Taking the plunge

[tZer]

Right, wrong, good, bad... irrelevant.

I am gutting, stripping, and re-assembling an Electra MCP X610 Outlaw "X" bass. that had been abused more than any instrument should ever be abused - It was literally screwed to the wall in an amp testing booth at SLM Electronic (Makers of Crate and Ampeg Amps). I just want to turn it into a functional, passive, four-banger I can toss a set of flats on and actually use. Currently the thing is dead as a doornail. The "gimmick" of having plug-in sound modules has no value to me at all.

The bass is apparently one solid hunk of wood - not a set or glued neck - not neck-thru - on, continuous hunk up wook.

Currently, I have taken the Electra apart - removed it's guts, tuning machines, bridge - basically reduced it to a chunk of badly finished wood. It is now in the garage allowing chemical stripper to sink in and do it's thing.

I am going to take as much of the finish off of this thing as I can - hopefully get it down to bare wood where I can re-finish it somehow. Not exactly sure how yet, but I am sort of making this up as I go.

Ultimately, when I reassemble this thing, I hope to wire it to use just the p-style, passive p'ups. I may consider yanking the frets too - but I think I am going to start by just getting it to work as a passive, p-style bass. If it plays reasonably well at that point, I may just go with it that way. I figure I can always yank the frets later. Seems like it would be more challenging to put 'em back if for some reason that didn't work out as planned.

I am uploading pics of this experiment to this Photo Album if you are at all interested in seeing how this goes.

Any and all feedback, comments, suggestions are welcome!

[Manual_Combat]

whoa! man! that's an insane bass!
before you started work on that thing how did it sound??
personally i wouldn't have done work on it just because of how cool it looks- all vintage and what not.
good luck with it- i hope it looks beter when you're done. do you plan to fill the hole before you refinish/ color it?

[Musiclogic]

I remember that bass, always looked funny to me. Looks like you are doing a great job so far. This is a great way for you to get your feet wet.

Keep up the good work.

[tZer]

How did it sound? Well, if I dropped it, it would make a nice "klunk" - but otherwise, it was quite silent. This instrument utilizes sound modules to provide built-in effects, like phase, overdrive, etc... I don't have any nor am I interested in seeking them out.

This thing was given to me by a friend who was going to toss it out. So I figured it would not be too difficult to convert it from this weird-science, space-age thing to a simple, passive instrument. I would also be an great way to experiment with instrument modification and maintenance.

As for it's looks - well, this thing looked like it had been drug behind a car down a gravel road when I got my hands on it. It was quite literally screwed to a board for a while so it could be easily "strummed" when a tester rolled an amp into the booth. They would apparently roll the amp in, plug this pass in and whach the strings a few times to make sure a signal was being produced. So they moundet it to a board in the testing booth with screws through the back.

All of the knobs were gone and the volume knob (I think it was the volume knob anyway) had it's post completely broken off. And there are a number of other cosmetic issues that really took this thing from being a "possible retore candidate" to a "frankenbass project".

My next step, after painting, is to get the pickups wired. There are 2 sets - 1 Precision style and 1 (what look like) Tele style. I have never done anything like this before and what I think I want to do is give each pickup it's own volume and to have them share a tone knob. I am currently searching for instructions on how to do this. If anyone has any "how-to" info regarding pickup wiring (passive), please feel free to share! I just bought myself a brand-new soldering iron, so I am ready to roll! LOL

[tZer]

Musiclogic - thanks! It's interesting and there is nothing like 'hands-on' on an instrument that you are not too concerned about to really get into it.

If I can get it to actually make noise, I may consider yanking the frets - but first things first - gotta make noise.

[tZer]

BTW - a few times I stated that the bass looked like "one solid chuck of wood" - of course, after removing the finish the ridiculous-ness of that idea became pretty apparent! LOL

Yes, this instrument is indeed neck-thru. OK, OK my newbishness is showing here.

YOUR ADVICE, PLEASE
This bass has 2 types of pickups: one that looks similar to a tele-style (http://picasaweb.google.com/Tony.Zer...08164675180402)
and the other being a precision-style (http://picasaweb.google.com/Tony.Zer...08147495311202)

I am hoping that wiring these will not be too challenging. I am a complete beginner when it comes to this sort of thing, but I can follow directions and I believe I can handle a soldering iron.

I think I should be able to wire these following a typical jazz bass pattern - 2 volume, 1 tone - passive. Is there any reason I would NOT be able to follow that wiring method with these pickups? (http://www.seymourduncan.com/support...jazz_bass.html)

I also have a lot of pots and switches that were a part of the original setup. (http://picasaweb.google.com/Tony.Zer...08237689624482) - These look to be pretty normal tone/volume pots and the switches are 2-way, toggle-type switches. I also have a 5 or 6 position dial-type switch.

I know that is not a lot of technical info, but if you have any creative thoughts on using what I have here in some interesting wiring scenario, please share! Again, I don't know much about this sort of thing at all, but if you can see a really great use for all this stuff when I re-assemble and re-wire thing beast, let me know!

Thanks!

[tZer]

One more question - and I think I know the answer...

I think I got a little eager after finally getting the finish removed. I didn't sand it repeatedly with lighter, and lighter grade paper and just went straight to painting. Looking at the pics, I can see clearly see it will either take an insane amount of coats, steel-wooling, more coats, more steel-wool to possibly get the finish smooth.

MY QUESTION - since I have already sprayed on a couple of coats, is it too late to correct my impatient mistake?

It seems that I should just be able to sand it even though it has paint on it - I figure it is no different than when I was taking down the original finish.

Ok... I think I know the answer - sand it, dude... sand it...

BUT if anyone has any other thoughts - like going nuts with coat after coat of paint, let me know.

Thanks again.

[ehque]

i would sand it. a thick coat might give problems later on.

[Musiclogic]

Sand it out. with 320, and get an idea of how many coats you would need to make it smooth. If the sanding marks are very fine, you could dot extra coats and sand back until smooth, if not, you may need to strip it back to wood, sand it out to 320, and start your finish over.

[tZer]

I am going to strip it back to wood. I am notorious for getting impatient and that is exactly what happened this time.

I have already put a coupld of coats on it and when I started sanding yesterday, the paint was getting really tacky/gummy, so I need to get it off completely and start over.

QUESTION: Because the paint is fairly "fresh" and tend to go tacky when sanding - what method should I use to strip it back to wood? I have some stripper that I started to use on the original finish. I ended up sanding off the original, but I think the fact that it was very dry lended itself to sanding.

So in a nutshell - should I sand or should I strip?

ANOTHER QUESTION: This may be a longshot - this instrument is neck-thru - I am not a huge fan of it's style (the "X" thing) - would it be insane to cut off the wings and create my own? Since I am starting over, I think now is the time to consider such a move.