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Dingwall Owners Club

#55,605
I’ve drilled holes and installed Luminlay 3mm blue side dots. Turned out great. Also done a few pickups, wiring changes, and a pickguard.

Except for the Luminlay, all the parts came from the Dingwall shop and everything is easily reversed. If a bass got a P tone and I sold it, the original pickup went with it.

Oh, and I pealed the vinyl pickguard stickers off my D bird. No going back on that.
 
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#55,606
Katoosie said:
Was it yours that magically ended up being purple? Someone here had their Super J become purple IIRC!
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That would be me. Painted the body and headstock a 70s Mopar purple. Swap in a P pickup, pg to match fret inlays, changed preamp to ACG/East EQ01 filter-based preamp.
 

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#55,607
Katoosie said:
Imports? Who cares, no?

I don't think I've seen anyone mod a CS model.
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This was originally Fiesta Red without a bridge pickup and tort pickguard.

Resale value means nothing to me because this bass will be with me til I die. I don’t care what some future dork on the internet thinks about my mods because it’s my bass. Folks in the 60s, 70s, and 80s couldn’t even comprehend that there would be nerds in the future crying about the mods they did to their basses because they wanted to like them more.

Would I think it was dumb if someone did a poor rattle can paint job to a Canadian model? Or paint over an exotic top? Hell yeah. But whatever, not my bass!
 
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#55,611
singlemalt said:
That came out really nice.

Who had the Dbird that went out for a refinish and was MIA for months? Given up for lost, and then it shows up, looking great!
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That would be @shade_1313:

shade_1313 said:
It’s a Dingwall D-Bird, which was the forerunner of the D-Roc (some body reshaping and name change because Gibson), of which there are probably 100-150 of the import model floating around. If found it for a really good price in Reverb, in its original Vintageburst color. Well, one of the threaded inserts for the middle pickup pulled out, so I decided to piggyback a refinish onto the minor repair, and sent it off to Pat Wilkins.

I got a glorious pair of pictures of it before it was shipped back:

View attachment 4813087

Then, somewhere between LA and Vegas, it disappeared. UPS couldn’t find it, so we started the claim process. Pat was gutted, he’d never had an instrument go missing in over two decades, and I was heartbroken, because while we’d talked about colors and managed to communicate roughly what I wanted, there is always an element of uncertainty in colors discussed via email…but Pat had absolutely nailed exactly what I wanted.

Two months passed, and the shipping insurer was found their damnedest to weasel out of the claim, when out of nowhere the UPS guy came by one morning and gave me a package whose shipping label made my heart slip a beat…from Wilkins Guitars.

Very first thing I did was email him with a quick pic of the bass, because I knew it had been hard on him, he felt it personally, even though it wasn’t remotely his fault.

Where the bass had been, I have no idea. The shipping label wasn’t even damaged, let along missing or unreadable. But I have my glorious green D-Bird, and I have been grateful for that since it suddenly arrived a few months ago.

View attachment 4813093 View attachment 4813094 View attachment 4813095
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Couldn’t be happier for the guy, that story was a rollercoaster.
 
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#55,614
J Posega said:
View attachment 5315934 This was originally Fiesta Red without a bridge pickup and tort pickguard.

Resale value means nothing to me because this bass will be with me til I die. I don’t care what some future dork on the internet thinks about my mods because it’s my bass. Folks in the 60s, 70s, and 80s couldn’t even comprehend that there would be nerds in the future crying about the mods they did to their basses because they wanted to like them more.

Would I think it was dumb if someone did a poor rattle can paint job to a Canadian model? Or paint over an exotic top? Hell yeah. But whatever, not my bass!
Click to expand...

It appears that the cat in the picture is dropping its jaw in reaction to this beauty. :cool:
 
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#55,616
Katoosie said:
stuff like "pickup swap" is barely a big deal since it's easily reversible. It's not that hard to do. I was thinking more in the terms of serious commitement, like, drilling here and there.
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How about routing a new pickup hole right on the face of a 1999 Z2?
 

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#55,620
retroXvertigo said:
That's the first time I've ever seen a 4 string Z.

Very cool
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They don’t make them any more, which is too bad because it’s a beast of a bass, but I can understand that the market for 4-string Zs probably didn’t support maintaining the option.

But it’s perfect for me, and I’ve continued to make it more so.
 
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