1st gen G&L Tribute L-2500 RESTORATION!

Hello fellow TB'ers.
Been a talkbass member for years now, been active in an on/off way for a while, until (hopefully) now. My idea is to restore my super gigged, thrashed 1st gen G&L Tribute L-2500 5 string bass to former, stock, glory!

This bass was taken down about 5 years ago, with the wacky idea of re finishing it with a quilt maple veneer, new inlays, and other crazy hard things to do for my general lack of woodworking and luthiery skills. So the thing stayed apart, I formed a family, etc etc.

Now, I have some time on my hands, weather is getting nicer, and being realistic, I think I can restore this thing to an mostly stock state, apply a solid opaque finish, and solder the pickups. Seems like the way to go.

Disclaimer. Even though I stated that I have some time on my hands, I'm still pretty much busy...so updates will not be daily....weekly at best.

So I already started sanding the back. Obviously the 1mm thick poly is hell to sand off, so I'll maybe try some paint remover to speed up the process. Heat gun trick didn't work unfortunately.
Neck is still in process....will post soon.

 

That's strange

 

Ok...so my 3 yead old got super scared at my palm sander so sanding of the neck got paused. So far i sanded the pegface almost to bare wood. Still has some sort of uber hard sealer that takes a looot of elbow grease.

Gonna spray the neck in full tinted nitro, and match the pegface to the color of the body, still undecided on that.

 

Yeah so the body and neck are battered with dents and deep scratches (almost all the way down to wood) so i rather just tough it out and remove ALL the finish. If the grain looks good I might even leave it natural gloss color. Wish me luck with the tough finish

 

Ok so, just finishes sanding the neck to, I assume is fresh wood. Theres still a shadow of where the tuners go, maybe I'll sand off a little bit more, but it's mostly done.

I even plugged the string tree hole, which was small enough to fit a toothpick. And I'm not worried about that showing, because I'm painting the pegface either way. I will be installing a string bar, either hipshot or the genuine G&L one.

On to the body...

 

So...the body is turning out to be as hard as I expected it to be. So far I've managed almost half of the backnof the bass, and just literally scuffed the front. And this is with a 60 grit paper

I need to buy some supplies, like velcro backed paper, double stick tape, etc. I'll continue tomorrow if possible. Thanks for looking!

Ps. I think I know what the color is gonna be. I'll give you a clue: M.K.W.

 

You got that right! Mary Kay White. Grain is looking mighty fine for another trans finish.

FIRST QUESTION:
How can I make the grain POP a little bit more? Add a dye and sand off? Tinted filler? Leave it alone?

 

Wow that does look very nice! I 'wetted' the bare wood and it looks very nice, uniform color, ok grain pattern, not perfect, but good enough for a trans finish. I still have long ways to go before I get rid of the epoxy-like finish so...

Got a few supplies today! Some sanding pads, some needle files for the frets, and some dremel discs for finer sanding around tight areas.

Any G&L owners out there, I lost the string through ferrules. The g&l store does not carry them. Thanks

 

What is up with that?! Any Admins here that can help with the DM thing?

Can you email me please?

dhbomber@ gmail

I have the original pre, which I stupidly tried to modify and fried it....so I'm in need of one

 

Ok, so new sanding pads worked like a charm! Got the back completely bare. Smells gooooood! And looks so good. I'm having second thoughts about painting this thing. Miiight leave it natural (gloss nitro) i dunno

Front's getting there.

Ok, so far I only need to buy a jack and the string thru ferrules, which I lost. Can anybody tell me the specs of the ferrules? Are they specific to g&l? Also, I'm getting a new bridge, string bar or trees and would REALLY like a waterslide G&L decal...anybody with the plug?

Ps. Sides are gonna be HARD AF to sand down.

 

Look what I found! I remembered I had this thing from a small project from last year. Tinted nitro will go on as soon as the weather clears. Already finished sanding the neck, masked the board and pegface.
So game plan is to tint the neck to where I find it to be nice and golden. Then let it cure a little, like a few days, spray the pegface, apply the waterslide logo (if applicable), wait a bit, and spray the clear coat.

Any tips on spraying the neck correctly? Are my steps ok?

I'm planning a trip to the Rockler store here in SD, pick up some dowels I need for plugging the strap button and bridge holes; I'll see if they have nitro in a can, so I don't have to order some from stewmac.

 

While waiting on supplies from Stewmac to get here, and ReRanch to open it's store, I'm here not finishing the final sanding of the body... but I did manage to draw what will be the pickguard!

It's a combination of a jazz bass and those found on various L-2500's I found online. I have some modifications I wanna try out before I settle on a final tracing, but IMO it looks cool. Ordered mysef some aged pearloid PG material. I'll cut that, and then look for a good tortoise shell material source. If any of you know were I can get the good stuff (nitro tort material) hit me up!

 

Right, so got a few things in the mail this week, and got the ball rolling again.

I finally stripped the whole body, which was a real pain in the cutaways as I expected. Struggled with a pesky sealer that really took some elbow grease to eliminate. Got the naphta in which made cleaning up easier.

As for the neck, once masked, I went ahead and tinted it, until I got this nice golden finish. I followed the tint with a couple of light nitro coats. I'm letting that dry. Headstock finish will be next.

I got a really cool metallic silver headstock decal over at etsy. So yeah, just gonna rock the G&L logo on there.

Ok, so after I stripped the poly finish from hell, I sanded the body from 220, 250 (just for kicks) and 320...then I grain filled. Once dried, I sanded with 320 until smoOoOoth. Cleaned the body with naphta, let dry completely and then shoot it with sanding sealer. Had an 'oops' moment and left a couple of fingerprint on the first coat...so I let the thing dry for a couple of hours and sanded them out. Easy. So far. I'll spray the second coat of Sanding sealer tomorrow.