Cheap Import Refurb (picture heavy)

[LowEddie]

A couple of years ago I started building a guitar from the ground up. I ended up putting that project on hold and never finished it. I stopped with a shaped body with all the cavities routed out. I ended up selling it on craigslist to fund another bass.

I never got rid of the itch to build something so I recently started looking for a Squire or other CHEAP bass to do a refurb on. I figured that I could pick something up cheap and learn a lot on it. Worst case I'd be out the materials and time... but in my case I have more time than money.

I'll get the pictures caught up to where I am now so stick with me.

About a month ago I found this bass on craigslist for $30. I don't know how many owners its been through but it looked to have been repainted 3 times. It was pretty dirty; in made me want to wash my hands after handling it. I tried looking into when it was build, model, etc. with no luck. I went through archived Cimar catalogs on Ibanez's website and couldn't find anything concrete.









From there I promptly disassembled it. I found that the neck pocket wasn't tight, the tuner pegs didn't fit in the bushings, the electronics were a total mess (I doubt they worked, the jazz pup only had one wire coming from it), and the bridge pup routing was sloppy to say the least (I can't tell if it started life as a P/J or if they added a J pup to it).











So my plan is as follows:
Strip all the finishes and re-finish (painted (black) body/wipe on poly neck to keep it simple)
All new hardware (cheap import stuff)
New pups (already bought Dimarzio 126 P/Js)
New wiring/pots (going V/V/T, 500K Audio pots for volume and 500K linear pot for tone, .047mfd capacitor)
New pickguard (.090" B/W/B)

I'll continue to update the pics up to the present and for future progress

[JMac4strngr]

Looks very similar to the old Ibanez Roadstar bass. A friend of mine in high school had one, and I can't remember what it sounded like.... His amp was pretty crappy so what I heard back then couldn't have been good..... Should be a fun build though.

[LowEddie]

After taking it all apart I tackled stripping the paint off of the body. I used CitriStrip Gel. It worked well except for of the red paint (which I believe is the original color). It was nice being able to do it in the garage.

I sanded the red paint off down to the sealer. That's when it hit that the body is mdf or something like that. I was a little upset about that but decided to continue with the project.

This is what it looked like after 3 coats of Citristrip, sanding, and scraping the cavities with a chisel.

[MrTAteMyBalls]

hey it might still sound good. i got a no name pawn shop strat at a flea market for 50 bucks a few years ago. I replaced the tuners, had the frets leveled, and put in aftermarket pickups/electronics. when routing for the new pots i noticed that it had a pressboard body, which was disappointing. but i gotta tell ya....it ended up sounding/playing great with a set of GHS 10's on it. my total investment was about 200 bucks, and a year ago i was able to trade it w/a decent pracitce amp for a beat up 1967 set of ludwig drums. Mah/birch/mah shells. nice!

[pbd]

very cool, I like documentaries like this, please keep us posted

Todd

[stflbn]

Gotta love the wiring in the original photo's. "Stylish"

[LowEddie]

When I was taking it apart most of the screws on the body had been stripped out. To fix this I drilled out all of the holes on the body (pickguard screw, bridge screws, and strap button screws) and glued in a mix of 1/8" and 3/16" dowels.

At the same time I wanted to fix the sloppy bridge pup routing. I've been following bassgod76's "Explosive Ibanez" build in the Luthier's forum where he filled the ends of J bridge route with an epoxy resin and re-routed it for an EMG 35 pup. I stole his idea but I completely filled the route rather than building "dams." I used Marine Tech Epoxy Putty. I read into it, did some quick math, and bought the gray kit. Well, 1) the "gray" is almost black, and 2) one kit wasn't enough so I went and bought another "white" kit.

This is what it looked like after the dowels and the "gray" epoxy





After doing this I started stripping the finish off of the neck



I let the glue set up overnight and then cut the dowels flush. I created some work here for myself because I did a sloppy job and now need to fill the scratches that the saw left

[LowEddie]

I gave the gray epoxy plenty of time to set up and then added the white epoxy to it. I also filled the hole that was in the P pup route.







I let the epoxy set up for about 5 days. I used the router to mill it down to about 1/32" and then sanded it with a block to get it level with the body. I was nervous that it wouldn't mill well but it did. The router cut through it very quick.

I also ran the router through the big cavity to clean up the paint in there a little more. I freehanded it so you can see where I stopped before I touched the wall.

[rebelscum]

Subbed. I'm following your lead on that Citri Strip paint remover.
Did you ever use the after strip wash stuff on this or any other project?

[LowEddie]

Originally Posted by rebelscum

Subbed. I'm following your lead on that Citri Strip paint remover.
Did you ever use the after strip wash stuff on this or any other project?

After strip wash stuff? No, I didn't. Now, it worked well on the paint that was added to the body but it didn't work on the original red layer nor the finish on the neck.

[LowEddie]

I thought that I had some more picture from what I've been doing but I couldn't find them so the pictures are up to date.

Last night I worked on making a template for the jazz pup route.



Also Brown Santa brought me all the hardware/etc. from Allparts.

[LowEddie]

Sorry about the lack of updates. I got frustrated building the template for the bridge pup route. I used MDF which makes an absolute mess. Its not like normal saw dust. Anyways I spent a bunch of time making the template just to have measured wrong. So I wasted a ton of time and made a huge MDF explosion in my garage.

Anyways I spent about 5 minutes ordering the template from StewMac; which is what I should have done in the first place. It came in last Thursday and I got a chance to work on it on Saturday.



The pup almost fits. I have a 1/2" pattern bit that doesn't route the corners tight enough. So I have to either come up with a hack solution to tighten up those corners or buy a 3/8" pattern bit.

So during the wait for the template I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with the neck. The frets were worn and I wanted to strip the finish on the fretboard but I don't have the tools to refret it and I didn't want to spend the money on them.

So I decided to go fretless. The plan is to use System3 Mirror Coat epoxy for the fretboard and then do a wipe-on poly in satin for the rest of the neck.

The first thing that I needed was a set of fret pullers. I was going to order some but that'd push it our another week so I went to Sear and bought a set of end nippers and then "modified" them with my angle grinder. I just grinded the tip down so there was no longer a bevel. They worked just fine but I don't know what kind of longevity you'd get out of them as the edges were already deforming as I finished. You might get 2 necks out of them.





After I got the frets pulled I finished sanding the entire neck.



I had picked up some black died veneer at Woodcraft and it fit the fret slots perfectly. I cut them into smaller pieces and glued them in.



Thats where I'm at now. I'm hoping to get the pup routing finished up and start painting this week and get to the neck shortly thereafter.

[JMac4strngr]

Looking good, Doing a great job.....

[Pilgrim]

Nice work, and I've been there too!

Nothing like putting $1000 worth of time into a $50 bass....it's a real learning experience.

[bassgod76]

Love the work. Refurbing crap basses is always a fun time.

[pbd]

this is really fun to follow along, looks like you are doing it all the right way too, keep up the good work

Todd

[LowEddie]

Updates. Once again sorry for the lack there of. Since my last post a bunch of things have changed. I'm no longer out in the field with ample time to play on the internet; so I haven't had enough time to put together an update. Also I went from being in no bands to 2, one of which practices on Saturdays. And, its wheeling season. So to say the least my project has dropped on the priority list.

Starting yesterday I started shooting primer on the body. I'm using Dupli-Color primer/filler. Shot three coats in total (first was extremely light) with sanding after coats 2 and 3.







After wiping it down I started shooting color on it today. I was going to shoot the third coat now but I noticed that it had picked up some cat hair... So I guess I'll lightly sand it after picking the hairs out.

The color is Autumn Maple Metallic





As for the neck; I cut down the pieces of veneer and sanded the neck to 220. Its ready to get the Epoxy and lacquer. I have some pictures but apparently my computer doesn't like my memory card right now.

[Pilgrim]

It's looking great! Don't miss painting that little spot on back of the neck pocket where the wire blocks the spray.

I'm impressed with the quality of your work!

[BassIsFun17]

wow that looks great. id like to try to find me a bass like that. i really dig the look of it...minus the dirt and stickers lol

[LowEddie]

ok, once again sorry for the lack of updater (noticing a trend...)

I finished the color coats and have about 9, IIRC, coats of Deft clear on it. I had a little bit of orange peel that I sanded out last night. As it sits now it's flat and sanded to 800 grit and ready to get another coat of clear. I plan to multitask shooting the clear and welding a shock mount back to my Jeep tonight. We'll see how that goes.

I haven't touched the neck yet. Or even bought the supplies to do it but I'll hopefully have that done shortly.