Once I had the bass looking like an actual working instrument, I mounted the string tree. I used my stingray for reference and checked a few headstock images. That made the strings fit more securely in the nut.


Timbah First Bass by Tim Gill, on Flickr

I looked at the wiring diagram and worked out that the pickguard and pickups were already soldered in. Score! So I plugged it in and had a test play. It sounded great. The only thing missing was the hole for the earth wire. I needed to put a hole under the middle of the bridge. Someone on the forum here suggested marking a pencil line and using a long 4 mm drill bit. Makes the job a lot easier. I had thought I might need to go in from both the cavity side and the top. I started from the cavity side and basically only really took a few small notches out of the cavity lip. The long drill bit made it through from the bridge in one go and gave me a small hole not dissimilar to the truss rod opening in the neck. I drilled down a few mm first, then at an angle.

At this point I ordered the tru-oil for the neck, replacement neck screws and the different pickguard.