think they won’t make much difference.

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[plopswagon]

I did all that stuff yesterday.

Today I cleaned all the hardware and got it all back together.

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Photo by the Mrs.

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All back together.

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[plopswagon]

All that’s left is making a new nut and giving a set up.

[BearBoy]

Looks great, Plops. Nice work!

[Bacchus]

Good work!

[NickS]

Goodbye to the Course of Empire sticker ? (maybe you've got a boxful in the attic)
Looks like you're making great progress.

[sunshiner]

Really nice, man!

[Nick]

I got the teaser on the Saturday chat - this came out great! It seems like there should be less abrasive methods of sticker removal, but the scars add character and look pretty mean!

[plopswagon]

Yeah, I feel kinda guilty about that sticker. I don’t know if there’s any more around. At the height of our popularity someone stole the COE sticker off my car.

I think a lot of the paint issues were because of the damage of a life on the road and not necessarily the stickers themselves.

[dots]

nice work in this revival!

[paul_]

Nice work, I like the relic’d/de-stickered look.

[plopswagon]

Got the nut installed and gave it a set up.

Plays like a dream*

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*unlike my dreams I’m wearing pants

[NickS]

Looking classy.

[sunshiner]

Indeed, looks super sharp and battle worn at the same time

[Doog]

Good job, man; very stealth and swanky now