Booli, you're very welcome, glad I could inspire you. I just ordered the blue Rondo Hadean and I'm going to see if I can have it modified, shortening the horns and coloring the head plate the same as the body, never like the long horns on basses, then I'll change to chrome hardware (I got the last set of chrome HipShot fat spool tuners) and Road Toad Pahoehoe yellow strings, don't like the feel of Aquila Thunderguts.
I've always been partial to the traditional tobacco sunburst, to me, it feeds my eye more than the other colors...
The natural wood one was second and then the white third choice, but I was not liking the blue one, but glad that you like it and bought it.
I too found the white Thunderguts to be undesireable in feel, having a texture to me that felt very much like silly putty or Fun-Tak.
However I found the RED Thunderguts to not be too bad and so far my preference is for the Black Pahoehoe strings, but would consider another color set of the Pahoehoe (direct from Owen @ Road Toad Music). Were it not for USPS having their head up somewhere near Uranus, the Silver Rumbler strings I ordered off eBay would be here already...looking forward to trying those out too...
also - FYI - I have an ebay search that sends me new auctions related to the Ashbory bass each day, and last week they had an item being sold by Large Sound (largesound.com) for the Ashbory/U-Bass tuners, the WHOLE set for $32 (but only in 2R/2L and not 4-inline). This is MUCH cheaper than getting them from either Kala or Road Toad for $20-$25 each tuner. I ordered not from ebay but direct from their web site 2 sets (of 4 tuners) [link below] and 2 Ashbory nuts. They arrived in a few days and after enlarging the holes in my Rogue( actually Savannah) Baritone with a 35/64" drill bit, and then thinning out about 1/8" from the front of the headstock with a dremel tool and sanding disc for the shaft threads to be able to meet the top bushing (headstock was too thick), have them installed now.
Note that they are NOT reversible, and can only go 2 per side because of the housing that holds the worm gear and peg button.
I then rough cut a new nut from some black micarta and replaced the nut, and then drilled out 4 holes in the bridge, right down where the existing string holes were and then painfully fed the black Pahoehoe strings through the body. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about a pickup yet. but thus far the instrument 'works' and sounds like a U-bass. before I do a full setup I am probably going to convert this to a fretless by de-fretting it, and then I will make final adjustments to the nut and glue it down.
Thus far, this baritone conversion cost me:
$42 for the Savannah baritone (ebay, musiciansfriend was sold out of the Rogue at the time)
$32 for the large spool tuners (from largesound.com)
$24 for the black Pahoehoe strings (Road Toad Music)
$ 7 for the 35/64" drill bit (ebay)
$105 total sans pickup...
Had I to do again, I might have just bought the acoustic Hadean model, but they were not available for a long time, and the one that Rondo had last week looks like 1970's wood wall paneling and I detest it's appearance, but if other colors were an option, I'd recommend to others to just get the Hadean one, which appears to have an unbranded Fishman Kula or Shadow pickup and preamp already installed (I have not seen one in person, but I'm just going by the off-angle pictures).
When I am done with the de-fretting of my converted baritone, I plan to strip the orange plastic paint off with acetone nail polish remover, which thankfully works well and leaves a nice shiny bare wood below, with little mess and comes off easily when you wipe it on, and then off with a paper towel. Oh but the SMELL - gotta do it outside and wear a mask.
Once the color is removed, I may either get some redwood stain (think picnic table color-LOL), or just use some flat black spray paint, which will be real easy to touch up later on.
One thing to note also, is that most 'bass tuners' need a 35/64" hole in the headstock and a standard drill has a maximum opening in the chuck of 1/2", so this drill bit will not fit unless you get a drill bit that has a smaller diameter shaft than the drill's cutting flutes...thus I had to use some vice-grip pliers @ a 90 deg angle, and VERY carefully turn the drill bit by hand, which only required about 8 total rotations before it had cut all the way through the headstock (VERY sharp tungsten carbide drill bit). Yes, I know I could have used a 'paddle' bit or Forstner bit, but it was 3am when I was on ebay and ordered the first and cheapest thing I could find...
Once I get this conversion completed, and looking and playing how I want it, I will do a video and post here in case anybody else wants to see the project...
And if I somehow manage to mess up and render the instrument 'dead', I'll probably just buy the Hadean wood-paneling colored acoustic one, de-fret it, sand it and then paint it flat black.
Either way, I will hopefully end up with an acoustic fretless U-Bass and a solid-body fretted U-Bass.
and in case you might ask, here is the link to the U-Bass tuners from Large Sound:
https://www.largesound.com/buy/index.php/products/large-sound-elastomeric-bass-tuning-set