Bridgehouse

You could wire it parallel and it would give you a 51 style vibe without the annoying hum too

Ah so hum bucking then? Nice There's a lot of this custom-made 51P style pickup nonsense going on

No pick guard then. It's the easiest solution and you can change your mind later when you've lived with it for a bit. BTW - what pickup you got in that one?

Only joking You could go with a stick on Roy Lichtenstein - or is that a bit Paul Weller?

Stick some paisley wallpaper on in the shape of a guard 🤭

I tried that - it looks really odd - you need the screws for it to look "right" - so saw off the heads, stick them in the holes, and then double sided tape - then if you want to go guard less you can do...!

Stick it on with some double sided tape and glue fake screw heads onto the pick guard. (I'm being about 75% serious actually..!)

I knew I should have specced up a less practical truss rod solution for the neck. Dammit. I have, however, ensured that there is a built in weakness in the bridge metal so it lifts at the back over time..... 🤭

Now there's an idea... You could call it the Flying FenderFortress

Ash (for it is he!) is in my humble opinion, the best we have in the UK. His pickups are sublime. He gets massive respect in the guitar community and does some of the best guitar pickups around. His master wound custom stuff is properly good. If anyone out there in bass land needs a pickup for a project, or wants to upgrade a bass and put something hand wound in and really special then go give him a prod.. Lets just say a custom wind like this one would cost well under £100 - and closer to £50..

You could always decoupage a Paisleyguard to put on it...

He can always haphazardly fill them and daub some sharpie on top at a later date so no worries..

According to his platform testing in his own 51 - It was Ric with a bit more bass (interpret however you like!) due to position. And yes, about 2 days

I really like black on cream. My 74 P is black guard on cream - It was olympic white but it's custard now 😅 f-hole and guard would be too busy..

I'd do a pickup swap too. You can get some really really good replacements for these for small beans.

Pertinent for me. My first 51 build had one: But my current build does not... So I say mood, and colour dependent....

Used my lunch break to tick off another job - jack socket: Which leaves string tree and pickup and then I can actually see what it’s like..

If it looked the same I suspect it would fall foul of Ric and be deemed to be infringing on copyright as it looks like the originals..

It's becoming a proper Woolies Pick n' Mix bass tbh

Maybe - soon find out - it’ll certainly sound different to a normal P with ceramic bar magnets, big slugs and 44awg wire!

No, you've misunderstood. It's the aspiration - young rockers still play Strats, and offsets, and indeed lots of Epiphones - but they don't have the aspirations that us young 'uns had in the 70's 80's etc..

Lol - my subtlety filter must have been on overdrive 😅

They only dilute the brand if they are rubbish. A good quality Squier VM bass will plug someone right into the brand and then the aspiration starts - all part of the GAS - leads to MiM, US Standard, Custom Shop...

True. But @Woodinblack raises a really good point. For a fad to happen, there needs to be a point of entry for the trend setters - who tend to be not exactly well off.. Fender have Squier and MiM - lots of options from £150 - £1000 Gibson have Epiphone, and also some of their Tributes are under £500 - certainly used. Just looked on eBay - I can't see a used or new 4001/4003 for under £1k and most go for over £1300 - if you want a specific colour you may have to go up to £1700/£1800 That's not a good price point for getting your product used by the up and coming trendies which turns it into an aspirational product.

You could apply that to Burst Les Pauls, Stingrays (to a lesser extent) and quite a few other iconic guitars & basses.