Woodinblack

The old ones were in bassdirect for just over £300 - I am sure the new ones will be too when they are updated

No, they are generally fairly robust, but that wiring has been made fragile. So yes, stick a jack in the socket and buzz out across the sleve and tip of the other end, with the volume full up (and I am not sure what sort of wiring it has) there should be a non zero resistance (ie, more than a few k) between the two. If there is a short between the two, remove the black wire where the tone connects the output jack and run another wire between the two.

Yes, that is what I was refering to - it looks shorted. That black wire has been overheated quite a bit (why the insulation is breaking down) and could touch the metal shield. I don't mean the blue wire, that is the earth wire connected to the shield. I know you didn't do it, but you took the bass apart and it looks like an accident waiting to happen, so actually just moving it may have been enough. Obviously you can never fully tell with a picture, but it is worth redoing if you can. I am guessing you haven't got a meter or anything?

Fender players are fender players, if its not got fender on the label they won't change, which is fine, but it isn't a market anyone is going for. I have never labeled the Dingwals as metal basses, apart from maybe the NG2, as I tend to associate them with artists like Lee Sklar / Tony Levin (along with stingrays and sticks) / John Taylor (along with Arias!)

I would suspect that as he posted that 2.5 years ago, he has either done it or given up

With what I can see I would say that almost certainly the jack socket hot is shorted to the sheild, and that is more likely to be your problem.

Were you aware that the Mzk truss rods turned the other way to normal ones?

The only thing I can see is that maybe the centre of that switch has become shorted to one of the wires where the insulation is gone - certainly could be by the last photos, but that wouldn't produce the symptoms you are saying. Considering the sound with the jack etc, is it possible that while you are looking at the switch and making assumptions that as that is the only thing you changed, that must be the fault (which is reasonable), maybe by taking it apart, the wire in the jack socket became disconnected or something, or some other issue further down was caused? Actually looking at the last photo, did you solder the earth of the pickups to the earth of that cable going through, as if you did it might have melted the insulation inside the metal shield, which would produce the same results.

It is amazing how bad the pictures are on some even quite expensive items. I am not sure there is an excuse for bad pictures and if I see them I assume they are trying to hide stuff

As I mentioned in a previous post, that was a typo for class D

I think now it has been superseded by just modelling the amp you want and going into the PA.

I would suspect that straight frets will always be standard. Most people haven't got away from the 1950s P bass, its 70 years to the fan frets!

Either you don't, ie, it isn't a neck though body, or you just make a neck through and slap a logo on the end. Probably the former.

Ashdown are one of the few companies I found that had aftersales service.

ok, that makes more sense, you said 8 grammes difference and I thought you meant by tuner, so it would take 28 to make ½ lb!

Thats what I am going to look into

Send it to the lobster - I am sure he would have something to say about it!

Do AVRI Precision basses have 28 tuners then!! 😮

A few more than 8 but still not something you see every day!

By a bit of a controversy you mean many tens of pages of people saying how dishonest TC were and how they would never buy anything from them again? Yes, there was that.

I haven't had much of a chance to look last week, it would have to be a style change, because adding a signout dialog would be tricky and it frankly doesn't seem to be much of an issue to most people

That looks good, if a bit cramped, I guess it was a bit wet out! Does your guitarist have a peerless there? I know the music shop in frome used to sell peerless (I almost bought one there)

Yeh, our singer is like that, he can keep the enthusiasm up when he just getting nothing back from the audience, not something I could do. I guess he does scout and cub things so he is used to a hard audience!

Oh yes, remember seeing that on one of those house building programs, George Clark I think. Didn't remember what they were called at the time but the house is featured on their site.