$25 DBZ Bass Overhaul

[JiJ]

Bought this bass for £20 ($25) from a friends music shop.

We bought it with no idea at all about the instrument at all. No idea of the condition or even colour of the bass underneath. It doesn't even have strings and missing a tuning key so we don't even know how it'll sound. The guy got it from a comic book store (Hence the Dragon Ball Z stickers) but as an uneconomical repair just wanted rid.

The final plan is aged Shell Pink Nitro finish, hopefully with classic P Bass sound.

Interestingly the model name is a Tanglewood Nevada FPB (assuming this stands for Fender Precision Bass, loving the creativity!)

 

[JiJ]

Started taking it apart, found out its black underneath!

With the stickers off it's not in bad shape just a few minor dents in the poly.

Pretty good deal so far at £20 for an experiment and practice.

 

[JiJ]

Next step is to throw an orbital sander at it.

Turns out that under the thick poly and unnecessary grainfill we've got a 4 piece basswood body!

(Orbital sanding poly takes forever, we even ended up getting a new and better sander halfway through to make the job slightly easier)

Nearly finished just with the sides to go.

Sides and contouring done by hand to avoid orbital sander slips. (From experience this NEVER ends well)

Poly's all gone so up next is to prep it for finishing and to get the first coat of nitro on!

 

[Beej]

Next step is to throw an orbital sander at it.
Poly's all gone so up next is to prep it for finishing and to get the first coat of nitro on!

Shoot, too bad it wasn't posted up here earlier, because your next step actually would have been to fill any divots, scuff sand the body, and then start painting. Now that you've removed all of the previous body finish, you've put in a lot of extra work that did not need to occur for a solid colour finish, and still have a lot of extra to go to get that thing paint ready.

I don't mean to be picky, just chiming in so another future reader can follow that advice and save themselves the trouble.

All that said, looks like a really fun project! We demand to see more!

 

[JiJ]

Shoot, too bad it wasn't posted up here earlier, because your next step actually would have been to fill any divots, scuff sand the body, and then start painting. Now that you've removed all of the previous body finish, you've put in a lot of extra work that did not need to occur for a solid colour finish, and still have a lot of extra to go to get that thing paint ready.

Yeah, I completely agree but this is about practising refinishing as it's our first attempt at nitro. I also didn't want it to wear through to the black grain fill as it really didn't look great and a lot of it just came up with the paint as it was rather thin in places.

We raised the grain with naptha and sanded it down with 400 several times to get out any scratches and any dents that went through to the wood. I also want as thin of a finish as possible for all that mystical resonance people talk about!! I've only just started but here is a few photos from today of the naptha on the wood after sanding it smooth. The camera makes it look awful as it's just a phone.

When we bought it we didn't even know what the body was made from so I wanted to take it down to explore that. This is going to be a long time player hopefully so I want it to wear nice and the wood is beautiful considering its just cheap basswood so i'd love to be able to show it off eventually

 

[JiJ]

Got our stain coat on so it's got something nicer to wear down to. We're aiming for quite a thin finish with the grain showing through (Like you can see on some vintage fenders) and we want it to wear down to our base layer of vintage amber.

We got all our paint from northwest guitars. Based here in the UK but they ship worldwide and their nitro is amazing from what we've tried so far! The guys are great if you email them with any questions about their paint and really know what they're talking about!
We used a touch-up pot of vintage amber for the bottom coat, ( Touch-up Pot 50ml - Vintage Amber Nitrocellulose Chip Repair Guitar Paint ). We thinned down at least 50:50 (in the end probably a lot further) with cellulose thinners and applied it with a small brush. The pot goes a really long way with plenty to do our base coat and a layer over the colour coat later on.
It looks a lot less orange in real life.

 

[JiJ]

Just a quick post to avoid any blame on our part for the poopy finish! We're in the UK where temperatures are lucky to reach 15C (59F) and humidity is rarely below 60%! We're in rented student accommodation so can't set up a booth and are just spraying in the open in our garden when the weather seems alright! Check out our set-up below

 

[JiJ]

Here it is with the primer on. Again using paint from northwest guitars.
We used one of their white primer rattle-cans, Nitrocellulose Guitar Paint / White Primer Aerosol 400ml
It was just enough to cover the bass and headstock with a thin finish. If you wanted to go for a thicker finish you'd definitely need a couple of cans. The cans themselves though are great to spray with and the paint goes on really nice (you've just got to adjust the nozzle right and it does need a little breaking in before the nozzle sprays right). As this nitro is self levelling it's so damn easy and all the runs from our awful spraying just flattened right out.

We managed to get the grain showing through just how I wanted it. I you wanted better coverage i'd recommend some grain-fill or something first and more coats of primer but that wasnt what we we're aiming for. This is after three coats, the first was very thick but the second two were much thinner.

 

[JiJ]

Colour Coats are on! It looks awesome! I'm really happy with how the grains showing through.

And here it is mocked up with the pickguard.

Just waiting on a nice week now to get the clear gloss nitro coats on.

 

[reverendrally]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Why do you want the grain showing through the paint? Seems like a bad paint job to me.

 

[Five String]

Looks cool. Can't go too far wrong for $25. How's the neck?

 

[Ronbeast]

I like it. It looks almost exactly like the finish on my Gibson sgj.

 

[JiJ]

Looks cool. Can't go too far wrong for $25. How's the neck?

I still haven't even played it so I actually have no idea, but it does feel like a C shaped P bass. It's got some beautiful birds eye and flame in the maple to it!