my finish cracked like a windshield!

[essay]

my bass has a translucent finish. I put my bass in a hot trunk of a car and drove 4 hours through the desert a few times. it was a mid engine car to boot and the bass was pretty much on top of the engine. yes I'ma dousche. so the finish cracked in a few places and a lot on the back and chipped off a chunk the size of a tv remote. should I:
1. keep peeling off the rest of the finish and play it raw
2. do something to repair it (how)?
3. just leave it alone, i've done enough already

any advice?
thanks,
essay

[Trevorus]

Pics, and how much is the bass worth? It might be able to be repaired or refinished.

[essay]

1200 -1400, it's a 2006 musicman stingray 30th anniversary edition. my guess is it would have to be broken down and refinished. but is there any harm in removing the finish and leaving the translucent paint?

[Steveaux]

No pics ... No "Bonehead of the Year" candidate.

[TonyRockyHorror]

Contact AJ from EBMM ( I think it's just aj@ernieball.com - I will double check when I get home tonight, but he's a greata guy) You can either send in the body and have them refinish it, or just buy a brand new body.

But like I said, the nicest guy to deal with. He helped me when I preamp crapped out. I sent it to him and he said, "Well, we don't have one of the '90-'2000 preamps on hand. Looks like we'll have to make you a new one."

And 7 days later I had a brand new preamp and jack from San Luis Obispo. Just awesome.

[essay]

You're awesome, thanks! that's exactly what i needed!

[Pilgrim]

You need to have it refinished. You can do it yourself if you're careful - there's lots of information at Reranch.com and in Dan Erlewine's books, and much info here at TB.

Doing it yourself is a fair amount of work, and you must be extremely methodical to do a refin as good as the factory original. Having the factory do it won't be cheap.

That was an expensive way to mistreat an instrument.