Melbourne is NOT cooperating at the moment reainting... so although I can sand and prep, it's looking like it will be a while before any nice enough weather appears.

I did manage to get the headstock shaped, but still have a bit of final sanding and shaping left.

I am trying to decide what to do with the tremolo. One of the "lessons learned" or whatever that I want to correct from the last one is that the low E string length is such that a bit of the full .100 thick part of the string gets onto the tuning machine. I'd like it if I could increase the total length between the nut and the string anchor (be that a tremolo or not).

I have a few options, but they all have potential drawbacks.

1. Use a Faction hard tail plate made for the Squier Bass VI, but this would mean making the route bigger and not even getting that much more string length (though it would look a lot better).
2. Use a Fender Japan Jaguar tremolo I have left over after replacing the one on my Jag with a Mastery, again, more routing changes, but seems like I would get a fair bit more length from this vs the Faction plate
3. use a TOM hardtail further back, this gives the most length and would be quite stable... but means filling or covering the tremolo route... I am no woodworker, so covering is more likely than filling :/

One whacky idea I had to make #3 more interesting is to make the route a bit wider and have a behind-the-bridge pickup. This is popular with offsets, but not sure if it would still work the same under an extended TOM set up...