The Guitar Garage

Hondo H-1 Death Dagger ... and family ...

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:36:00 +0000

During the mid-80s - at the height of the "pointy guitar" craze - a family of related guitars hit the market under the Hondo and Mako labels. For convenience, I'll refer to these as the "Death Dagger" family of instruments.

Hondo had an amazing catalog of guitars by the early 80s - with literally hundreds of models of guitars and basses available. A great number of these were copies of US vintage guitars, including of course the typical Les Paul, Strat, P-bass and Jazz Bass knock-offs, but also more obscure copies of Melodymakers and Danelectros, etc. But where Hondo really hit their creative stride was in catering to the blossoming metal guitar market.

Hondo not only started selling outrageously shaped instruments but also all sorts of wild finishes, including prism/hologram finishes.

Hondo's build quality also varied widely - with the cheapest instruments being bolt-ons almost guaranteed to end up with a warped neck within a year or so but with other lines having set-necks and Dimarzio pickups and even all mahogany construction. The cheapest models tended to come out of Korean factories whereas the better models were sourced from Japan. I'm not going into all the details on Hondo - there are various articles on the topic online - and its a big complex topic!

But the set-neck Japanese Hondo's are pretty fine instruments - and can be real bargains. I still regret not buying a set-neck Hondo Korina Explorer copy that had a loose pickup for $99 back in the mid-90s - later realized it was probably a VERY well built Japanese instrument.

The Death Dagger

The Death Dagger family was built in Japan - probably in the same Matsumoku plant where the better Aria and Westone guitars were manufactured - and were sold under the Hondo label as the one humbucker H-1 and the dual single pickup H-2. Initially, the H-1 was dubbed the "Death Dagger" - and the H-2 was the "Metal Master" - even though H-2's electronics and tremelo were better suited to playing surf-instrumentals!!

Here's an example of a H-1 Death Dagger in metallic blue - it also came in red and black - and perhaps other colors?

Here's a metallic red example - with blue trim - as pictured in the print ad.

There was also a Death Dagger bass - I missed buying this beauty on Ebay - it sold for less than $200 - and it looks to be built just as well as the H-1 guitar, with decent hardware and finish and a similar form-fit hardcase. This is the only example I've seen of this bass - I'd love to acquire one if anyone out there has a lead on one !!

The Hondo Sting

The Hondo Sting appears to be a further evolution of the Death Dagger but with a headstock-less neck. Maybe too many lead singers were getting impaled or blinded by the Death Dagger headstock ? Or more likely - Hondo was jumping on some sort of "Steinberger-bandwagon".

I've never seen one of these instruments in person but they appear to all be set-neck as well but with some very flashy paint jobs added - as well as body mounted tuners of course. "The Sting" was printed on the lower part of the body - and there was a bass version as well.

If anyone has more info on these - or other variants - please let me know!

Mako XK-4

The H-2 was also sold as the Mako XK-4 - which appears to be identical except for the headstock logo. The brand Mako doesn't appear to have anything to do with Hondo, so this was probably just an example of the manufacturer selling the same instrument to two different companies, who then applied their own brand. There's a more detailed write-up on this guitar in an older post, here.

Note the form-fit case - with a sheepskin-like lining material !!

Bolt-On Neck Death Daggers

A little more research (mostly via Ebay auctions) has revealed that Hondo also marketed bolt-on neck versions of the H-1 and H-2 - presumably a few years after the set-neck versions and I'd guess as a cost-saving measure.

These had the same body and headstock shapes but in both cases had the neck attached with 6-bolts.

The Hondo brand went into hiatus sometime around 1987 (though it did re-emerge a few years later) and I'd guess that these bolt-on models are from around the end of the Hondo's existence - probably 1985 to 1987.

And the bolt-on version of the H-2, which looks like its also had its "points" softened a little bit - maybe a safety improvement ?

1966 Guild Jetstar Bass: Bringing a "Peter Tork" bass back to life !!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:38:00 +0000

The early Guild Jetstar Bass is one of the rarer and more unusual basses built by the Guild company during their Hoboken, NJ years. Guild was much more of a guitar company to start with - and the semi-hollow Guild Starfire bass was by far the predominant 4-string product during the 1960s.

Its difficult to tell how many Jetstar basses were actually built by Guild, but the numbers were not very large. Using Guild's serial number system and company records, it appears that there were 243 Jetstar Basses built between 1965 and 1967 - with serial numbers ranging between SD 101 and SD 243. There probably were some additional Jetstar Basses built in 1964 and early 1965 under an older Guild serial number system, but there is no way to break out how many from Guild's production records from that period. Does anybody out there have a Jetstar Bass with a non- SD serial number ?

The initial Jetstar Bass built between 1964 and 1965 had an asymmetric headstock with a 2 X 2 tuner configuration. A similar headstock was used on the Guild S-50, S-100 and S-200 guitars. This bass was also fitted with the large Hagstrom BiSonic pickup, as used on the Guild Starfire basses. It doesn't appear that very many examples of this style were built - probably less than 100 and maybe as few as 8. I have never seen one in person, though I do recall seeing a video by the band Cibo Mato where Sean Lennon (John's son) was playing one.

Below is a copy of Guild literature depicting the early model Jet-Star Bass

And here is a picture of the Jet-Star with serial # SD-101 from my buddy Joe O'Quinn - this bass has had the original Hagstrom Bi-Sonic pickup, knobs, Van Ghent/Hagstrom bridge replaced - but the sunburst finish appears to be entirely original.

Just needs a Hammon "Darkstar" pickup and some reissue Guild parts to set it right !!

In 1966, Guild switched to a 4-inline tuner configuration, more akin to the Gibson Thunderbird in appearance. Guild also switched to a simpler and smaller DeArmond single coil pickup, often referred to as the "Mickey Mouse pickup", though the initially the Jetstar basses were still routed for the much larger Hagstrom Bisonic pickup. Its not clear if any 4-inline Jetstar Basses came with Bisonics, but it's certainly possible.

Here is a picture of Peter Tork miming bass during a musical sequence of an episode of the Monkees - note the tuners on the headstock - a topic I'll revisit later on. Also note that the finish looks almost like a 50's Fender two-color burst - though this may just be due to the red being washed out in the film clip. The dark border is much wider though than in the example pictured above.

I saw my first Jetstar Bass in person at the Philly Fall Guitar Show back in November 2001 - an example with the finish stripped, but otherwise complete. I opted to buy a really beat and badly refinished '63 Precision instead (they were both $700) but kept my eye open for Jetstar bass.

About 4 years later, I finally found a completely stripped example on Ebay for a pretty reasonable price and bought it. The serial number on the bass was SD 320, meaning it was from late 1966. I fitted a bridge from a Hagstrom "bubble-top" bass in this photo, but it came with absolutely NO parts. Note the remnants of the original yellow undercoat in the pickup cavity.

One of the first things I tried to sort out was what kind of tuners were originally fitted to my Jet-Star. My 1965 Guild Starfire has Kluson tuners - similar to those used on Gibson EB-0, EB-2s and EB-3s, but I had also seen pictures of Jet-Stars with Van Ghent/Hagstrom tuners, identical to the ones used on Hagstrom and Baldwin basses during the 60s. Finally - the picture of Peter Tork's Jet-Star appeared to show cheap Japanese tuners - similar to the ones used on Teisco and Sekova basses, as well as some Gibson EB-0s and Melodymaker basses.

Fortunately, I actually examples of all three types of tuners around - and the alignment of the screw holes and relief cuts made it clear that this particular bass was fitted with Kluson tuners - though perhaps models with longer tuner shafts. Given the very limited production of the Jet-Star basses - less than 300 over a 4 year period - I'm pretty sure Guild simply installed whatever was around the shop or easily available on each bass.

My project didn't really take off though for another few years - when I acquired (from Joe !) another Jet-Star bass - which had at one point been modified to a 5-string (!!) and then unmodified back to a 4-string - leaving a pretty hacked up headstock. But the bass came with the original electronics, control cover, finger rests, knobs and case as well as a compatible Guild bridge - so basically all the parts I was missing for my initial project.

The first order of repair was the output jack area - which had been ripped out at some point. I glued in a fitted piece of alder, with a reinforcing piece of maple underneath it in the control cavity. I filled in the edges with some oak colored filler - and then sanded it smooth and redrilled it later.

After sanding, the light colored alder body is obvious in contrast to the mahogany neck.

Here's the bodied sanded and with a coat of sanding sealer on it - the jack repair is visible but much better than a gaping hole or fitting a cover plate.

Opted for a three-color sunburst in the Fender style, as opposed to a brown/red/yellow burst. I did this in large part due to a refinish I saw online, which was on a Jet-Star that had the original finish on the neck but not the body. That particular example had a VERY Fender looking 3-color burst on the neck - and the luthier in that case opted for a finish that I felt looked very consistent with the back of the neck. The blogpost can be viewed at here.

The truth is that once again these basses were built in very limited numbers - and as with the hardware - the exact finish applied probably varied from week to week if not example to example.

As with a Fender finish - the first step was a base of transparent lemon yellow. I had to go pretty heavy on the mahogany neck to even get a yellow tint - and it actually had a slight green cast to it, due to the mahogany showing through.

Next came the transparent cherry red - for a "sienna burst" look.

Finally - the walnut edging and detail on the heel and behind the nut on the neck.

The body then received some touch up of the red part of the burst - over the walnut - and then a number of clear coats to seal in the finish before a wet sanding and buffing out.

One last step was to transplant new rosewood saddles from a reissue Guild bass to the correct baseplate for the Jet-Star. Of course they didn't completely fit (too tall) - so I had to cut down the metal tabs that allow for each saddle to be adjusted for intonation, then grind down the individual rosewood saddles and assemble everything onto the baseplate.

But finally everything was assembled and setup ...

The result is a nice playing, VERY lightweight but balanced bass - this bass has the same compact 30-inch scale length as my Starfire bass and the neck has a very similar profile and feel to it. The bass sounds good despite the cheap little Dearmond pickup - fairly powerful and warm. All I need now is a suede vest, paisley shirt and a bowl haircut ...

So now I need to get started on the other "organ donor" Jet-star bass - which is all mahogany and will be restored to its original cherry red finish. Anyone have a Darkstar or BiSonic pickup for sale out there ??

1965 Danoelectro Shorthorn Bass Refinish

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:56:00 +0000

I have always had a special affection for Danelectro's - having grown up in Monmouth County along the Jersey Shore, right where Danelectro was based throughout the 1950s and 60s. The company was part of the local lore - seemed like every musician or guitar guy of a certain age had worked in the Dano factory in Neptune, NJ for a summer. Of course by the time I got interested in guitars, around the late 70s, Danelectro had been gone for over a decade and Kramer guitars had actually taken up residence in the old Neptune Danelectro factory.

I didn't buy my first Danelectro until I was in college, because they were actually pretty expensive due to their legendary status in the Jersey and New York City area. I also had my eye on a Dano Longhorn bass - because I'd seen pictures of John Entwistle playing one - and those were among the rarest of the Danos. When I was in high school you could pick up a 60s Fender Precision for the same price as a Longhorn bass .. and both were out of my range. The first Dano I got was a copper Shorthorn guitar (Model 3012) that was missing a few tuner parts and the aluminum nut - and I paid $80 for. My buddy Dave picked up a horribly refinished amp-in-case model (Model 1448) for $40 - no case and no tuners. At the time we both felt we overpaid by a bit ...

Since then - really beginning about 18 years ago - I have managed to slowly but surely build up a collection of roughly 15 Danelectro guitars and basses - some labeled as Silvertones - and I have really come to appreciate what simple and reliable instruments they are. I have NEVER had a bad Danelectro neck - no twist and always flat - and all the frets in securely. Can't say that for Fenders and Gibsons that have passed through my hands.

I also have fully restored and refinished a few Danelectros - a six-string shorthorn bass, a doubleneck bass and guitar (Model 3923), a 12-string Bellzouki (Model 7010), another amp-in-case Silvertone - and scratchbuilt a fuchsia sparkle, maple board Longhorn bass. Through my restoration work, I have found how to match the metallic copper color used on many Danos, how to replicate the white edging (vinyl wallpaper), how to replace a caved-in top (masonite board from Home Depot) and of course, how to cut those little aluminum nuts from standard barstock aluminum I bought at Ace Hardware!

The instrument that this post describes is a Model 3412 Shorthorn bass, which has a body nearly identical to the Model 3012 guitar, but with the bridge repositioned towards the back edge to accomodate a 30 inch scale length on a very compact body. The bass neck is also identical in dimensions to the guitar neck, but with 15 fret fingerboard and only 4 tuner holes drilled in the headstock. If you examine the picture above, you can see that the only real difference between the shorthorn bass and guitar is the fingerboard, the positioning of the bridge and the tuners - making it very easy and economical to mass produce the two instruments. The 6-string bass Shorthorn simply is the 4 string bass fitted with a 6-string guitar bridge and drilled for six guitar tuners. VERY efficient !!

This particular bass was purchased at a lawn sale quite a few years ago but the owner finally decided he wanted to have it restored to its original finish. The bass was in decent shape, but the body had been refinished with some sorta of thick bumpy finish in a dark tan, vaguely metallic color. The only parts missing were the two distinctive plastic control knobs (someone should make reproductions of them !) and the original plastic strap-buttons.

This Model 3412 was a later example (these basses were made from 1958 until 1968), with the "seal guard" replacing the earlier small plexiglass and vinyl guard - and with a tilt adjustment on the rear of the neck pocket. The tilt adjustment is a threaded mount for a small allen head screw that pushes on the heel of the neck to adjust the neck angle once the two neck mounting screws are loosened up. The allen head is accessible through the back of the body - and can be seen in the picture below.

This bass needed to have the neck angle increased (allen screw driven inwards to push on heel of neck) to raise the string height at the bridge, so that the bridge could be set at the proper height and angle to lock the string ends into the bridge string slots AND to make sure that there was good downforce from the strings on the rosewood bridge saddle. This is a key part of setting up any Danelectro bass or guitar for best playability and tone.

Most of the copper finish had worn off the back of the neck from playing - and the setup was much less than optimal - with the action way too high.

Most of the original headstock decal was intact but some areas of the headstock were "touched up" with the brown paint unfortunately.

The owner decided that he wanted the entire instrument refinished to as near to "factory" as possible. I did suggest leaving the headstock as is but the appearance really bothered him, so we decided on that first I'd try to mask around the original logo and match the finish - and if that didn't work, I'd use some home-made silkscreened Dano decals I had left over from the restoration of my double-neck about 10 years ago.

I began with the body - working on cleaning the edging material, which appeared to not only be dirty but also to have maybe picked up some overspray from when the bass was repainted. Since the material is a pretty tough vinyl, I simply used a stiff dishwashing brush and some soap and water to scrub the edges clean.

Came out pretty clean !! After this I masked off the edges to protect the vinyl, and then sanded the front and back surfaces of the body using a random orbital sander.

As you can see, the back of the body wasn't completely flat - I think there was some very slight bowing from years of pull from the strings. Most Danelectros are basically hollow-bodies - with a pine frame forming the edge and neck pocket with a masonite front and back glued on. The picture below illustrates the construction of a typical 60s Danelectro. Often there was a separate "bridge block" as well. Note that the piece of cardboard in the pickup area is simply a label for the photo.

Once the body was sanded smooth, it was primed in light grey color (white primer with a touch of black added), which is what Danelectro typically used, though I think I have also seen examples with white primer showing.

The next task was to figure out a pigment mix for the copper-bronze color that Danelectro used on many of their instruments. The pigment was obviously copper-based - probably as a bronze powder - the greening on the worn back of the neck is from oxidation of the copper in the finish.

Prior refins I had done had been more of an "orangey" copper than I wanted - so I decided I'd blend in some other powdered metal pigments into the same copper base I'd used in the past to try to get a closer match to the original color. I decided to match the color that was on the heel of the neck, as the lacquer had oxidized the least there.

After a bit of trial and error, I settled on a mix of the following metallic powders: Pearl-Ex Super Copper, Pearl-Ex Super Bronze and a small amount of Super-Brite Aluminum to lighten the overall color. I compared the test panel to my other Danelectros .. both with and without a slightly tinted clear coat. It appeared that the Danos had a clear coat on the neck but not necessarily on the body - meaning that sometimes the necks appear a bit darker with age than the bodies.

The test panel below has a tinted clear coat on the left hand side.

The body was given several coats of the copper bronze color and then clear coated with a slightly tinted clearcoat to get the slightly duller color of a vintage Danelectro. The neck was painted at the same time and given more topcoats to achieve a slightly more tinted look and assure a smooth surface on the poplar wood. Note that in both cases there was NO wet sanding of the color coats - metallic colors do not respond well to sanding in general, with the metallic pigment particles showing a scratched or brushed look afterwards. Just something to keep in mind when doing metallic colors !!

After color coating and clear coating the body and neck, I put the instrument aside for a week or so to cure. When I looked at the parts again, I saw areas where the finish or the primer appeared to have shrinkage lines or cracks. These lines had not been apparent in the primer nor color coats initially, and I was pretty mystified by their appearance, especially since I had refinished several Danelectros in the past and never had a similar problem.

I consulted with Jim Mouradian and he speculated that maybe the glue in the masonite board had reacted with the finish in places where I had sanded down the body more. The other possibility is that the remnants of the metallic tan "refin" had reacted with the nitrocellulose. I'm not sure still, but in order to prevent this from happening in the future, I will probably give Danelectros more time between the primer coat and color coats, to make sure that I am painting onto a stable finish base.

My fix was to simply wait for several weeks for the finish to cure some more - and then to wet sand the front and back - and apply a small amount of Bondo scratch filler to the cracks that didn't sand out - before respraying the front and back in copper again. This time the finish remained stable and there were no cracks.

Note that I did spray the edge "bevel" of the masonite, as it was already painted the "tan" color and had a few edge dings that were filled and would have shown. Factory finishes generally had some slight overspray onto the bevel, but it was not fully painted.

As mentioned above, the original logo was on the headstock, but the headstock finish was chipped and worn and then owner wanted to make it look as "factory" as the rest of the instrument. I decided to attempt masking the original logo and just refinish around it. Note that the original logos are either silk screened or sprayed onto the headstock using a template or screen. Sometimes its obvious because there are light or bare spots around the bottom of the logo.

Here I have masked off the logo carefully along the silver outline box.

Despite the color being a very good match near the heel of the neck (see picture below) - the color just didn't match well on the headstock face. I could have gotten closer with some tinting of the overcoat, but in my judgement it was still going to be off and look strange in the end.

In the picture above of the heel, the area closest to the butt of the neck is the original finish, with the new finish starting about half way along the heel - a pretty good match.

Visible is the date code - first two digits represent the week of the year, last number is the last digit of the year (the third digit's meaning is unknown)" - 11th week (March) of 1965. Note also the rounded metal insert on the heel of the neck - this is the surface that the neck tilt adjustment allen head screw pressed on.

I went back and sanded the headstock smooth - and resprayed the headstock - applied a tinted clear coat and then one of my homemade Danelectro decals. The lines on my decal are not as sharp as the original logo, but the even color is much better in my opinion and pretty convincing.

Here are a few detailed pictures of the tuners - which are a variation of the "skate key" tuners that Danelectro first used on the Model 1448 amp-in-case Silvertone, but then later used on various shorthorn guitars and basses.

As you can see - the boxy tuners consist of a two piece elongated box, that hold the tuner buttons in place, with the tuner shafts and gears mounted to one side of the box. There are two square nylon inserts, one at each end, to seal up and align the two halves of the box - which are also held together by the three mounting screws that go through the tuner body and into the back of the headstock.

I'm not sure if Danelectro made these tuners themselves, using sourced gears, pegs and buttons, or if they sourced them from some manufacturer. I have never seen them used on anything but Danelectro produced instruments. The come in two peg (for 2 X 2), three peg (for 3 X 3) and six peg (for six inline) configurations.

An interesting note is that unlike almost all electric guitars and basses, Danelectros don't have a ground wire running from the bridge to the electronics. The Danelectros rely instead on what was advertised as "Total Shielding" - the "totally shielded" electronics of Danelectro comprised of a box of copper and paper shielding material, taped together to surround the controls. The pickup itself was shielded by the trademark lipstick cover. This approach does work fairly well, though I have added a bridge ground wire on a few Danelectros to further reduce any electronic buzz.

Note the nifty bent brass spring that allows for height adjustment on the pickup. The seal pickguard is made from the same masonite as the top and back of the body and then painted a semi-gloss white on the front.

Finally - the bass was completely assembled, though still missing two control knobs - and it not only looked great but also played and sounded great, just like most Danos !!

My next Dano project will be a 12-string Bellzouki that is currently repainted Foam Green and missing its vinyl trim and other details.

1968 Fender Jazz Bass: Sonic Blue Regret and Restoration

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:36:00 +0000

This project represents an unfortunately common scenario from the 1970s, where an instrument's owner decided that the "natural" look was preferable to the original factory custom color. Guess the attitude was that "wood was good" - during this era a substantial part of Fender's instruments came in clear finish from the factory.

This 1968 Jazz Bass was purchased new in Madrid, Spain during 1969, with a factory Sonic Blue finish - a very rare finish for the late 60s. The owner later moved to the US and sometime later decided to strip the bass to a natural finish. Later on, the bass was also modified to have an active P-bass pickup and a battery compartment. The matching headstock was also stripped - and had a rectangular sticker on it for many years prior that a repro Fender decal being applied. Unfortunately the sticker left a lighter colored area on the headstock.

The owner decided to restore the bass to its original finish and mailed the bass to me last fall from his current home in Florida. After some discussion and research online, we decided to go back to the original Sonic Blue finish, with a matching headstock - with some mild yellowing of the finish to make it look slightly aged.

Traces of the original Sonic Blue were visible in the control cavity, pickup routings and neck pocket - notice how deeply yellowed the finish in pickup routings is - probably because the clear coat collected in those openings and was thicker and therefore yellowed more.

In the neck pocket, the finish was covered up by what almost looked like Lake Placid Blue paint. After being puzzled by this, I believe that what I was actually looking at is residue from the paint stripper that was used in the 1970s - since the Sonic Blue is UNDER the darker blue. The factory numbers - the black 3 and the red 2 - are actually UNDER the residue - which is probably a combination of stripper and sonic blue lacquer that has aged for the past 30 years.

Note the reddish plastic neck shim - this later popped loose after my refinish - revealing a patch of unyellowed Sonic Blue underneath !

The first step was to plug the additional routings that had been done - which meant cleaning them up and squaring them off for alder wood plugs.

The plugs were fitted with any gaps being filled with plasticine-like plumber's epoxy.

After some sanding and a few coats of clear nitro to seal the body, especially the wood plugs - the body was primed with flat white nitro primer. Note that I skipped dyeing the wood yellow, since as far as I know, by the late 60s Fender had stopped this practice on non-sunburst instruments.

The body required a number of touchups with some Bondo glazing putty - various dings and some filled extra screw holes. But then after some wet sanding, as second coat of white primer was applied and the body was ready for the color coats.

The headstock fadce was sanded bare - clear coated and then also primed with white nitro primer.

Here are the body and headstock after several coats of Sonic Blue lacquer and a few clear coats.

Now came the time to age the color coats slightly - and as I have done in the past, I masked off areas that would have been covered so that they would not be yellowed - namely the bridge, control plate, pickguard and neckplate area.

Though these pictures aren't very well lit - you can see the difference between the aged and unaged clear coat areas.

A similar treatment was given to the headstock - taking care to match the aging as close as possible for an even color. Several final clear coats were then applied over both the body and headstock prior to wet sanding and buffing.

The final step was the application of the repro decal - which is a water slide decal - and which was applied ONTOP of the finish - as would have been the case in 1968. Later on Fender started clearcoating over the decals - which made them much more robust.

The darker color here is due to me not using a flash for this picture - Sonic Blue looks radically different in pictures depending on the light source used. As an example, the two pictures below were taken at the same time - one without a flash - and one with a flash.

Perhaps I'll need to get a better camera and lights !!

The neck and body were shipped back to the owner - who will be assembling it - and sending me pictures of the complete instrument in the near future. Check back soon !!

Dean MEL "Melanie Dion Special": Tangerine Dream !!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:13:00 +0000

Here's a project I did for one of my favorite "rock chicks", my friend Melanie Dion.

Melanie has "pointy" tastes when it comes to guitars, probably a reflection of her musical tastes (METAL!!) and her desire to be armed with an instrument that can also serve as a weapon on stage :)

She and I also share an affinity for the color ORANGE - as anyone who's been to my place knows - there's A LOT of orange around my house - walls, vases, clothes, coffee mugs, etc. etc. - a loud yet warm color. About a year ago, I did a simple refin on a Vantage bass Melanie had gotten for free. I mixed up a batch of color, using some yellow and red pigment in a clear lacquer base - with Mel telling me "more yellow - more red" .. until we got the brilliant orange color she was looking for - now dubbed "Melanie Orange".

After some sanding and a primer coat, I shot the orange onto the Vantage body and headstock. The paint job, combined with swapping a Dimarzio pickup into it and regluing a loose neck joint turned it into a cool looking and decent sounding bass for not a whole lot of effort.

I'll also admit that Melanie has managed to influence my instrument tastes such that I'm also more than a little fascinated with some of the pointy instruments that are out there - especially from the crazy days of the 80s - when some real insane designs came out. The mid-80s Hondo catalog alone is worth a dedicated blog !!

With the resurgence of metal in the last 10 years, some of the classic designs have been reissued, including one of my favorites, the Dean ML - which was originally produced in the late-70s by Dean Zelinsky - and was essentially a Gibson Flying V crossed with the prototype Gibson Explorer/Futura.

Which resulted in a HUGE body and a VERY distinctive look!

Dean has released several different versions of the ML - some with bolt-on necks, some with set necks - with a range of finishes and binding options. I'm very fond of the Blueburst Dean '79 ML - amazing looking guitar!

Fast forward to this past November - and I came across a much played Dean ML X on Craigslist for sale at a VERY reasonable price. It was a dinged up, didn't have a case and was a bolt-on neck model as opposed to one of the set neck versions - but I thought it would make a nice basis for customized "Melanie Dion" guitar - even if I had to maybe do some rebuilding and swap out the electronics. Since the guy selling it had already sold his amp, I bought it on good faith without plugging it in.

When I got home, I was astounded at how massive the guitar sounded going through my Sovtek Big Muff pedal and my old Ampeg B-15 - and how evenly the neck played. Also realized that the guitar had a nice set of Grover tuners installed - seemingly from the factory. I dropped the idea of replacing the "Dean" labeled humbuckers with reissue Gibson PAFs because the stock pickups had a great metal and hardcore sound to them.

The guitar was also very light for its massive size - I assume the body is made of basswood or agathis - with a maple neck. Unfortunately the lightweight wood and lack of case meant there were some decent dings and slashes to repair around the edges as well as some small stress cracks near the neck pocket - but nothing major.

The first step was to disassemble the guitar and then start sanding down the finish to get a good even surface. The headstock face was carefully masked off to preserve the Dean logo as well. Some of the worst dings are pictured below

The dings were rouged up with a coarse file - and then filled with plumbers epoxy - which was then filed and sanded to shape to restore the edge contours.

The body was now ready for priming with flat white nitro primer - the few remaining small flaws were filled with a little red glazing putty to get the body ready for the color coats.

As I related before, Melanie had mixed up a tint of orange with me a while ago - I had a small amount of it left over in a paint jar but I knew I needed to mix more for this project. I mixed up a larger batch of the color in a new jar - by putting them side to side it was pretty easy to match the colors exactly - especially since it was a simple mix of a little red added to a yellow base.

And we get .. MELANIE ORANGE !!

Now comes the fun part - when the color goes on ..

First, a spray around the edges to build up a thicker color coat there to guard against sand throughs when I wet sand later.

Then building up to a solid color coat on both the body and the neck. I ended up spraying three or four color coats - with a little heavier spray on the bottoms of the two "legs" of the body - as I knew the guitar would end up standing on floors that way.

I like this color so much that I may eventually have Easter Chem-Lac mix me a gallon of it in nitrocellulose - I have a few projects in mind ..

Roughly 5 coats of clear gloss nitro followed the color coats. For the clear coats, I unmasked the edge of the fretboard on the neck so that the edges of the fretboard would get clear coated too - thereby minimizing the sanding I'd have to do to get rid of any paint "ridge" along the edges of the neck.

Once the clear coats were set, I wet sanded with 800, 1000 and 1500 grit paper - before buffing with two different grits of silicon-free automotive compound.

I had decided that the orange color would really "pop" if the guitar had a white pickguard - the question was what shape would be appropriate? Once the paint had set for a few days, I got out some paper and started doodling and cutting out different guard shapes - some inspired by the Gibson Flying V, and going under the three controls - and some more Gibson Firebird like.

Extending the Firebird-style guard to follow the lines of the lower horn but with a slight upward curve towards the bridge ended up looking good. The paper pattern was then used to cut and shape a masonite form - which I then used with a router to cut and bevel the actual pickguard.

Next came some further minor customization - namely - making this guitar into a "signature model" !!

I was inspired by the "ML X" lettering on the truss-rod cover - figured I could find some white rub-on lettering and change that to "MEL" - just to be cute. But while searching for rub-on lettering online, I found that I could buy water-slide decal material that was ink-jet printable - which meant that I could then add a matching orange logo to the guitar !! Micromark has some amazing products for custom work.

I printed several different logos and sizes - clear coated them - and then cut them apart to try them out against the pickguard. You can see that the electronics and hardware have been installed at this point - though I didn't drill the mounting holes for the pickguard until the last step.

The printed decals were actually very hard to apply - as they tended to curl up - perhaps I put too many clear coats on the face of the material - or maybe the material is just better suited for wider decals. I ended up going with a simple solid orange logo that was just Melanie's name.

I also had to replace the output jack and some wiring - but eventually the guitar was completely together - I even tracked down an "extreme" gig bag that was designed for the larger bodied metal guitars, such as Flying Vs and MLs.

And here is the final product ... double-click on the pictures to open up full size images !!

And .. Happy Birthday Melanie !!! Can't wait to see you playing this thing on stage somewhere ???

Rare Bird: Oasis guitar, Built by luthier Gary Cooper

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:11:00 +0000

Over the years, there have been countless brands of American guitars built in small numbers - with many of them being high quality instruments that simply did not have the marketing or broad distribution to become long lasting enterprises.

The subject of this post is an Oasis electric guitar that belongs to my friend and former bandmate Eric Tucker, who is also the chef at Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco. I've had the pleasure of playing and even recording with this fine instrument, many years ago.

The Oasis brand existed from around the mid-70s until the early or mid-80s and the company was headed by luthier Gary Cooper, who worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. I haven't confirmed it, but I believe Cooper may have been an alum of Alembic or had some association with that Bay area firm. I have no idea how big the Oasis operation was - given the rarity of the instruments it may well have been a one-man operation.

This particular Oasis is built from what I believe is korina - a blonde mahogany - made famous for its use in the original 1950s Gibson Flying V and Explorer.

Eric's recollection is that he got the guitar in 1982 at either 48th Street Music or Stuyvesant Music in exchange for a Guild and a Yamaha acoustic. The guitar is probably from the late 70s or 1980, judging from some other posts I've seen around the internet.

The guitar was originally equipped with two humbuckers with solid black covers, which may have been Bartolinis - and were according to Eric, low-impedance and fairly low output units. Currently, Eric's guitar has a 1983 Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position and a 90s Seymour Duncan Jazz pickup in the neck.

The guitar is very well built - and I remember it having nice even action - I used this guitar to record almost all of my guitar tracks on the one Crucial Youth album - playing through an early 70s Marshall stack that belonged to producer Nikki Garratt (UK Subs).

The information available on Oasis and Gary Cooper is sparse at best, but Eric did send me a link to a cool Youtube video that edits together parts of two interviews that Cooper did for cable TV. During the first part of the interview, which I believe was done around 1980, Cooper is holding a guitar that appears identical to the Oasis in this post. During the second part, Cooper is showing off some more mid-80s looking designs, complete with locking tremelos and "droopy" headstocks.

Interview with Gary Cooper of Oasis Guitars

Sadly, Gary Cooper was killed in a car crash around 10 years ago - if anyone has an exact year, please let me know!

Also, if you have an Oasis guitar or other pictures and information - please let me know and I'll add to the post.

Addendum: Another Oasis guitar from a few years earlier, courtesy of Jerry Campbell

Jerry was kind enough to share a picture of his Oasis guitar, which is a prototype for Oasis guitars, and dates to 1975/1976.

This guitar differs from Eric's in having what appears to be an arched and bound flamed koa body, a different tailpiece and off-the-shelf pickup surrounds (see below - these are not original). The overall body and neck profile appear to be the same as Eric's korina wood example.

To quote Jerry:

"This guitar was developed for me in mid 1975. Gary let me choose the woods for it and let me help design it. Serial #018, it is the prototype guitar for his Oasis line. After the NAMM Show in 1976(winter show), Gary built a matched set (electric guitar and mandolin) for Seals and Crofts based on this guitar. I have recently been in contact with his original building partner, Louis Armstronger(no kidding)."

"The body is solid bookend matched flame koa. The neck consists of two pieces of maple,two strips of rosewood, two strips of alder, and vermillion down the center. The fingerboard is vermillion. The headstock has a veneer of flame koa. Neck and body are bound with white-black white binding. The control cavity on the back of the guitar is matched flame koa. Tuners are Schaller. This guitar originally came with Bartollini Hi-A Beast pickups. It now sports a Seymour Duncan JB at the bridge, and an original D'Marzio PAF at the neck. The Les Paul pickup switch is from Owsley Stanley III's '53 Les Paul.....a little San Francisco Ju-Ju."

Watch for some additional photos of this beautiful instrument in the near future.

SOLD!!: 66 Fender Jazz Bass, Lake Placid Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:12:00 +0000

I have owned this bass for over a decade - I bought it from a guy in New Jersey, with the body completely stripped and clear coated but with an original Lake Placid Blue headstock. My plan all along was to restore it to its original finish - a couple of false tries and I put the bass away in pieces for nearly 10 years.

Finally, over the past few months, I pulled the bass out again and made a serious effort to give the body a refinish that would match the aged Lake Placid Blue headstock and restore the bass to its original appearance.

I used acrylic lacquer from TCP Global - who specialize in products for restoring vintage automobiles. Fender did use acrylic lacquer for custom colors from sometime around early 60s, when car manufacturers switched from older nitrocellulose based colors to acrylic lacquer.

Lake Placid Blue was originally a 1958 Cadillac color, but was no longer being used by GM by 1960 when Fender began using it as an optional custom color. When Fender switched to acrylic colors, new formulas were developed for the older automotive colors.

While I feel pretty confident that TCPs colors ARE accurate representations of the original nitrocellulose colors of the 1950s, I am not confident that the colors Fender used during the 60s were always accurate representations of the original 1950s colors.

So why is this whole discussion relevant ?

Well - when I initially tried refinishing the body of this 1966 Jazz Bass, it became obvious that the headstock was a lighter and more silvery blue color than the new Lake Placid Blue finish on the body - especially once I "aged" the clear coat by yellowing it.

I then pulled out my Pelham Blue (Gibson's 1960s metallic blue) lacquer - and began color blending - shooting test pieces of masonite and then applying a yellowed clear coat until I got a mix that looked like the headstock. The final mix was roughly 2 parts Lake Placid Blue to 1 part Pelham Blue.

Even though it may be hard to tell on a computer monitor and with different flash angles, these two pictures should show that the color ended up being a nearly perfect match after I carefully tinted the clear coat to get an "aged" effect.

The obvious difference is that lack of finish checking, chips and wear on the refinished body. However, I used a very low plasticizer content nitro for the final clear coat, so the body should begin to check subtly within the next few months.

If the next owner plays this bass like it should be played, I'm sure in a few years it will be hard to tell it's a refinished body.

So now for the details on this bass.

Besides the body refinish, the parts on this instrument are close to 100% original. The exceptions to originality are the following:
- volume knob for neck pickup is a recent reissue
- the original tone pot froze and was replaced with an identical 1967 tone pot (the original pot is included)
- the original cloth-covered wiring in the control cavity has been spliced due to the wires being cut by a previous owner, and the ground wire to the control cavity shielding is new cloth covered wire
- the pickup cover is probably not original, but I honestly don't remember if it came with the bass or not
- there is a nitro overspray on the back of the neck but not the headstock or butt of the neck
- there is a small repair to the plastic of the original nut next to the slot for the g-string (see picture below)

Everything else - down to the screws for the pickguard and the thumbrest - is factory original to this instrument. And it also comes in the original 1967 hardshell case, which is in very good condition.

This bass was actually shipped during early 1967 - I refer to it as a "1966" because of the Dec 1966 neck date.

However the pickups have handwritten dates of "1-8-67" and "12-30-66" on them. The neck and bridge pickups measure at around 6.8 K Ohms and 7.3 K ohms, respectively.

As you can see, I also masked off the area under the pickguard and controls so it is less "aged" than the rest of the finish - as an original finish would be.

The control pots date to the 13th week of 1966, with the exception of the replaced tone pot, which dates to 1967.

The pictures below show some of the details on this bass:
- the back of the original white pickguard, which has no cracks or chips
- the proper "paint stick" mark in the neck pocket
- the highly desirable "lollipop" tuners, which were only used for a brief period by Fender
- the all original bridge
- the original nut with a small repair outboard of the g-string
- the back of the bass
- the original late-1966 "F" neckplate and neck screws.
- the back of the neck, with a nicely worn and ambered finish

The bass plays very well - with low action and just a slight amount of neck relief and still a bit of travel left in the truss rod adjustment. There is NO lift of the first pearl block inlay, which can be a problem on some of the block inlay Jazz necks. I have only done a very rudimentary setup on the neck, but that's because it felt great to me. The intonation is pretty much perfect all the way up and down the neck.

The electronics sound great - with the neck pickup by itself providing some THUNDERING bottom-end, while the two pickups together sound more P-bass-ish.

The bass weighs what a typical 60's Jazz Bass weighs, at a little over 9 lbs - making this comfortable to wear and play.

I will ship internationally, but be aware that to some locations the case may be TOO large for usual shipping methods - leading to either exorbitant shipping prices or the need to ship the bass with the neck off and without the case.

This is an opportunity to own an excellent and beautiful example of a mid-60s Jazz Bass, in its original case.

Please contact me via my email (krishna at guitargarage.net) if you have any questions or would like more pictures - or if you want to BUY this bass !!

Thanks to Rainer - enjoy the bass !!!!!

75 Jazz Bass: 3-bolt Fender Neck Pocket Tightening

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:08:00 +0000

In the early 70s, Fender switched from a traditional 4 screw or 4-bolt neck attachment to a 3-bolt attachment(actually 1 bolt and 2 screws) on the Stratocaster, the Jazz Bass and the Telecaster Bass. This new three-bolt attachment also incorporated a tilt adjustment, that could change the set angle of the neck in the body slightly.

While the tilt adjustment must have seemed like a good idea to someone, the net result was a much less secure neck attachment which could result in the neck having substantial side-to-side play. As a result, many instruments from this era were converted to 4-bolt attachments, through plugging and redrilling of the attachment points and removal of the tilt adjustment apparatus.

Over the past year, I have worked on two different 3-bolt Jazz basses - one a 1977 very clean condition, and one a 1975 that had been stripped of its finish and most of its parts.

The 1977 Jazz was the first time I realized what the true problem with the 3-bolt attachment was: while playing the bass and literally, wringing it out - I kept hearing a little "click" - that sounded like it was coming from the base of the neck. I eventually realized I was hearing the neck shifting left and right in the neck pocket - certainly not a good thing!

The shift was big enough that by pushing the headstock all the way to the "treble" side, I was able to have the G-string be at almost the edge of the fretboard - so that it rolled off during playing!! Definitely not good!!

I also noticed that the very end of the neck pocket - where the neck butted up against - was not the smooth curve that matched the butt of the neck, but rather just touched the neck at the very centerline.

Since the 1977 Jazz had a perfect original finish and I was basically just prepping it for shipment to a friend overseas, I decided to take a kind of short cut approach to take the play out of the 3-bolt mount.

I doweled the holes in the body - and also glued some splinters of maple into the neck screw holes, just to tighten then up. Then I attached the neck with the single "bolt" - and aligned the neck using string between the nut and the bridge - clamping the neck in position using a clamp with soft rubber clamping surfaces.

I redrilled the holes in the body with a smaller diameter drill bit (sorry - I forget what size) - small enough such that the screws would have to be threaded through the body AND into the neck.

Then, while the neck was still clamped in position - I installed the two neck screws and tightened them down.

The results was that the shifting of the neck disappeared - even if the neck to body fit wasn't very good - because the play around the neck screws was gone. A simple fix that at least stabilized the bass.

Then, a few months later, I received another 3-bolt Jazz Bass - this time a stripped 1975. The owner wanted to convert to a 4-bolt attachment, but I convinced him to let me try to stabilize the neck with a more ambitious approach - rather than drilling a number of holes through the body and into the neck - which in my opinion would greatly reduce their "vintage" value down the road.

What I proposed was to shim the sides of the neck pocket and then to fill in and re-rout the area of the pocket that butts up against the neck - as well as tighten up the two screw holes through the body.

This combined approach would then result in the neck making more contact with the body plus it would tighten up the whole connection so there would be no side to side play in the neck.

Since the body was going to be refinished anyway, any added would would be pretty well obscured by the finish.

The body had originally been Walnut - the reddish brown color that was available from around 1974 through 1979 or so. The original finish was visible in the neck pocket and the bottom of the pickup routings.

What I initially did was fit the neck onto the body - align it - and then measure the gaps on the long and short sides of the neck pocket. I then glued in in tapered shims cut from ash (which is what the body was made of.

The sides required a little filing and sanding to get the neck into the pocket, but the fit was good, with still some side to side play, but at least better contact.

I then cleaned up and straightened the butt-end of the neck pocket with a Dremel MotoTool and a mini-router attachment - and glued in a fitted block of ash - which was clamped securely in place.

I then used the same router attachment - plus some small files and sandpaper - and lots of test fits - to get the best fit I could for the neck pocket to the neck. These pictures with the neck in place show that the fit while not perfect, is MUCH improved.

Next came the plugging of the two screw holes in the body and neck - and the re-drilling at a smaller bore - for which I once again bolted the neck in place with the single bolt, and then clamped the neck to align it properly, before redrilling with a drill press.

With the neck attachment tightened up all around - it was now time to refinish the body. I sprayed a piece of sanded ash with a nitro that was heavily tinted with a blend of medium brown, cherry red and a little walnut dye - until I achieved a color that looked like the finish that was in the neck pocket and pickup areas.

As with any transparent finish - I had to build up the color gradually - and I alternated between doing vertical passes on one coat and then horizontal passed on the next, to avoid getting subtle "stripes" in the finish.

This is a very difficult color to photograph - as it looks radically different depending on whether neon light, sunlight or a flash is illuminating it - the three pictures below are all of the same finish!

Eventually - I did set up the bass with some of my parts - a 70s bridge and tuners - to set up the truss rod properly and insure that the alignment of the strings was correct - before shipping the neck and body back to the owner for final assembly with the parts he had.

While this mod is a little tedious, in my opinion its a better option than converting a 3-bolt Fender to a 4-bolt - in terms of preserving the originality and vintage value of an instrument. I plan on doing the same mod to a 1976 project Fender Strat I have lurking in my basement as well.

SOLD: Nonreverse Gibson Firebird 3, Cardinal Red

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:56:00 +0000

SOLD: currently listed on Ebay

This 1965 Firebird has a repaired headstock crack and the headstock only oversprayed in matching Cardinal Red - and is now a rock solid example of one of these very cool guitars.

The repair and headstock overspray are documented in this blog post.

The only non-original parts on the guitar are the tuners and tuner ferrules - everything else is 100% original.

Opening up the back control panel, it's very clean and none of the joints have ever been unsoldered. The pots date to the 39th week of 1965 - making this a late 1965 Firebird. The serial number is barely visible through the finish, but it is 5191XX, which also corresponds to 1965.

This is a fine bird!! I love how P-90s sound - and the middle position, which I believe combines the neck and middle pickup - just sounds great. Fairly high output which can even overdrive my Ampeg B15N, which is a fairly low-gain amp.

The headstock repair and overspray came out very well - the overspray is most apparent because of the lack of finish checking on the headstock vs. the rest of the guitar. The repaired crack is visible as a fine line under the finish, but it is not prominent and it is solid.

A great playing instrument with a dead straight neck - and the neck set is actually deep enough that the tremelo works and the bridge doesn't wander ! The Cardinal Red finish is quite rare - I haven't seen an original finish example for sale in a long time.

The guitar comes in an excellent condition "thick" 1963 - 1965 Gibson Firebird case, which is what Reverse Firebirds shipped in.

This guitar is currently listed on Ebay - with a start price of $2950 - though you can contact me directly as well about purchasing it.

I do ship internationally, though because of the size of the case shipping may be prohibitive to some countries. Payment can be via Paypal, cashier's check or wire transfer, though there may be some fees involved for the latter.

If you're interested, please do contact me: krishna@guitargarage.net

For Sale: 1963 Vox Bassmaster Bass, English-made

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:31:00 +0000

Here is a very very rare bass from the early days of Vox/JMI - the short-scale Bassmaster.

Vox began as an amplifier company in the late 1950s, based in Kent, England - but around 1961 they decided to branch out into electric guitars and basses. These earliest Vox instruments were fairly simple and were manufactured for Vox by a cabinet maker in Shoeburyness, Essex (if anyone has the name, please let me know!!).

These instruments featured solid mahogany bodies, with sycamore necks and rosewood fretboards. The necks did not have an adjustable truss rod, but I'm assuming there is a fixed truss rod within the neck.

Around 1963 Vox expanded its lineup of instruments with the famous teardrop Mark VI and the Phantom series of guitars and basses, though these used necks manufactured by EKO and imported to the UK, combined with bodies and hardware made in England. These instruments were also assembled in the Dartford, Kent plant, with no involvement of the cabinet maker responsible for the Bassmaster.

By 1967, Vox had shifted all instrument manufacturing to Italy, at the EKO plant. The Bassmaster model was reworked into the single-pickup Panther bass at this time, and built by EKO.

When I got this particular bass, it had a number of issues, but was in surprisingly good condition for being 46 years old - and not having a case !!

The main issues were:
- loose fret ends that were popping up
- two missing pearl inlays on the fretboard
- a missing tuner and missing tuner button on the original tuners
- action that was a bit too high
- one neck screw broken off in the neck

The neck however was straight and the bass sounded good - boomier than I would have guessed !!

The first order of business was to get the neck fixed up. I found a set of Van Ghent tuners from a Hagstrom guitar, which fit well with the existing tuner ferrules, looked good and didn't require any additional holes to be drilled in the headstock. I saved the original tuners just in case someone out there comes up with a spare one someday !!

Then came the frets and the inlays. This picture shows the popped-up fret ends and missing inlays.

Since I needed to install two new pearl dots and file them down to the proper contour, I decided to carefully remove ALL the frets - and save them for reinstallation.

The fretwire was very fine, but the frets were actually in great shape with minimal wear.

Once the inlays were flush, I lightly sanded the entire board, oiled it - and then cleaned out the fret slots with the back of an Xacto knife prior to reinstalling the frets. Note that I affixed the frets to a piece of tape to keep them in the proper order for reinstallation.

I re-bent each fret to slightly over radius them - and cut some clamping cauls to match the 6 inch radius (!!) of the fretboard. In the end, I only used the clamping cauls on a few of the frets - a little bit of Franklin Hide Glue on each fret followed by hammering them in - working from one edge to the other - worked great.

I was careful to line up one end of the fret with the edge of the fretboard - and then tap it in across the board. In the end I only had a few little burrs sticking out that I had to touch up with a fret-end file.

The final neck work was to dig out the remnants of a neck screw that had broken off in the neck - which required some drilling next to the screw to get a grip with needle nose pliers - and then doweling to repair the damage.

I found a stainless steel screw that was a near match for the remaining three original neck screws.

The body needed little work - just some cleaning with some ScratchX to get off 40 year old grime - and one area where it looked like a sticker had been scraped off was wet sanded and then buffed out. The finish has some deep checking - but is solid and not flaking off at all.

The body also had shielding paint applied under the pickguard - I have no idea if this is original or was a mod from later on. I did find that the ground wire from the bridge was MISSING - so I added one, using the existing passage to run it from the bridge to the controls. The mahogany is visible in the unpainted neck pocket area.

The electronics appear entirely original - there was some mention that the potentiometers are actually desirable for the restoration of old old Marshall amps - but again I profess ignorance on that topic!

Finally - re-assembly time came. As I mentioned, the action on the bass was too high initially, and this was due to a shallow neck set. To change the angle on the neck, I fitted a plastic shim made from some old thin pickguard material - probably around 0.03 inches thick.

Once the bass was strung up with some flat wounds - I adjusted the intonation, which actually came out pretty close ! I also had to do a little fret filing in just two places - the end of one fret and the middle of one of the highest frets - not bad for recycling the original frets!

The bass plays surprisingly well - and with the flat-wounds has a kind of Hofner-esque tone.

The neck is VERY skinny - more akin to a Tele or Mustang GUITAR neck than a bass neck, but comfortable. This diminutive bass weighs in at a grand total of 6 lbs!

I'm asking $350 plus shipping for this instrument - it will come with an inexpensive gig bag. You will NOT find another one of these around !!

DEET Mosquito Repellent vs. lacquer guitar finishes: Bad News!!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Finally getting back to writing some posts on my blog - and this is one that dates back to this past summer - more a cautionary tale than anything.

I was contacted by a local bassist who had finish damage on his Fender Custom Shop '55 Precision. The damage happened during a sweaty outdoors summer gig - he recounted that he had sprayed a good amount of Off mosquito repellent on himself prior to playing - and that after the gig, he realized that the finish on the top edge of the bass had become gummy where his arm had rested against the finish.

I had never heard of this happening - I theorized that it was the alcohol in the Off that had maybe just softened up the nitro a little, with the heat and sweat helping some more. Since he was local, I suggested he bring it by and I'd see what I could do - I was hoping that the damage was just in the clear coat and could basically be buffed out. I was also hoping that maybe the owner was just being a little overly sensitive about the damage, and that it really wasn't as bad as he described it.

However, when I did get to check out the bass, the damage was obvious and indeed quite bad looking - the finish had obviously gotten softened and marked up and also gotten dirt ground into it while it was soft, so it was discolored. The finish by this time (several weeks later) was hard again, but I couldn't tell how deep the damage was. The pictures below show the damage pretty clearly.

The P-bass did have a pretty good clear coat - though the damage meant I was going to have to wet sand the area and then buff it out - my worry was in cutting through the clear coat and into the translucent blonde finish, which would be almost impossible to retouch.

So I did it VERY gradually - using 600 grit wet and dry paper on a sanding block with a very light touch, and just going to the point where the discoloration was gone and holding the bass up to the light didn't reveal any unevenness in the finish. Happily I did not cut all the way through the clear coat anywhere!

From there I just worked through finer grits, all the way to 2000 grit wet and dry paper - followed by hand buffing with two grits of compound and a final "deswirl" with Meguiar's Scratch X.

As you can see, the shine came back to the finish and there really isn't any visible trace left of the damage - could have been much uglier !!

After this experience, I did a quick check online to see if maybe it wasn't the alcohol in the Off that did the damage, but actually the DEETs - and this is what I found in an article published on a University of Florida, Gainesville website:

"DEET or diethyltoluamide is an effective repellent of mosquitoes, gnats, ticks, mites, and blood-sucking flies. It has been used effectively for the past 45 years to prevent insect bites and disease transmission."

"Only apply DEET formulations to exposed skin; do not apply to areas underneath clothing. DEET will damage plastic materials, so do not apply DEET formulations on or near plastics, acetate, rayon, Spandex, synthetic fabrics (other than nylon), furniture finishes, leather, watch crystals, and painted or varnished surfaces. Plastic glass frames and goggles should be protected from DEET applications. Car finishes and interiors also may be damaged by DEET. It will not damage nylon, cotton, or wool fabrics."

So it would appear that DEETs is the actual culprit here - maybe it won't attack a catalyzed polyester or epoxy finish, but it certainly will attack a nitrocellulose finish and perhaps even a polyurethane finish.

Careful with that mosquito repellent at the next outdoor summer gig you play !!

Mako Exotec XK-4: Extreme 80s Pointiness!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:59:00 +0000

During the 1980s, guitar design really got abstracted - with "pointy" guitars becoming the norm, as well as various experiments with head-stockless and even bodyless guitars, such as the Steinberger and associated knock-offs.

As a "vintage guy" - I always have kind of looked down on these instruments - maybe because I associate them with the 80s "hair metal" bands that were all over MTV - and LA when I lived there from 1987 to 1989. It took me a while to warm up to even the Gibson Flying V and Explorer - and those two instruments are from the late 50s!

But now that some time has passed - and hair metal is for the most part in history, I'm looking at some of those designs, especially the more extreme ones, for their creativity and artistic merit. And .. a lot of those instruments were really well made.

I stumbled upon the Mako while browsing around on Ebay for a Takamine Explorer copy (as Michael Wright has documented in Vintage Guitar, Takamine made some very high quality set-neck, solid body guitars during the mid-80s) - I originally saw a stripped "project" example, but missed the end of the auction - but I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for another one. I have to say, I'm glad I waited!

The example I found was all original, with the amazing fitted, faux sheep-skin lined original hard shell case - the only thing missing was the back cover for the tremelo cavity.

The guitar is of set-neck construction with a high-quality metallic red finish and a rosewood fingerboard. Construction quality appears high - I couldn't tell what kind of wood its made of, though some comments online refer to a laminated body - a small edge chip showed what looked like mahogany, but its hard to tell.

The hardware is a bit unusual for such a "metal" looking instrument - two single coil pickups and a non-locking Strat-type bridge - more a set-up for a surf guitar than a shred-monster.

The headstock is also surprisingly conservative - looking more like some cheaper early 70s Japanese guitars in style. The stock tuners are Grovers, indicating at least a decent level of components. The aforementioned hardcase is also well-built, and specifically made for this instrument (check the pics!) - again implying that this wasn't an entry level instrument.

The guitar plays well - though the nut seemed to be cut a bit high (it may be a replacement since it wasn't yellowed at all) - and the two pickups are fairly high output, but more along the lines of a Strat than say a Charvel. The neck is dead straight and the frets show little if any wear.

The tremelo was set up very stiff - with 4 springs installed and the anchor screwed most of the way into the body. I did notice that the tremelo arm sticks up at a pretty steep angle - and I saw other comments to this effect online - maybe loosening up the springs will change the angle. The trem works just as well as any Strat trem - not for dive-bombs, but good for wavers .. again more surfy than 80s metal.

As far as the origins of this guitar, it is Japanese, but beyond that, information is at best sparse. The general consensus seems to be that Mako was a line of instruments produced by the Matsumoko Company, who are better known for producing Aria, Vantage and 70s Epiphone guitars. Matsumoko also apparently produced some of the higher quality Hondo instruments - probably the set-neck models from the early 80s.

As an additional clue, I did find a few pictures of the Hondo H-1 - which has some strong similarities to the XK-4, especially in the shape of the body around the neck joint.

I also found a reference online implying that Mako's were distributed by Kaman (makers of Ovation instruments) in the US from 1984 through 1989. I have found images of a number of bolt-on neck Mako's - either Strat or Les Paul style - and some mention that some Mako's were made in Korea and some in Japan - much as with Hondos.

The guitar now belongs to my friend Melanie, who was working out some Metallica tunes on it last I checked. The guitar may get a "reversible mod" - a strat-size GFS double coil in the bridge position - and a repro back cover plate.

If anyone else has more definitive info on where Mako's came from, or remembers them in stores, has catalogs, etc on what other set-neck models were available, I'd love to hear - email me directly or leave a comment on the blog - thanks !!

How I got into this ...

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:39:00 +0000

I first got interested in electric guitars and basses when I was a freshman in high school, in New Jersey. I'd discovered some of the "guitar gods" - mostly from watching TV and because I'd finally started listening to FM radio - as opposed to Top 40 AM. The guitar heroes I first became aware of included Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Ted Nugent and, of course, Jimi Hendrix.

I think partially out of being a kind of geeky kid, and partially because I was convinced I'd neevr really be ABLE to play (this was the tail-end of the pretentious prog rock era after all), I got very interested in the actual gear that these guys used - the cool guitars with names like Stratocaster, Les Paul and SG.

I decided to build my own guitar .. which provided a really good excuse to start going into a lot of guitar shops and looking at catalogs. The Jersey Shore at that time had a plethora of guitar shops, including one of the earlier "vintage shops", Guitar Trader, in Red Bank, NJ.

Walking into Guitar Trader in 1979 was pretty amazing .. rows of 50s and 60s Strats, a few 50s goldtop and sunburst Les Pauls, etc etc. And the prices back then would make you cry today ... despite the fact that Guitar Trader was considered one of the more expensive places to buy an instrument. A mint '67 Strat might set you back $800 at Guitar Trader, whereas it might be more like $650 at Red Bank Music or Jack's across the street ...

Anyway .. I was fascinated by the shapes, names, chrome, colors and the stories .. and then two more pivotal events occurred to create a nascent "guitar freak".

One was that I saw the movie, "The Kids Are Alright", with John Entwistle's legendary fantasy sequence that showcased his vast guitar collection. Two - I went to see Cheap Trick at Convention Hall in Asbury Park - and Rick Nielsen trotted out gorgeous, colorful guitar after guitar during their show - sometimes he'd be playing with three guitars stacked on-top of each other - jumping up and down as the Fiesta Red Strat bashed into the Red Firebird which was bashing into a Hamer Standard or an Iceman or something. Craziness!

Another evolution occurred over the following year and that was my discovery of the musical underground - starting with the tail-end of the punk scene, with bands like The Clash. The Jam and Ramones, and leading into the amazing "Post-punk" scene that included Gang of Four, PIL, Killing Joke and so on. Seeing these bands convinced me that though I'd never be the next Jimi, I could probably make some kind of noise that at the very least would agitate someone, somewhere.

Throughout the 80s I ended up playing the stripped-down distillation of musical aggro know as "hardcore" - a music and scene that epitomized the philosophy of DIY - Do It Yourself!! I played on many stages, in many basements, in many garages .. anywhere! In some ways I really felt that hardcore was a sort of folk music of its time .. there was (literally) no barrier between the audience and the band .. and anybody could be in a band if they had some drive/motivation.

During that time - while I was still fascinated with guitars, my focus was more on cheap utility instruments and very loud amps .. if I managed to play a nice guitar it was because some kid in another band on the same bill lent it to me !! The instruments I owned were limited - a 70 Precision Bass (still my #1 bass), a highly modified Kimberly guitar with a Dimarzio Super Distortion, a Squier Bullet, also with a Super Distortion, and later a stock 1974 SG Standard.

It was quite a few years before I had enough semi-disposable income to actually start buying guitars, but from 1992 on, my collection accelerated rapidly. I remember making a list of the one dozen guitars I "really wanted" around 1994 ... by the end of the decade I was up to around 80 and my collection currently tops out around 120. Not sure if I got all the guitars on that "hot dozen" list ...

As I started collecting and becoming more knowledgeable about instruments, I realized that if I was willing to buy "fixer uppers", I could get examples of instruments that otherwise would have been completely out of my range. I had always been good with my hands, having taken 4 semesters each of woodshop and autoshop in high school - and worked on all sorts of old Ford Mustangs, Porsches, Datsuns, etc.

A few individuals were also kind enough to give me advice on how to do repair and refinishing work - namely Vinnie Gulizia (formerly of Vinnie's Vintage Guitars, in Chelsea, MA), Jim Mouradian of Mouradian Guitar Repair, and Clay Herrell, who got me started on the "art" of refinishing with his encyclopedic knowledge (check the link to his website in the sidebar).

Over the course of 12 years, I built my repair and refinishing skills to the point where I decided to start my business during the Fall of 2007. The past year and a half have accelerated my learning at an unbelievable rate - I honestly would have to say that I learn something new every week - whether its some bit of information about a vintage instrument, or a new technique, material or tool to use in repair or refinishing. I think it'd get boring if that wasn't true !!

Anyway - that's my story - subject to update of course !!

1962 Fender Jazz Bass Redemption: Refret & Refinish

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Another challenging project - a very rough 1962 Fender Jazz Bass - a rare and potentially valuable instrument that's been put through the wringer over its 47 years of existence. The bass had been defretted many years ago - had the neck stripped and stained - and the body refinished.

This project came to me through my friend Shai in Israel, who purchased it on Ebay and had it sent directly to me, primarily for a refret. The bass appeared to have a nice finish on the body in the Ebay listing, even though the headstock was stained very dark - so we thought the work would be limited to refinishing the face of the headstock and refretting the neck - a fairly easy project.

When the bass arrived, the true magnitude of the work required became apparent.

The headstock was simply ugly - and the back of the neck looked even worse - an untalented 5th grader could have done a better staining job that this.

The body was in very rough shape - though the paint had been applied nicely, the wood underneath had not been prepped in anyway - and had been very roughly stripped.

The fretboard had also been heavily sanded down after defretting - and was very very thin at the butt of the neck. It appeared that someone had actually tried to paint a line to make the fretboard look more substantial at some point. And there was a nice divot out of the corner of the neck.

The 1 and a half missing clay dot markers had actually been SANDED THROUGH - to give an indication of how much rosewood was removed at some point.

However ... on the good side - ALL the parts of the bass appeared original - including the pickups, bridge, tuners, covers, pickguard, pots, knobs, etc., etc. In my assessment, the value of the original 1962 parts probably equaled or exceeded the price paid for the bass.

John Mouradian of Mouradian Guitar Repair pointed out that the bridge pickup was in exceptional shape, with the lacquer still present on the ends of the pole pieces - meaning the bass had probably always been played with the bridge cover on.

After many emails back and forth with Shai, I convinced him that a total make-over was the best idea and probably a good investment considering the vintage of the bass. After much consideration, we decided to refinish the bass in an aged Olympic White, with a natural headstock - a classic look with the tortoise guard.

The first order of business beyond general disassembly - was to strip the headstock face to see if it was in fact possible to get the finish AND stain off the wood. I wasn't very optimistic, since it appeared that the neck had been roughly sanded and then stained, so that the stain was in the scratches.

I used the relatively gentle Citristrip product to soften the finish - leaving it on for a few hours - and then scraping with a plastic scraper. The finish did peel off, but a lot of the stain remained on the wood.

I then used fine steel wool, dipped into Citristrip, to gently work the stain out of the wood - wiping the wood clean with denatured alcohol between passes. I worked in the direction of the grain, except for a few spots where there were scratches diagonally across the grain. In these areas I carefully, gently used the steel wool to pull the stain/finish out of the scratches, without making the scratches any deeper. All of this got the wood fairly clean.

After letting the wood dry out over night - I then switched to sanding - first using a random orbital sander with a 220 grit pad - and then switching to a sanding block and small piece of 220 folded over. I was trying to minimize how much wood was removed and just get the headstock to an even color and not round off any edges. I worked down to 400 grit paper, and the headstock was looking very clean now - surprisingly so!

I gave the wood a good scrubbing with a clean rag soaked in naptha - and this is what I had - far better than I could have imagined!

I went on to use the same approach on the rest of the neck - masking off the fretboard and neck date stamp to protect them - and the results are pretty remarkable - this will be a nice looking neck with an ambered finish on it.

After spraying a protective clear coat of lacquer on the neck, I turned my attention to the sad sad fretboard.

After consulting again with the Mouradians - I decided to use a type of epoxy-putty to replace the two missing clay dots.

The dots are exactly 1/4 inch in diameter, so I used a 1/4 brad-point bit in a drill press to get accurately placed flat-bottomed holes for the inlays.

The epoxy putty is kneaded together to start the hardening reaction - you have about 10 minutes of work time after that. Its a great material to work with as it doesn't shrink and is strong enough to actually be drillable. Available in most hardware stores.

I formed two small balls of putty - and then pressed them forcefully into the holes I'd drilled - leaving them as blobs above the fretboard.

About 45 minutes later, I used a razor blade to cut the inlays roughly even with the fretboard surface. I waited an additional hour before I sanded the inlays completely flush with the fretboard.

The color of the inlays was lighter than the other inlays - though probably very close to what the factory color was - so to add in 47 years of aging and staining, I used a tiny bit of Old English scratch polish on a cloth to tint the dots and blend them.

At least all the markers look right now !

As I was working on the neck, I began to also work on the body.

I sanded the front and rear of the body with a random orbital sander rather than stripping it since I wanted to leave the the finish in any low spots since I'd have to fill those areas anyway before refinishing. I used the Citristrip for the edges and relief scoop.

The areas that remain bluish are low spots and will have to be built up to get an even finish on the body.

Some of the scars left from previous rough treatment can be seen on the inside of the horns.

And a little trace of the original sunburst finish remains under the control ground plate.

I used an acrylic automotive grey primer, unthinned, to build up the low areas - spreading a thick coat on the low areas on the front of the body. The lowspots on the back of the bass weren't as deep, so I figured they'd get filled in by the sealer coat and the thinner white primer coat I'd spray on later.

Once the filler dried, the body was sanded again. Note the features that identify this body as being a pre-1963 Jazz Bass - the lack of a drilled ground-wire path from the bridge, the four holes for mounting the mute assembly, and the two small filled pin marks on the back, from where the routing template was attached to the body.

At this point the body still needed some dabs of glazing putting to fill in some chips and dings and some of the deeper scratches on the body edges.

Once the glazing putty was sanded, the body was ready for yellow dye - which is actually a blend of lemon yellow and vintage amber in a base of denatured alcohol. Despite the filled areas, I still wanted as much of the body to wear like an original 60s finish - which means exposing the underlying yellow-dyed wood when a chip happens.

Once dyed, the body is mounted on a paint stick that will leave an outline in teh neck pocket similar to the one on Fenders from mid-62 on.

The next step is to apply a heavy sealer coat and then move onto white primer so I can really see if this body is starting to look better!

( UPDATE 7/2/2009)
The finishing has moved along quickly !

I had to apply two coats of primer - with some spots of glazing putty and lots of wet sanding after the first coat.

But after the second coat of primer, the body only required a minimal amount of sanding and really was starting to look good. There are a few areas - on the edges - where a contour line has a little wobble or dip - not really obvious, but holding the body up to a light will reveal it - but all in all the body has turned out exceptionally well!

Once the body was primed, I applied two coats of Gloss White - which was hard to distinguish from the primer other than the glossier finish.

A light sanding of the second coat and the a clear gloss coat was applied to seal the finish prior to the application of tinted clear coats.

The tinting was done in two stages - first the entire body was lightly tinted with an amber clear coat. In this picture I've sprayed about 2/3rds of the front and the edges - you can see the untinted portion of the white base color.

Then the areas that would be covered by the bridge, pickguard, control plate and neckplate were masked off - and a second tinted coat was sprayed over the entire body to darken it further.

When the masking was removed - this is what the body looked like. The color balance is a bit off in the first picture - the finish is actually about half way between the two images.

The final step will be two clear gloss top coats, which I will spray with a non-plasticized nitrocellulose lacquer, so that the just top coat should check sometime in the next year or so.

(UPDATE 7/20/09)

As planned - the Jazz bass did receive a few more coats of clear gloss lacquer before a final wet sanding and buff out. There were no issues - and the body came out exceptionally nice considering the rough shape it had been in.

But now came the challenge of setting up the heavily reworked neck so that the bass not only looked good, but also played the way a 1962 Fender should.

I expected to have to do a fair amount of fret filing and dressing to get the neck to play evenly and allow for a set-up with low action, but there was no real way to tell until the neck was under tension from both the strings and the truss rod.

I turned out that there were two areas that needed a fair amount of dressing - the 3rd and 4th frets - and then the highest frets on the neck. The unevenness in these areas was due to the heavy sanding the fretboard had received in the past. Usually - I would have leveled the fretboard prior to installation of the frets, but since I didnt have much rosewood left to work with, I primarily focused on getting the fretboard cosmetically even.

In the end, I actually ended up pulling the lowest frets and leveling the board around the 3rd and 4th frets - and then reinstalling them.

I was also able to recycle the old original nut - the fretboard had been lowered so much that the nut was more than tall enough to allow for it to be filed and cleaned up.

After a few iterations of string up the bass - marking buzzing frets with a sharpie - and then unstring the bass to file the high frets, the bass finally played across the whole neck with no buzzing and low action.

A final fret polishing followed by cleaning and oiling of the board meant I was ready for final assembly!

The trickiest part of the re-assembly was the installation of the original tortoise guard - which had shrunken somewhat over the past 47 years. I installed the center screw first as an anchor - firmly but carefully pushing the guard over the neck pickup - it appears that it had been filed slightly in the past for reassembly - certainly a better option than cracking the guard!

I then worked outwards - carefully installing the screws about 2/3rd of the way in - angling them so that they would gradually pull the guard flat and into alignment with the screwholes in the body.

The edge of the guard did slightly overhang the neck pocket and I had to remove a tiny tiny amount of material to fit the neck onto the body.

The control panel ground plate was reinstalled - using the original window glazing points and some new solder - and then a few solder joints later, the bass was ready for its trial run !!

Not surprisingly - the bass sounded terrific - a little bit of crackle in the neck volume pot disappeared after a little back and forth with the control.

I took a number of pictures with the covers off ...

but the bass looks SO cool with the covers installed - even if I really prefer playing without any covers or thumbrest.

SOLD!!: 1976 Fender Precision Bass, Olympic White

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:56:00 +0000

The mid-70s Fender Precision bass in Olympic White with a black pickguard was the weapon of choice for the one and only Dee Dee Ramone - I remember seeing the Ramone's countless times in New Jersey and New York - and Dee Dee had as many as three identical Olympic White P-basses lined up and ready to rock - along with a couple of big old Ampeg SVT rigs.

And despite their ash bodies - you can see that Dee Dee was pretty agile even with those P-basses around his neck!

The bass I'm selling was assembled over several years as parts came my way and I had some time between other projects - and has turned out as an exceptional example of this 70s rock workhorse.

I originally acquired the neck as a project piece that had been defretted and had the fret slots filled with Bondo. I found the body a little later on Ebay - it had numerous refinishes capped with a horrendous blue spray can paint job on it and an added rout for a Jazz Bass pickup and an extra pot.

I refinished the fretboard,refretted the neck, stripped the body, plugged the added rout and began a refinish. A few pictures from this initial work are below. The router table pin marks, the ground wire rout under the bridge, the hand rest and bridge position, and the wiring rout for the pickup all identify this body as being from between 1974 and 1977.

I went as far as priming and putting a coat of Olympic white on the body, but then put aside the project for a few years.

Recently, I revisited the project and realized I had most of the parts I needed - including a 70s Fender bridge, a 1976 P-bass pickup, the bridge and pickup covers, and a complete set of late 70s Schaller-made Fender bass tuners. I hadn't plugged a small rout for an added control pot, so I plugged that and then reprimed the body.

For the finish - I applied a straight white nitro base coat, followed by a cream-tinted white coat, to replicate the aging of the color coat on 70s Olympic White Fenders. This was then followed by a few clear coats to protect the color coats. This will cause the finish to wear slightly differently than a typical 60s Olympic White Fender, where most of the yellowing happens in the clear coat. Note how the yellowed Olympic White contrasts with a plain white piece of paper!

Also note that the Jazz bass routing repair is invisible - I expect since this repair was done several years ago it will stay fairly invisible.

My observation is that the 70s polyester finishes weren't even clear coated - the yellowing happens in the top part of the actual color coat. I'd love to know if this is what others have observed as well ??

But even if that is true, this body will wear differently due to the thinner nitro finish, as opposed to the thick polyester finish that would have been applied at the factory.

The bass fit together beautifully - with a good tight neck pocket fit. Once it was set up, the frets did need some dressing here and there, but the neck flattened out almost perfectly once the truss rod was tensioned up. The neck now has about 1/64 inch of relief around 10th fret - with near perfect intonation and fairly low action.

The pickup sounds a little brighter than the pickup in my 1970 P-bass, but has the classic grey-bottom pickup sound. The pickup resistance was a little over 11K Ohms. Note that the original grounding plate and weather-stripping material "pads" are in place as well.

The tuners are correct for 1976, though I do believe that some early 1976 P-basses came with the Fender produced tuners before the switch to the Schaller-manufactured tuners later in the year. The tuners were acquired from two different sources - two of them are in near mint condition and two of them were heavily machine polished to the point where the plating is gone from the top of one of the string pegs. The ferrules in the neck are new, as is the nut.

The bridge is an original 70s Fender bridge in excellent condition, with the crease visible on the string anchor portion of the neck.

Finally, the bass comes in a rare brown-burgundy lined original Fender hardshell case. The brown-burgundy lining was used only during the 1975/1976 era - most cases were lined with the familiar orange material. The case is in excellent condition as is the exterior Fender logo.

The inside of the bridge and pickup covers bear remnants of what appear to be red or burgundy ink inspection stamps - very faint.

Ready to rock in front of my beloved Ampeg B-15N !!

The following parts are not original 70s Fender parts:
- 3-ply black-white-black pickguard
- black thumbrest
- new CTS pots, capacitor, jack and knobs
- pickguard screws, neck screws and bridge screws

All in all a really nice bass that plays great, with near-perfect intonation and low action - with a total weight just under 9 lbs with the covers on - not bad for a 70s Precision; this isn't one of the late 70s "boat anchor" Precisions (I have one of those coming up for sale soon though !!).

UPDATE: SOLD! Thanks to Eoin of the Emerald Isle - hope you enjoy the bass !!

Completed 1968 Telecaster Bass: Candy Apple Red Restoration - UPDATED

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:27:00 +0000

A bit over a month ago, my buddy Henry called me up one morning - he had a line on a much mistreated 1968 Fender Telecaster Bass with a rough Barney Purple spray can finish, missing a bunch of the parts and with a few extra holes and badly in need of a complete makeover. He sent me links to a few pictures and asked me if I thought I could rescue the bass - I told him that the
the price was right and I was confident I could do something nice with it, without getting TOO extravagant in terms of price.

Henry brought the bass over pretty much as soon as he got it in the mail. The purple refin was in fact VERY poor - and it appeared that there were some pretty deep scratches under the finish too. The body had an extra route for a p-bass pickup, the original pickup hole was filled in with bondo - and there were several chips around the edges of the body. The neck had worn frets, the incorrect headstock decal and a loose skunk stripe on the back of the neck.

The pictures below show the surface of the wood a bit better and nice divot out of the edge of the body. Notice how nicely the string ferrules have been painted over as well .... sweeeeeeet ..... NOT !! ...

One the plus side - the bass did come with the correct and very rare lollipop tuners, which were also used on Jazz basses in 1966 and some Precisions in the 1966 - 1968 time period. The correct neckplate and the original control plate were also included - and it all came in the slightly crushed original case.

After some discussion - there were a lot of options for colors in 1968 - Henry decided on Candy Apple Red for his Tele Bass - a color I have seen on at least a few original examples. Candy Apple Red consists of a transparent red finish applied over a metallic silver or gold finish - Fender used silver, while Gibson used gold for their "Sparkling Burgundy" - their version of C.A.R. Its possible to do Candy Apple in any number of colors - I've seen green and yellow and about 1 1/2 years ago I did a G&L ASAT Bass in candy orange.

The first step was to disassemble the bass and strip that purple paint off and see what was underneath. Fortunately, the paint was indeed spray can paint and stripped off using Citrix stripper. There were many layers and lots of primer, but slowly the bare wood was exposed.

Notice the nice big hunk of white Bondo filling the original Tele pickup routing.

After many applications of Citrix and lots of scraping and fine steel wool, body was scrubbed down with lacquer thinner and then allowed to dry thoroughly for a few days.

Once the body was dry - I used a random orbital sander with a 150 grit pad to sand the front and back of the body, while I used 220 grit paper to sand the edges of the body. The body still showed some of the scratches from prior stripping - probably from someone using a screwdriver or chisel to scrape off the finish - but the scratches weren't as deep as they had looked at first.

Before I went too far with sanding the body, I decided to do the wood repairs - namely plugging the P-bass routing, filling in the big missing chunk in the edge of the body and a smaller missing edge on the bass side of the neck pocket. I routed out the P-bass hole to an even rectangle, so that I could glue a single piece of maple in place. I used some small chips of ask from the area around the P-bass routing to fill in the other two smaller repairs.

The picture below is the maple block clamped into place - I used Titebond and left it clamped for about 24 hours.

Once everything was set - I filled in some small gaps around the edges of the maple plug and a few other small dings here and there - and then sanded down the body again with the random orbital sander and a 220 grit paper for the edges. The scratches are still visible, and there is a bit of purple paint still in the fairly open grain of the ash.

I then began the process of sealing the ash - I brushed on two heavy coats of Parks nitro based sanding sealer. The sealer really brought out the color of the wood and started to make the body look good - but the grain was still showing.

Since the grain was still showing, I applied some oil-based grain filler - much as I would on mahogany - followed by sanding. Though the body wasn't as shiny and the wood didn't show its color, the body was now fairly well sealed and ready for priming. Notice that I did not dye the body yellow for this bass - I've realized that Fender stopped that practice around 1966.

As always - I used a white nitro-based primer - spraying on a fairly heavy coat - I got a few runs on the edges, but I knew I'd be sanding the body quite a bit and I was still concerned about the grain showing through the finish. Once the primer was dry, the grain was indeed showing through the primer. I eventually primed the body three times, wet sanding after each coat. As you can see - I also had to fill in a few small areas with some glazing putty.

Finally - time to start the color coats - beginning with the underlying silver coat for the Candy Apple Red. The silver color I used consisted of fine "bright silver" powder dissolved into clear nitro lacquer. I applied four coats of silver - with some wet sanding of a few uneven areas in between. The final silver coat I did sand - I just carefully and lightly sprayed it to get a very even color - since any flaws would be visible through the transparent red "candy" coat.

Several clear coats of gloss nitrocellulose will seal in the silver layer.

(UPDATED: May 20th, 2009)

After a few coats of clear nitro to seal the silver undercoat, it was time to apply the transparent red "candy" coat.

I am using my 1965 Fender Jaguar, which has an original Candy Apple Red Finish, as a reference.

The picture below shows how the different layers of the finish have worn through over the years - and reveals something pretty common apparently on C.A.R. Fenders - a "do over" on the finish, most likely because of a run or dark spot in candy layer.

The layers of the finish are as follows:
- bare wood
- white primer
- silver undercoat
- some sort of yellowed clear coat
- another silver coat
- a transparent cherry red coat (presumably with a mistake)
- another silver coat
- the final transparent cherry red coat

Two things to note
- there is NO Fullerplast sealer coat nor any yellow dye on the bare wood
- there appears to be no clear topcoat, or its very very thin

So back to the Tele Bass - for the candy coat, I used Stew-Mac's Cherry Red dye mixed into my standard clear gloss nitro, mixing in some lacquer retarder due to the kind of humid conditions lately, and thinning with straight acetone. I started off cautiously - because I didn't want to have to re-shoot the Tele bass like the guy doing the Jag 44 years ago !

The key is to get an nice even color on each surface - the surfaces can differ slightly from each other (the sides and back on my Jag are definitely a little darker though that could be from exposure to light), but variations in the density of the red on teh front or back will show up pretty prominently.

The first coat was basically a "misting" coat that made the bass a kind of pink champagne color.

As I felt more confident, I used a more strongly tinted color and slowly built up the density of the red.

Finally, after four coats of cherry red - the color had the depth I wanted.

UPDATE:

Shortly after my last update to this post, I ran into a classic lacquer finishing problem - but one I hadn't encountered before: "fisheyes".

Fisheyes are the nickname for small ringed marks in the finish left when small bubbles form in an underlying layer of the finish - pushing up the overlaying layer - and then collapsing as the finish "gases off". The resulting marks do indeed look like fisy-eyes.

What happened on the Tele Bass was that there was still a significant amount of solvent in the silver coat - and I had quite rapidly built up many layers of candy red ontop. Because of the high humidity, I had been adding some lacquer retarder to the finish - which slowed up the entire drying process. I brought the Tele Bass body upstairs and hung it outdoors once it was dry to the touch - as my basement was still pretty cool and humid - and it had warmed up outside. Mistake !!

After a few hours, I checked on the body and was horrified to see a cluster of small bubbles UNDER the finish in the area on the back of the treble horn. DOH !!!!

The picture below shows the back of the Tele Bass after it had dried a few more days and the "fish-eyes" are plainly visible.

I did try sanding out the fisheyes - but since they were actually in the silver layer, they were still very prominent even after they were flush with the surface.

As with the factory finish "oops" on my 60s Jaguar, this left me with one option - sand the body smooth (not strip it) and respray both the silver and candy coat. I resolved to do the respray in fewer coats by more heavily tinting the red coat - and I also didn't use lacquer retarder, instead waiting for lower humidity days.

I set the body aside to set up thoroughly - and meanwhile turned my attention to the neck - which required some attention: the headstock had an incorrect replacement decal (for a Telecaster guitar) and the walnut "skunk stripe" was slightly loose on the back of the neck and actually sticking out a little.

After consulting with John Mouradian, I fixed the skunk stripe by first backing off on the truss rod adjustment, and then using my finger to work some Titebond glue into the small gap between the skunk stripe and the maple neck. I then clamped with skunk stripe down, using a small clamping caul to just clamp down on the walnut skunk stripe instead of the surrounding maple.

With the skunk stripe secured, I stripped the face of the headstock to bare maple to get it as clean and level as possible. I tried to force apart the E-string tuner crack, but it was very securely glued so I left it alone.

I then applied several coats of clear lacquer - lightly sanding between - and then used ReRanch's Amber Neck Dye blend to tint the front of the headstock and blend the edges into the existing finish on the back of the headstock. I sealed in the tint with a light clear coat, and then applied the repro 1968 Telecaster Bass waterslide decal. Once the decal had dried onto the finish thoroughly (24 hours), I protected it with a very light coat of clear lacquer.

After carefully pressing in the tuner bushing using wood blocks and a bench clamp, I installed the tuners and string tree.

Now that the neck was done, I returned to the body - wet sanding it thoroughly to get a flat smooth base again. I then started over with a light spray of silver, which I followed with a heavier coat an hour later to get a nice even silver base again.

Here's a little bit of the redundant respray ..

And here it is - after drying for a week - with NO fisheyes !

I thought I'd illustrate the wet sanding and buff out process in a few pictures.

To start with, I used a sanding block with 800 grit wet and dry paper for the front and back, and a folded over piece of 800 grit for the sides and edges. I wet the paper often and replaced it when it got any build up on it. The 800 grit was followed by 1000 grit, and then a final wet sanding, just by hand without a block, using 1500 grit wet.

This got rid of all of the orange peel or other uneveness in the clear coat - I was careful to sand JUST enough to get everything smooth and flat. The guitar now had a dull matt finish and was ready for compounding and buffing.

I started off with the regular grit compound and a clean pad on the automotive buffer I use - applying plenty of compound to start with and buffing it evenly for a several passes, then wiping most of it off and buffing it again with just a light glaze.

Then I switched to a lighter grade of a cream like compound and a pad thats more of a synthetic lambswool type of pad - and using a light glaze buffed the body further.

Now the shine was starting to come out - but there was one more step - and that was to use Meguir's Scratch-X to clean and further polish the finish. This part of the compounding was simply done by hand - using a soft cloth to polish and then clean, and working a fairly small area at a time. This resulted in a nice gloss - though what still looks like a vintage finish that's been polished - a very fine pattern of finish marks is visible in the right light.

Eventually the finish will also check - since I used a blend of non-plasticized and plasticized clear nitro for the clear coats.

Finally, the bass was ready for re-assembly!

The bass was fitted with an original control plate and a set of 1968 pots, capacitor and output jack and a reissue 3-ply pickguard, bridge and covers. The pickup is a Rio Grande pickup, with oversized pole pieces that I happened to have around. Some trimming was required around the pickguards neck cutout and the area where the control plate fit, but otherwise the bass went together nicely.

Henry and I had some doubts about how well the neck would play, given the heavily worn frets and the skunk stripe issue - but after a little setup, the neck played very nicely, with low action and a great feel. The bridge saddles had to be set up fairly high, but this put a great deal of downforce on the saddles, giving very good tone transfer and sustain. The neck to body fit was also excellent.

Here it is in the original slightly crushed hard case !

And finally, a few outdoor shots on a sunny Saturday:

Surf Green 60s Style Makeover: Fender Precision Lyte

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:36:00 +0000

This was a fun project to take a fairly recent and "modern" Fender bass and modify it to give it more of a 1960s vibe.

The bass was a 1994 Japanese made Fender Precision Lyte, with a red photoflame sunburst finish on a super lightweight basswood body. Photoflame was a goofy finish gimic Fender used during the 90s in which some sort of printing process was used to print wood grain patterns into a transparent finish, such that a cheap piece of unfigured wood (such as basswood) would have the appearance of a piece of carefully cut flamed maple.

Besides the whole cheeziness of the idea, it also appears that the use of a thick brittle finish on a soft wood body can result in some really pronounced finish cracking - as the pictures below show, the finish was cracked all the way down to the bare wood and had actually fallen off in some areas.

The owner and I discussed some options - he was fairly sure that he wanted Surf Green as the body color and asked about matching the headstock - I suggested adding a custom white pickguard and a repro 1967 Fender Precision headstock logo to really give a 60s Fender look to the whole thing.

I showed the owner a sample panel of surf green with a white P-bass guard against it to give him an idea of what the final bass would look like.

I optimistically hoped that the existing finish would easily flake off - of course that wasn't the case - in fact the finish proved remarkably tough. I resorted to using aircraft stripper - the most potent paint stripper I had access to - and the nastiest stuff too! Even with the aircraft stripper, I need to use a lot of force with a scraper to get the finish off - which was a problem with the soft basswood body - the stripping process unfortunately resulted in a few chips and gouges on the body.

After a great amount of effort - the body was relatively clean - though some of the red pigment from the finish and the solvents from the stripper had actually soaked into the soft wood on the edges of the body, particularly inside the cutaways - which would add another challenge down the road.

After scrubbing the body with steel wool and paint thinner (mineral spirits, followed by lacquer thinner), I applied a small amount of wood filler to the gouges and some glazing putty to the smaller scratches.

The body looked pretty good, so I decided I'd rely on a few primer coats to get a smooth working surface for the color coat. As the primer dried - I noticed that the finish around the cutaways was not drying the same as the rest of the body - and after a while a slight reddish orange tint showed. This was remnants of the solvents and the red dye in the original finish leaching through the primer. I ended up letting the body dry for a week and then priming it with several thin coats over a few days - eventually there was no leaching of color - and the finish on the rest of the body was looking very good.

Then came the surf green color coat, which was actually white nitrocellulose that I hand tinted using two different Tintsall pigments - a blend of Pthalo Green and Grass Green. The nitro went on very nicely - I applied two coats, without any sanding between coats.

I also sprayed the headstock to match at the same time - the headstock had simply had a light sanding done since the headstock finish was not exhibiting any of the finish cracking seen on the body. Two coats of white nitro primer were applied prior to the color coats.

After some wet sanding, I resprayed a final thin color coat before applying a few clear gloss nitro coats to the body.

I then got to work on making the custom guard. I cut a paper template that was loosely based on a standard P-bass guard, but smaller in some areas to fit the smaller P-bass Lyte body, but expanded to fit around the four control knobs of the two pickup P-bass Lyte.

The body got a wet sanding (800, 1000 and 2000 grit) and then buffing with two grits of compound plus scratch-x swirl remover. I also applied a repro 60's "transition" P-bass headstock decal to the surf green headstock before sealing it with two thin coats of clear lacquer. It looks pretty cool with the gold hardware installed !

I cut the pickguard - carefully aligning the cutout for the staggered pickup - and then trial fitting the guard with the neck in place before I drilled any mounting holes in the guard.

I also waited until I had the guard mounted on the body before I drilled the four holes for the controls, which I did from the back (through the control cavity) to ensure that the holes would line up accurately. The came the assembly and rewiring - which was a bit tedious with the two pickups and active electronics - but finally the bass was done - and it was radically transformed!

1976 Fender Precision Bass: Refinish to Lake Placid Blue - a classic 60s color!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:38:00 +0000

This is a fairly straight forward refinish of a stripped Fender Precision bass body in one of Fender's classic 1960s custom colors, Lake Placid Blue.

As with all of the Fender custom colors of the 60s, Lake Placid Blue was originally a car color for the 1958 Cadillac model year, and was formulated as a Lucite brand acrylic lacquer. For this project I actually used Duco acrylic lacquer because its what was available - I don't believe there's any difference in appearance.

The bass itself was a "frankenbass" - it started out as a 1976 Fender Precision bass, but the owner swapped out the body because it was ridiculously heavy for a more recent Fender alder body (from the 90s I believe). The pickups were custom made grey bottom pickups and the rest of the hardware was a mix of original and reissue parts.

Lake Placid Blue was last available during the 1973 model year from Fender, but 73 and 76 Fender P-basses are generally very similar in appearance (the thumb-rest moved) - so a 76 P-bass in Lake Placid Blue isn't "correct" but the look wouldn't be glaringly incorrect. And give the mix of parts on the instrument, originality wasn't really a concern.

The alder body had been stripped but had a worn clear coat on it, with a deep area of buckle rash on the back, as well as the usual assortment of gouges and dings.

After a sanding of the front and back using a random orbital sander and a 150 grit pad, I used unthinned nitro lacquer to fill in the area of buckle rash as much as possible. I also applied lacquer to some of the other scratches and edge dings.

It took about three applications of lacquer on the back to fill in the buckle rash, but once it was hardened, I sanded the entire body down with 220 grit paper and a 220 grit pad on the sander. I applied a heavy clear sealer coat of nitro cellulose after this, in preparation for primer.

After another light sanding - the body was ready for white nitro primer. The body required a two coats with wet sanding between coats - and a little glazing putty on a few spots here and there. But after the second coat, the body was ready for the color coats.

Lake Placid Blue has a fairly heavy metal powder content (I believe its aluminum) - which not only requires very thorough mixing of the paint before use, but also means that the paint is very unforgiving if the paint pools or runs at all, as the silver powder pigment will not dry evenly within that area of the finish. If this occurs, its necessary to wet sand the area down and then respray - usually just best to do the whole back or front over again to ensure an even color.

The way to avoid this problem is to gradually build up the color - which requires patience, since the impulse is to get the color as deep as possible as fast as possible. The pictures below illustrate the first misting coat (sorry they're a little blurry!)

Gradually the color was built up - two more coats of color were applied, with each coat consisting of about 3 passes with the spray gun.

The final step was to add several clear coats to not only protect the color coat, but to also deepen the color and gloss of the finish.

Two coats of clear gloss lacquer with an amber tint were applied, to slightly "age" the finish. I did not yellow the finish to the extent that a true 60s finish would have aged - this would have made the guitar turn to a greenish-aqua color.

Finally, two more coats of clear untinted nitro was sprayed on the body. Once everything had dried and hardened for roughly a week and a half, I wet sanded and then buffed out the body, with my usual procedure - finish off with a vigorous hand buffing using Meguire's Scratch-X.

I assembled the bass with the black guard the owner had on the bass, though when he showed up we installed an aged white guard, which looked much much better. Unfortunately we were in a rush and I forgot to snap some pictures (I'll try to get some from him eventually).

Watch for an upcoming project in which I refinish my 1966 Jazz bass to match the original aged Lake Placid Blue headstock.

1990 Les Paul Junior TV, Vintage style refinish

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:14:00 +0000

The Les Paul Junior TV finish is one of the classic vintage guitar finishes and also one of that has been re-interpreted in many ways on various reissues over the years. The worst interpretation in my opinion was Gibson's early 90's version, which was an opaque mustard color, with a slight greenish tinge.

In reality, the TV finish, which was also applied to Les Paul Specials and even a handful of SG-shaped Les Paul Juniors from the 60s - was similar to the translucent "blonde" finish applied to Fender Telecasters during the the 50s, 60s and 70s. Over time, depending on the thickness of the clear coat and the opacity of the color coat, TV finishes appear to yellow to different degrees - with some taking on a light tan color (the so-called "wheat" finish) and some turning a creamy yellow color.

A client brought me his 1990 Les Paul TV Junior for a refinish - initially precipitated by damage to the top of the guitar ( a number of deep dings from something falling on the guitar) - but also as an opportunity for him to replace the "mustard" finish with a 50's style TV finish.

After a bit of discussion and research by both of us, it was decided that the goal would be to show off the grain of the mahogany as much as possible THROUGH the TV finish - basically applying what was close to a 1956-style TV finish, as opposed to the more opaque 1959 style TV finish more commonly seen on double-cut Les Paul Juniors.

The dings in the top are visible in this view if you look closely.

The first step was to mask off the headstock and fretboard and strip the entire guitar down to bare wood. The finish came off fairly easily, with very little finish left in the grain. The mahogany of the guitar displayed a very tight grain, meaning it would be fairly challenging to really make the grain stand out through the TV finish.

Note the shadow of the pickguard on the top of the guitar - illustrating that the finish wasn't truly opaque - enough light penetrated to change color of the wood that wasn't covered by the guard!

Once the wood was bare - I used my dent steaming technique to remove roughly half a dozen small and medium dings on the face and edge of the body.

To emphasize the grain, I decided to use a technique described on the ReRanch website. This technique called for a thin fairly opaque coat of "blonde" nitro to be sprayed on the bare wood - more as a wash than a finish, such that the pores in the mahogany are not filled in with the finish.

Then a dark grain filler is applied OVER the light colored base, with the idea being that the filled grain will contrast strongly with the coated mahogany. This approach may very well duplicate the "limed mahogany" approach that's mentioned in reference to the TV finish. The challenge is in getting the filler ONLY in the pores - and removing the excess without removing the thin "liming" coat.

The finish that was used was based on the tint I used for a 1968 Telecaster refinish, but with some more amber and a little yellow dye added. This was then cut with clear lacquer and thinned down more than I would for a typical finish coat. A nice even light coat was sprayed on the entire instrument.

As you can see in this close-up, the grain was NOT filled by the wash coat.

Now came the grain filling operation - which is always messy. As a first step, a good solid coat of walnut colored, oil-base filler was wiped onto the guitar -working one surface at a time.

A scraper (and old credit card in this case) was drawn ACROSS the grain to remove the excess filler while leaving the pores of the wood filled.

There was still a lot of extra filler on the surface of the wood after this scraping, but the filler was allowed to dry for about an hour before the next removal step was carried out, using a soft cloth that was just a little damp with paint thinner (which will not attack the nitro wash coat). A very light touch is required for this step and work ACROSS the grain - take off less rather than more, otherwise you WILL pull the filler out of the pores.

After the guitar sat for another hour, I gently rubbed the surface - across the grain again - with a dry cloth to polish off some more of the excess filler. The picture below is the guitar after this step.

A few days later, I used 400 grit and 600 grit sandpaper - and a VERY light touch - to remove the rest of the extra filler and even out the color of the guitar.

The grain is well emphasized on the front and back of the body, but the tight grain of the neck isn't as emphasized, because it simply has smaller pores.

The next step will be to clear coat the guitar - and then slowly build up a translucent "TV" finish on top of this base.

Completed 1978 Fender Musicmaster Bass: DETONATOR YELLOW with competition stripes!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:47:00 +0000

This is a follow-up on a post on a Musicmaster bass that a client wanted me to do in the style of an early 70's Dodge Superbee - in a bright yellow with black racing stripes.

The original post can be found here.

The client did order some black racing stripes, loosely based on the Fender Mustang "Competition Stripes" of the late 60s and early 70s, but when they arrived they proved to be fairly thick vinyl stickers, as opposed to waterslide decals.

I decided to try to make waterslide decals myself, using some clear decal sheet material I had left over from another project.

I made the decals by first spraying a sheet of decal material with gloss black lacquer, in two very light coats to avoid dissolving the decal film. I then cut the decal material into strips of the appropriate width.

In hindsight, there are a few things I should have done differently: I should have clear coated the finish to make it a little more robust & I should have tried cutting the decal material into strips first and THEN sprayed on the layers of black lacquer.

As it was, the decals chipped and cracked in some areas as I applied them to the bass body - which I fixed by actually layering the very thin decals in areas that were damaged.

I applied the wider center strip first, using a decal setting solution (basically white vinegar) and letting it dry before I added the two thinner outside stripes.

The results looked ok - but as I said before, there were crack and chips visible - so I layered on small segments of the decal material. I knew I'd have to clear coat over the decals several times to protect the decals and to achieve a smooth surface.

Once the decals were set, I sprayed several coats of clear nitro over the front of the body - starting light as I was worried about dissolving the black lacquer on the decals, but then building up heavier coats. After letting the lacquer set, I finally was ready to wet sand and then compound and polish the front of the bass (again ! - since I had done this when I originally finished it in yellow!).

The bass's owner brought over the rest of the bass, and without even the use of a soldering iron, I was able to re-assemble the bass in the space of about 20 minutes. And it looked very sharp with the black guard and knobs - and a neck with a little bit of flame in the maple!

Gibson RD Bass Make-over: Finally finished !!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:11:00 +0000

This is a project that I started a LONG time ago and finally completed.

This started out as a natural finish Gibson RD Bass, with a headstock repair and very worn down or filed down, frets.

The early steps in this project are covered in this blog entry, but I'll summarize what was done.

-The neck was shaved down slightly to thin down the profile, though the width of the fretboard was not changed.
-The frets were removed and the entire fretboard was stripped and re-radiused, and then refretted.
-The finish on the rest of the bass was stripped, and then the bass was refinished in Ember Red lacquer, a very uncommon 60s Gibson custom color.
-The routings were modified for two Rickenbacker humbucking pickups, the wiring was modified to be similar to a Fender Jazz bass, and a new pickguard was fabricated to work with them.
-The bridge and tuners were replaced with higher quality units.
-The knobs were replaced with 60s style Gibson reflector knobs.

The end result is a pretty awesome looking and nice playing bass - though the neck is still quite chunky.

The look reminds me of John Entwistle's Fender-bird basses - which had various Thunderbird style bodies married to Fender Precision necks.

SOLD: Guild S-100 NB: All Original - If you loved Soundgarden ...

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:05:00 +0000

For all you Soundgarden fans, here's an old Guild S-100 guitar - Guild's answer to Gibson's SG Standard. Kim Thayil used a 70’s S-100 on at least the first 3 Soundgarden albums.

This guitar is equipped with two factory Guild humbuckers, with volume and tone controls for each pickup, wired through a pickup selecter switch, plus a smaller (factory original) phase switch for the two pickups. The phase switch allows the two pickups to be put in or out of phase: the out of phase sound is similar to what Peter Green (early Fleetwood Mac) got from his rewired ‘59 Les Paul - a kind of compressed humbucking sound. The in-phase setting gives a nice full-throated double-humbucker sound.

This guitar dates to mid-1973 based on the serial number. The pots date to the 10th week of 1973, which is consistent with the mid-73 serial number. The wiring is 100% original and untouched - in fact when I opened the back control panel I’m pretty sure it was the first time it had ever been opened judging from the appearance of the internals and the screws.
Note the factory label on the inside of the control cover.

The only on-original parts on the guitar are the strap-pegs - there is one extra strap-peg hole (filled) on the butt-end of the guitar body. This is illustrated in one of the pictures - its not too noticable. Everything else - pickups, electronics, Grover tuners, frets, bridge, tailpiece, etc. etc. - is original.

The clear plastic pickguard is in excellent condition, with a clear clean logo. There is some wear on one of the volume knobs, as you can see in the close-up view. The headstock overlay and pearl inlays are in PERFECT condition, with no evidence of peeling at the edges.

The finish is also a completely original natural finish over mahogany - though there is wear on the back of the guitar down to bare wood.

There is also some arm wear on the front that has dulled the finish - visible in the 2nd picture if you look carefully. There are of course various nicks and chips in the finish on the edges, as this guitar is 36 years old! The primary structure of the guitar is just two pieces of very evenly grained mahogany - one for the neck and one for the body. There are two small “wings” of mahogany glued on for the sides of the headstock. The grain of the mahogany on the body and neck is beautiful - as I tried to to illustrate with some of the close-ups.

The back of the guitar could easily be refinished in clear nitrocellulose, but I chose to leave the guitar as-is since it was very close to 100% original. However, if the winner of the auction DOES want the back of the guitar refinished in clear nitro, I would do that for an additional $100.

The guitar plays extremely well - with low even action across and along the entire neck. The guitar has obviously been played over the past 36 years, so the frets do show some wear - with a little less wear on the highest frets - as would be expected (unless some one constantly played shrieking leads on it!!). There is plenty of fret height left to allow dressing. but in my opinion the frets are NOT in need of any dressing - the guitar plays great as is. The rosewood fretboard is also in excellent shape -with no scratches or gouges and excellent mother of pearl inlays.

The total weight of the guitar is approximately 7.5 lbs - making it medium weight - roughly the same as a mid-70s Gibson SG Standard.

Finally, the guitar comes in a non-original TKL hardshell case, which is an excellent fit and will protect the guitar.

This is a rare opportunity to own an unmodified, unbroken Guild S-100 - a guitar that was arguably superior to the Gibson SG’s of the same period and produced in much smaller numbers.

SOLD!! Thanks to Richard in NJ - hope you enjoy the guitar and play it mightily !!!

1963 Fiesta Red Fender Precision refinish ala Bruce Thomas

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:56:00 +0000

Another fine vintage Fender bass has come my way - and the owner, inspired by my Fiesta Red refin of a 1964 P-bass, asked if I could do the same for his 1963, clay dot example, which had been refinished some years ago in a light metallic teal color, with a matching headstock.

Dyed yellow and sealed with a light coat of vinyl sealer. This still left some grain visible, so recoated with nitro cellulose to seal the wood fully. Also plugged extra strap button holes - had a lot over the years!

priming - wet sanded in effort to keep overall finish as thin as possible

Filling in flaws - mostly on edges and few areas that had scratched from prior refins - top. After a touch up with some primer and a light wet sanding, it was ready for color coat.

The color went on smoothly - with just a few little flaws.

After another wet sanding of the areas that I thought needed some touch up - I sprayed one more thin coat of Fiesta Red on the front only of the body, followed by a clear coat of nitro once it had dried for a day. After allowing the body to dry for about a week and a half, I wet sanded it with 800 grit, working my way down to 1500 grit, before doing my usual three step buffing and polishing process. I believe I removed most of the clear coat in the process - which was in line with the owner's desire for a very thin finish.

But as you can see, it still came out looking like a shiny new 1956 Thunderbird ...

Headstock

This bass had unfortunately been modified sometime in the past for non-stock tuners - and the headstock had actually been redrilled for four different tuners! Please don't do dumb-ass things like this to your poor old guitars and basses !!!

The current owner had the new holes plugged and a maple veneer applied to the front of the headstock. Given the work that had been done, he then had the headstock refinished in a metallic teal green to match the body. With the refin of the body underway, he decided to strip the headstock and see how the veneer underneath looked - and hopefully be able to have me refinish it in an aged clear coat.

The veneer actually looked very very good once it was stripped - here it is with a new decal roughly positioned. Notice that the line between the veneer and rosewood fretboard is a little uneven - this was also cleaned up later through careful use of an Xacto knife and some masking tape.

I decided to get a little elaborate on the headstock refin - if you have seen Fender instruments from the 60s with heavily yellowed headstock, you'll notice that the finish under the decal film doesn't yellow as much as the rest of the headstock - making the decal film pretty prominent. This can be really pronounced on custom color headstocks - Olympic White thats yellowed especially.

I decided I'd try to get a similar look with this headstock by cutting a mask to the same shape as the typical Fender headstock logo shape - and not ambering the finish under the decal as much as the rest of the headstock. I cut the decal and an added piece of paper to a typical 60s shape - then used the paper as a mask on the headstock once I had applied a base level of ambered clear coat.

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Then I added several more coats to bring the whole headstock to the final color I wanted.

When the finish had dried, peeling away the mask revealed a lighter area on the headstock.

I then applied the water slide decal in the typical fashion - soaking it in plain water and applying some decal setting solution (basically white vinegar) to the headstock - and then sliding the decal on - aligning it with the lighter area.

Once the decal was positioned and any extra setting solution was swabbed off, I applied a little decal softening solution to really set the decal into place. Once it was dry, I had a very convincing looking headstock - now if I can just learn how to do finish checking ...

A final picture of the neck and body together - eventually the owner will send me some pictures of the complete bass once he reassembles it.

(Update Jan 23, 2009)
Steve sent me a few snapshots of the bass completely assembled - still very shiny at this stage, but I'm sure he'll break it in over time!!

Updated! 1966 Gibson Thunderbird: Gluing back together the bits and pieces!!

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:07:00 +0000

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This is one of the most ambitious rebuild projects I have undertaken yet - perhaps THE most ambitious - and it remains to be seen how it works out in the end. This is a project for a client - my friend David from New York, who owns the Guild Starfire Bass I refinished in natural mahogany last year. I guess he wanted to challenge me with this project !!
Plus he knows that I'm a big fan of the non-reverse Thunderbirds and Firebirds and I've rebuilt a few of each over the years.

David acquired this poor poor 'bird from our fellow bass freak Joe out in the Chicago area - Joe had acquired it from parts unknown some time ago, but gave up on having it rebuilt and passed the project onto David - who actually simply had Joe send it to me.

As you can see - the neck of the bass was in several pieces - and the fretboard had been somewhat roughly removed - which dislodged an additional piece of wood lower on the neck.

However, very little of the original wood was actually missing - and the pieces could be put together - kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. There is no glue holding the pieces together in the lower picture.

It was obvious that the headstock had been badly broken - and split - sometime in the past, and then doweled and glued together - but apparently the bass had suffered another fall that this time smashed the neck joint, though the headstock stayed together.

The body had also been routed or chiseled out for some kind of pickup modification - which was going to have to be filled with a mahogany block and re-routed.

David wanted the bass set up as a Thunderbird 2 - with a single pickup, which I could conveniently copy from one of my Thunderbird 2's.

Then came the ADDITIONAL challenge - David said that he'd really prefer to have the bass refinished in the typical tobacco burst finish that was stock on all 1960s Thunderbirds. The problem with that finish is that the majority of the bass is finished in a clear lacquer, with just the edges finished in a dark walnut for a simple two color burst. This finish would make the routing repair visible on the top, since not all of it would be hidden under a pickguard.

We agreed to therefore do a thin mahogany veneer over the top surface of the bass - once it was repaired/plugged - so that the finish would look correct. I had used a glue-backed veneer product from Rockler years ago to do some furniture repair - and I knew it was a durable solution - but still not something I'd done on a guitar before.

The headstock repair I suggested hiding by shading the back of the neck in a "burst" (like Guild did on many of their archtop instruments). The front of the headstock will be black, so that's not an issue.

The first step was to plug the body route - which I first cleaned up to an even depth and rectangular shape - gluing in a nice block of mahogany.

The remaining chips and small gaps were filled with cellulose wood filler. The extra control pot hole was also plugged. The entire top will be sanded down smooth and sealed before the veneering to ensure a solid attachment and smooth finish.

I decided that the approach I'd take to repair the headstock was to first piece back together what I had - thereby getting the correct headstock alignment and angle - and then basically laminate/splice several pieces of wood across the shattered area. This would require cutting away on one or more faces of the joint. Finally - I might add in a few small dowels at an angle to anchor the new spliced across the break - though I wasn't sure this would be necessary. The general approach is similar to the one I used to rebuild an EB-3 with a smashed headstock and several missing chunks of wood.

After discussion with John Mouradian of Mouradian Guitar, I decided to use the fairly nasty polyurethane glue made by Titebond - which promised a very strong joint and was also drillable. I have used urethane glues before - and they can sorta of make a mess as they foam up as they set - and stain wood too. But in this case, a few stains on the wood was the least of my worries.

I had to fit a shim in where some wood was missing - apparently someone started to saw on the neck as they contemplated attaching an entirely new headstock - and I first glued the two small pieces onto the rest of the neck - rather than trying to do everything at once.

Once the initial glueing was dried - I cleaned away any foamed urethane from the gluing surfaces - and fitted the headstock on. I glued and clamped this, being careful to have a very tight fit and correct alignment of the headstock to the neck.

Once the glue was dry - you can see how the neck did fit together well again. Note how much the glue foamed up.

I cleaned up the glue and the wood and the splice I had put in place.

The cleanup revealed a few places where small chunks of wood were missing - which I glued in before I started the splicing operation. Once these are set in place, I'll carve/file them down to match the contours of the guitar.

Next up - splicing and veneering !!

(Update January 9, 2009)

After a long break, I'm finally back to updating my blog - and there has been a bit of progress on the Thunderbird over the past month or so.

The biggest achievement is that the neck is finally all back together - with the headstock joint reinforced and the fretboard glued back on - and the front of the body has had a mahogany veneer applied. The bass has actually been strung up to make sure everything is solid too.

For the t-bird's body - cleaned up the sloppy routing/chiseling work that had been done with a router, and then inlaid a nice even block of mahogany. However, since the owner wanted an aged clear finish on the body, he requested that I apply a mahogany veneer to the front of the body. We figured if there was a visible glue seam at the edges, I could apply a tobacco burst finish to cover it up.

To apply the veneer, I rough cut the veneer to shape, and then carefully trimmed the piece to fit around the neck - aligning the grain of the veneer with the centerline of the body. I measured and then drilled small pilot holes for the bridge studs and one tailpiece stud.

A solvent-based contact cement was applied to both the back of the veneer and the top of the T-bird - when this had dried for 30 minutes, the veneer was carefully pressed onto the guitar body, starting from the neck area and gradually working outwards from there. I used my hands and then a cold iron to press the veneer flush.

I then warmed up the iron - and using low heat - further worked the veneer to make sure there were no bubbles or loose spots. The veneer was then trimmed down carefully - the edges will be sanded later to get a nice smooth radius.

The other are of major work was the neck. When I last posted, I was still working on the headstock and had spliced in some small pieces of mahogany to fill some gaps here and there.

I cleaned out the truss rod channel - part of the maple inlay at fallen out - and I then further routed out the channel so that could glue in a longer piece of maple that would overlap the neck break.

The next step was to cut away part of the area where the fretboard would glue back on, near the nut, so that I could laminate in a thin sheet of wood that would also overlap both sides of the break - this will strengthen and stiffen this area, which is the thinnest part of the Thunderbird neck.

I set up a jig to hold the T-bird level so that I could use my small Dremel-style tool with a router attachment to cut away part of the neck. The picture below shows the rig right after the routing operation.

I then laminated on a 1/16th thick piece of mahogany.

The laminated sheet and the maple truss rod channel inlay that go across the neck break will really help to make this a solid joint. I used Titebond Polyurethane glue for all the bonding in this area - as its about the strongest and toughest non-epoxy glue around.

The gluing surface was then cleaned up with a sanding block and the splice was sanded level with the rest of the face of the neck.

I also tried to clean up the back of the fretboard which had glue and some splinter attached - but it also had one LARGE chunk of mahogany adhered to it, which I decided to leave in place since it fit tightly into the corresponding gap in the neck and I figured it would ensure the fretboard was properly aligned (more on this later).

I used regular Titebond wood glue for the fretboard - spreading a thin even layer on the rosewood - and then clamped everything together - using a radiused clamping block in the damaged area I mentioned above.

The neck was clamped with a slight backset or backbow built in - approximately 1/16th of an inch at the nut (that is, if you put a straight edge against the fretboard aligned with the highest frets on the neck, there would be a gap of 1/16th inch at the nut due to the neck bending backwards). I did this because of the thinness of the T-bird neck and the limited "authority" of the T-bird truss rod in correcting neck relief due to string tension. I also had the adjustment nut completely removed from the truss-rod during this stage.

Once the glue had dried for 48 hours, it was time to test out not only the strength of my headstock repair, but also to see how flat the fretboard was under tension. I knew that I might very well have to have the neck heated and pressed if it twisted or had excessive relief - but I was confident that was an option, since I had just had Jon Mouradian do exactly that to my own Kerry Green 1966 Thunderbird.

I mounted the tailpiece (unusually far forward for an NR T-bird!) and the bridge - and put a set of 70s T-bird tuners on the headstock plus a set of old strings. I gradually tightened up the strings until they were at pitch and then let the 'bird sit overnight.

The good news was that everything was solid - no cracks or movement of the headstock - but the bad news was that that fretboard had a hump in the area where it had cracked and part of the neck had stayed attached to fretboard. The neck had actually pulled almost perfectly straight, with the exception of the fretboard hump, once it was under tension - remember - at this point I didn't have the truss-rod tightened at all. After a few days - I did apply a little tension to the rod - put there is plenty of truss rod action left over in case the neck does start to get some relief over time.

I decided that the best option was to defret the neck and then plane out the hump - this would also allow me to make sure the fretboard would be level everywhere else - and probably not a bad idea on a neck rebuild of this magnitude anyway!

Since I WAS happy with the neck relief overall - and simply wanted to remove the hump - I securely clamped the strung up bass to a workbench - then shimmed the neck at several points to maintain the same neck relief once the strings (and frets) were removed.

The picture below shows the bass clamped down, frets removed and the fretboard after leveling with 12-inch radius block from Stewart-Macdonald. I had considered re-installing the original frets, but they are fairly worn and a few took a beating during the removal process. The fretboard is a beautiful piece of rosewood however !

(Update March 1st, 2009)
Its been a while since I did a progress report on the T-bird - and its actually now very close to completion.

At the time of the last post, I had planed the fretboard to remove a hump left after I glued the fretboard back onto the neck. It was fairly easy to refret the board, using the original frets. I had to do a little cosmetic bending of a few of them and then a little filing of the ends and an edge here and there, but they looked good once they were re-installed.

After some thought - I decided that I wanted to reinforce the headstock repair further - first by putting a splice across the break on the back of the headstock/neck junction - and then a splice from the string nut to a bit past the truss rod adjustment routing. With all the work that had gone into the bass, I didn't want to risk the headstock coming loose over time or from being bumped into a wall somewhere.

That completed the structural repairs - now came the time for the refinish.

As the pictures show, the new veneered mahogany top was much lighter than the rest of the bass. As an initial step, I lightly stained the mahogany using a Minwax cherry stain, with some medium brown dye added to further darken it.

Then came the grain filler for the top - which was applied liberally using a rag - with the excess then scraped off with thin plastic shim (actually an expired credit card!). Once the filler dried, the entire surface was sanded such the the filler was left only in the pores of the mahogany's grain. I used a dark brown, walnut colored oil-based filler.

Once the grain was filled the bass was ready for the initial coats of lacquer. To try to get the front of the body closer to the rest of the bass, I used a clear coat tinted with equal parts vintage amber and medium brown dye, with a little bit of cherry red added. For the rest of the body, I used a clear coat tinted with vintage amber and medium brown dye to a lesser degree, since I didn't want to darken the wood too much, but I did want to add a little warmth to the color.

The end result matched the front to the back quite well - once the tobacco burst was applied it would be difficult to tell that the front was a veneered surface.

I went a little heavier with the tint on the heavily repaired headstock, though I planned on eventually shading the back of the headstock in walnut to hide the repair as much as possible. In this view you can see the splice across the break on the back of the neck.

After a clear coat to seal in the bass color, the time came to apply the tobacco burst finish to the front of the body and to shade the headstock repair.

I used my smaller HVLP spray gun, since I wanted to have good control over the edging and to get a soft edge between the darker edge and the underlying color. I used a mix of 50% walnut and 50% medium brown dye in clear lacquer base, tinted quite heavily. For comparison, when I do a Fender 3-color burst, I use a straight walnut dye tinted clear, which results in a nearly black color. For the T-bird, I wanted an opaque color but with a definite brown tone as opposed to looking like a black edging.

The picture below is the tobacco burst applied and sealed in with a lightly ambered clear coat, with some of the hardware in place to give an idea of the final appearance.

This picture shows the heavy shading used to cover up the headstock rebuild.

The bass was given several more clear coats of nitro after this, and then the finish was allowed to cure for roughly a week before the entire bass was wet sanded, from 400 grit down to 2000 grit, followed by two grades of buffing compound and final rubout with swirl remover.

While the finish was curing, I also finished fabricating some parts, such as the rear control cover, the truss rod cover and the a brass shield for the control cavity. Tomorrow, I will do the final assembly and then post a number of pictures of the completed instrument.

My First International Job! 1966 Fender Jazz Bass, Dakota Red refinish

noreply@blogger.com (Krishna) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:47:00 +0000

Here is an interesting project, not just because its a vintage 60s Fender, but also because of the logistics involved - this Fender Jazz Bass body is from my first international client, all the way from the Holy Land - Israel !!!

The bass in question was originally a Dakota Red 1966 Fender Jazz Bass, which like many custom color instruments had its body modified, stripped and refinished - but not very well. Fortunately, the headstock and most of the original hardware remains.

This bass is owned by Lior Koren of Tel aviv (check out his myspace page here!) - who purchased his Jazz Bass in Israel and then was able to find a second mid-60s Jazz bass body, though this one had been stripped down to a natural finish during the granola-eating, earth-shoe wearing 1970s.

Lior and I talked a bit over Skype (a great FREE way to talk overseas) and decided that what made sense was to refinish the second body to an aged Dakota Red finish that would match the original weathered and darkened headstock.

After discussing the job, Lior decided to send me the body alone, since postage is not trivial between Israel and the US - and we worked out a scheme to coordinate the color of the refinished body with the original headstock.

I sprayed two test panels with Dakota Red lacquer - from ReRanch - and then aged one with an ambered out topcoat - making one end of the test panel slightly ambered and fading to a heavily aged and darkened finish. I figured if I cut the test panels in half - and mailed one set to Israel and kept one set, the owner and I would have common color references to work off of when deciding how "aged" to make the Dakota Red finish.

The panel on the right is straight Dakota Red with a clear gloss coat; the panel on the left has a progressively aged topcoat - a pretty dramatic difference in color!

Meanwhile, the bass body arrived from Israel and it showed a bit of wear and tear the usual bonehead touches - for example - the word "Precious" carved into the wood with a ballpoint pen apparently. Probably the same DOLT decided to outline the pickguard and control panel with the same ball point pen ... over and over and over ... leaving a nice groove in the wood. The body also had a thick uneven coat of some sort of shellac or lacquer. But no extra routes or big chips or any cracks - and fairly lightweight body too. Notice the remnants of the original sunburst finish under the control panel.

The first step was to remove the finish - which I tried sanding with an orbital sander but soon realized it was thicker than I thought and switched to chemical stripper, which took the finish right off. A benefit of the thick ugly clear coat was that it had protected the back of the bass quite well - and what I thought was unevenness in the wood turned out to simply be the uneven finish.

I decided to steam out a few edge dings on the body, which is described in this post on how to steam out dents. I also used a small amount of cellulose filler on some of the deepest gouges - the "P" in precious and a few spots on the back.

After a sanding of the filled areas, the body was ready for staining yellow (as would have been done for all Fender Jazz bass bodies in that era) and a coat of vinyl sealer.

The sealer coat went on very smoothly and just required a light wet sanding with 400 grit paper and the body was ready for priming, with flat white nitrocellulose primer (from Camger Products).

When the primer coat dried, it revealed a number of small chips and dings around the body - as well as the ballpoint pen damage on the front. I used red glazing putty to fill these areas - the majority of what I spread on would be sanded off later before the application of a second coat of primer - don't be alarmed by how large some of the areas are !! The red glazing putty that remains after wet sanding is minimal, but it does result in a nice defect free surface.

After some sanding and one more primer coat, this body will be ready for some COLOR !!

(Update 11/23/08)
Once the glazing putty was dry, the entire body was wet sanded. Note how only a small amount of the red scratch filler is left on the body, and how on the edges the white primer was sanded through.

A final primer coat was applied - and then the body was ready for a color coat.

The color coats are being applied with ReRanch spray cans in this case, as I don't have sufficient demand for Dakota Red paint jobs to justify having a gallon custom mixed for me.

The ReRanch cans are very high quality and apply the color quite evenly.

As you can see, I started by doing the edges of the body - to build up a slightly thicker finish there - and then moved onto the front and back - gradually building up the color.

Finally - the entire body had one coat on it - though it was not yet an even solid color (the finish is actually quite translucent until several coats are built up).

(Update November 28, 2008)
Another color was applied - then after some wet sanding, a few spots were touched up before the base color coat was sealed with a single clear coat. The bass was now a bright fire engine red - but as was explained at the beginning of this post, the goal was to match the original Dakota Red headstock, which had darkened considerably over the past 42 years.

Once the clear coat had dried, it was time to start applying an "aged" clear coat. As with the 1968 Telecaster and 1966 Jazzmaster this meant mixing a tinted clear coat to replicate the browning and ambering effect of time on clear nitro.

The tinting was done using Stewart-MacDonald "Vintage Amber" dye and a "Medium Brown" dye - roughly 3 drops of amber to one drop of medium brown. A fairly strong mix was used - such that spraying a single pass on newspaper gave it a very aged look. The nitro was thinned with acetone fairly thin so it would flow well and dry in a thin coat.

Since OVERDOING it was what I was worried about - I gradually built up the color with 3 thin coats - checking against the "aged" test panel (see above) until I had a much darker color on the Jazz bass.

Due to lighting differences, its tough to get an accurate read on the color of the Jazz bass with my digital camera - but the picture below shows a panel of Dakota Red with just a thin clear coat and no aging - sitting on the "aged" Dakota Red Jazz bass - you can see the color difference is actually pretty dramatic!

(Update Dec.1st)
The Jazz Bass body is on its way back to Lior - to be assembled with the other 66 Jazz bass parts and matching neck.

The final step was to wet sand the refinish with 600 grit wet and dry paper, then working down through 800, 1000 and 1500 grit, before buffing out with two different grits of compound. A final polishing with Scratch-X prepped the body for shipping.

Here are a few pics before I packed it up for shipping - some of the body by itself - and a few of it with hardware from my 66 Jazz Bass.

When Lior gets it all together, he promises to send me some more pics, which I'll post here.

(Update 1/10/09)
A final update on this project - the body was safely shipped back to Lior Koren in Israel - and he was able to quickly assemble the bass with the matching neck and original parts. He then departed on tour - to the US - three days later - with the bass!!

The pictures below show the body assembled with the hardware - including a nicely aged guard, bridge and pickups - and then a separate shot of the matching Dakota Red headstock - with the original finish, original decal and original oval-button Fender tuners.

The final picture is the one and only Lior with his resurrected 66 Jazz bass - ready to rock !! Note that the colors of the body and headstock seem to match pretty well - though the body appears a little shinier since it doesn't have 43 years of accumulated grime on it !!

Nothing a little aggressive and sweaty playing won't fix !!