RonC

My Fretless Safran has a hidden PU underneath the end of the fretboard. The pole pieced go through the fretboard so you can adjust them. There's also a piezo under the bridge saddle, mixed with a John East MPM preamp, this combination is great!

I only build around 5 or 6 hrs a week at the luthier school, i started with this bass about a year ago. I think about 40 weeks or so, so that makes around 200-240 hrs. I still have to learn a lot so I’m not the fastest builder… 😉

Thanks for the compliments! it was quite a tough job, especially planing the ebony facings, but it was a joy to make! I indeed used maple for the inlay. I made a logo design in Illustrator and had it laser cutted. I have a box full of them now so i can use them on all of my basses. The cool thing about ebony is that its easy to retouch with ebony dust and superglu (or glu boost).

Fantastic job Rob!! I love your "paintwork"!

The 2 MK1’s that are now forever connected!

Haha, that’s mine…(and I didn’t do this!) Long time ago I traded my MK3 fretless 5er for an MK1 fretless plus an extra fretless neck with British bassist Ian. the MK1 had a rosewood fretless fretboard and the extra neck was ebony. I swapped the necks because I prefer ebony for fretless. After the swap I contacted Ian again to ask where this neck came from. He also had the rest of this bass, the demolished body, electronics, pickups and bridge. He got this bass from some punk bassplayer who found it to heavy… so that guy cut it up..😬😳. I finally bought the parts together with the body and in 2011 I send all the parts plus the rosewood neck to Wal and had Paul build me a new body for it and had the rosewoodneck fretted. So now I have 2 MK1 basses. All this time this poor body is lying in my room and i can’t look at it. So i thought I’d give it a try and see if there’s someone brave and crazy enough to buy it and make something out of it… I have no idea if there’s someone who wants to pay for it anyway so I just started high … why not?

Thank you! It was an absolute joy building it!

Walnuts?

Its all a matter of taste i think, I just love the look of the Mk1. There's a Wal with much better ergonomics; the MK3. I've had a MK3 5er for years but eventually traded it for an Mk1, i just like the "old school" looks.. Thanks for your honest opinion!! 👍

Thank you Funkle, you're thread sure helped me finding the right pickups and preamp!!! 👍

That was a damn good Joke!!! 🤣 Shame that they find this offensive.....

Thanks!!!

haha, good idea!

Thank you! I don't take commisions yet, I do 90% of the work in the workplace of the luthier school. sometimes i do some repairwork at the kitchentable 😉. Next year i want to build my own workplace at home. Then i might take commisions... 😀

I dismanteled my fretted MK1, measured everything and took pictures of it. a felllow forumite Patricio (username PLB) drawed the digital plan for me. I have PDF's of it so i'm happy to share it with you if you like. (just send me a PM) Thanks!