Stripping a MIM Jazz's finish

[jordie65]

hey guys been contemplating stripping my bass down to the wood and getting a "natural" look. i dont have alot of woodworking experience so i'm just wondering if anyone here has done it to their jazz and how they went about it. Also if anyone has done it to a mexi bass..im a little nervous as to what the paint is hiding under there! any opinions on whether this will look like dogmeat also appreciated!
thanks in advance

[joeyl]

that mim body is probably alder if it is a later model, some were also poplar at one point. I find both woods to be very uninteresting in natural, especially if you try to oil them instead of a hard finish. Alder will turn a dull brown that is just horrible looking imo. So I would say: nay to stripping and going natural. Also the catalyzed lacquers on these instruments are very hard to remove, heat gun or very coarse sandpaper are pretty much your only choices

[62bass]

Joeyl is right. Stripping those finishes can't be done with ordinary paint strippers. Sandpaper or a heat gun will do it but are a lot of hard work. You're unlikely to find the wood underneath to be very good for a natural finish, like ash or mahogany. And the pieces probably won't match up very well. But if you've got a few days to waste, give it a shot. If the wood looks terrible, paint it again to cover it up.

[4Mal]

NAPA autoparts sells a stripper known as 'Aircraft' strip. Actually they house branded it as their part number 6802. It's about $20 a quart. This is what the guys at www.tdpri.com use it seems.

I've seen a couple of stripped MIM's. Varying results. You may find a 4 pc lam body, you might find a 2 with a resonably decent match. It's impossible to tell without actually doing the strip. Most of the folks at the tdpri are looking to refin in solid colors. Surf Green, Daphne Blue, Shell pink and Olympic White with Yellowing fade seem to be the hot choices... See Re-Ranch for more finishing products.

If you really want a natural body - you'd be better off taking the hi priced approach and using www.usacustomguitars.com They do fantastic work and are competitive with other folks doing bodies. Good folks up there in Tacoma! A replacement in Ash is $195 - way reasonable for the quality. You'll find some fairly well known builders using their parts.

A little cheaper but not anywhere near the same league in terms of wood are AllParts, Mity Mite, Stew Mac, etc ...

Get a lightweight Ash, do minimum prep and a wipe on poly and you can see some nice results. Sell off the MIM bod to recover a few bucks...

[joeyl]

ash is great, I bought a swamp ash body with interesting grain pattern for 200 shipped from Warmoth

out of the box



here it is in the grain filling stage, ash has a lot of deep grain and pin holes, and needs to be filled with something if you want a smooth final look.

[jordie65]

that body looks fantastic joeyl, buying the new body seems a better idea and alot less risky, the only problem i have is its a lefty MIM. how hard is it to put on the bridge, pickups and do all the wiring? thanks again

[joeyl]

thanks.

I believe Warmoth sells leftys for no extra charge on their standard bodies. Assembling a Fender style bass is not hard, the only thing you may run into is that the neck screw holes may not line up with the body, that's a quick fix, plenty of posts about this in this forum

[CrimsonGhost]

stripping a mim is easy, once you get a chunk of paint off, you can take a knife or scraper and peel the paint off like a hardboiled egg. the paint is super think and comes off in pretty big pieces.