Marty Bell Refinished a StingRay for Me

Marty Bell Refinished a StingRay for Me

For pics just go down, otherwise an overly long story follows.

Earlier this year I had never played an EBMM. Then I was at Chicago Music Exchange and was blown away by a StingRay RS they had on the rack. It played amazing and I knew I needed one.

When I got home from Chicago someone had put up a Charcoal Gray EBMM StingRay (not RS) on Craigslist for an amount I couldn’t pass up. I snagged it and started using it in my tribute band, and it ended up playing way better for me for that band than my Gibson SGs. The only problem was the tort pickguard for me, so I changed it out to parchment and it’s a sexy machine now.

I use two guitars at shows for this band because of standard/half step tuning changes. I was struggling a little because I do vocals and don’t look at the fretboard much to know where I was between the StingRay and an SG (neck profile, scale length). So I just figured I needed another StingRay.

I was looking at a new RS Dropped Copper, but the color wasn’t quite there for me and I didn’t want another Charcoal one. I liked some of the models that have maple fretboards, but even roasted maple doesn’t do it for me like rosewood. So I wasn’t 100% happy with my options on that front.

Then one day I happened to look on Guitar Center’s website, and there was a used black StingRay in Dallas. It was priced like most other ones were of this type, but I noticed it still had the plastic on the pickguard and even the barcodes were still on the back. Nobody had messed with this thing, so there was a really good chance it was going to be like new. It was; someone clearly just kept it in a case for a couple years because the fretboard was dry from the dry packs that were still in there. Everything was still in a sealed envelope. So I scooped it up even though the color wasn’t doing it for me.

I’ve always had a thing for getting an orange guitar. So I just had Marty Bell make my black guitar an orange one. I use a parchment pickguard again; black looked okay but I think I really like that contrast. Now I have two guitars that play the same for that band.

Marty told me it would take 3-4 weeks turnaround; it was back at my house nine days after shipping it out.

I’ve had this back together for a few weeks and haven’t had time to take a couple pics until now; it’s kind of funny they popped out the orange BFR StingRay. It’s sweet but there’s a little too much sparkle in the finish. If it hadn’t of been sparkly I probably would have disappointed that I went this route. But I’m not.

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