The beater arrived Tuesday, very well boxed up, made in Vietnam.
Tweaked truss rod, lowered the string heights, took bit out of the e and a nut slots, picato flats the original rounds were fine, and hey presto this thing sings, nice smooth dark tone with those flats.
Good neck, buzzfree low action, very playable can handle runaway jamiroquai, looks good too, pups surprisingly hot. Took off the scratch plate to fit a mim one (wont fit) and body is a hi tech multiple layer composite construction, or plywood to you and me, tuners have lots o slack but to honest fa 75 sheets new and delivered I'm being picky, I mean, she's got a far better neck/body fit than custom Stingray with matching headstock
so there you are, more than happy and for less money than 2 sets of Ernie ball flats, and if she gets runover, although not the end of the world, I'll be quite dissapointed now, she does play well....no comparrison to the Nevada 'bass' in the workshop now