Looks like a perfect work. The wood of the neck looks great. I like the Musicmaster Bass necks with 7.5" radius.
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197X Fender Musicmaster "restoration"
- Thread starter GroovyBaby
- Start date
Time for an update! I put this bass in a case and on a shelf because I had other workshop stuff to do and you know what they say, "out of sight, out of mind." Well, over holiday break I finally got it all together and to my great surprise, it sounds great! The 30" scale with the Aero SC has some serious attitude. It can get nasty if you want it! I'm also surprised how well it plays with very little set up. Don't get me wrong, I need to spend some more time on the set up. The nut needs to be sanded down to lower the strings and the intonation isn't great but the damn thing is very playable and fun. My biggest worry was the fret job as this was my first refret and given the issues I had with getting them seated, I wasn't sure how it would play. Turns out the fret job went great and there is no buzzing, no high frets, and I think I'll be able to get nice action once I address the nut. Intonation, with those bridge saddles, will be another issue. I brought it to practice (blues band project) and my friend/band mate loved it. He said I might not be allowed to bring another bass to this project. Ha!
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That's some awesome work to make it playable again. Hopefully that crack will not be an issue. Cool that you like the "mojo" in that finish, it does give it a unique look.
I still remember first laying eyes on my '78 Musicmaster and the paint look just like that, but the guard was also broke and all metal had a layer of rust on it. I was jazzed to do it because it was the first I'd ever heard of or seen a SS.
Now play it and enjoy it!
Question for you then: Did you modify the original bridge at all? If not, how is your intonation?That's some awesome work to make it playable again. Hopefully that crack will not be an issue. Cool that you like the "mojo" in that finish, it does give it a unique look.
I still remember first laying eyes on my '78 Musicmaster and the paint look just like that, but the guard was also broke and all metal had a layer of rust on it. I was jazzed to do it because it was the first I'd ever heard of or seen a SS.
Now play it and enjoy it!
At first I was able to clean up the original hardware and got it all working, but the bridge was not always reliable and needed tweaking. When my son repainted it in high school I found the Squier version MM bridge and installed that instead, and it's worked great, solid as a rock.
I ended up having to change out the tuners as well. But I played that neck up until last winter when I changed it out for a thinner Bronco one in deference to the old arthritic hands getting sore.
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I was under the impression that the Squire bridge was not a direct replacement. Did you have to drill new mounting holes? Is the string spacing the same?
The string spacing is the same. As far as the bridge goes, I think the mounting holes for the bridge lined up but needed to drill the 4 holes for the string through body function. So I guess that would make it "not" a direct drop in. It's been about 10 years so taxing an old man's memory.
But as I said, this thing was in dreadful condition when I got it so customizations on the Fender MM like installing the Squier bridge and drilling holes was no problem. Not concerned about keeping it historically accurate or preserving any value in a bass I got for free. It's my "take it to my grave" bass.
