60's Teisco Top Repair

[ColonelZulu]

Managed to find a bass just about the same as the one I started on about 35 years ago.

Hollow body from the 60s. Teisco/Kay, although mine was a Bruno Conqueror. Same bass except for the color, pick guard, and some tortoise shell bling.

I've been looking for one for a while. Almost had one some years back but it didn't pan out. So I was excited to find this bass.

When the bass arrived, however, it had some problems. Bad tuner, cracked binding, electronics not working.

Worst of all, the top is warped. Not horrible, but certainly noticible and it messes up the action.

I dropped it off at a local place that specializes in arch tops. They are going to try some stuff and get back to me. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[ColonelZulu]

 

[ColonelZulu]

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Cool. I almost bought the guitar version last year. The pawn shop just wanted too much money and didn't seem to want to deal.

 

[micguy]

Are those tort..things original?

 

[ColonelZulu]

Are those tort..things original?

No reason to doubt it.

 

[ColonelZulu]

I'm going to try to get some video of the bass now.

The guys at American Archtop opted to just add a bracing block to stabilize the body and recontour the bridge base. Smart move I guess with old wood. I could have taken a while to warp it back and probably would have cracked something.

I had to take it for the wiring too. Had wires disconnected and I had no time to fix that. In the end, the dudes at Guitar Villa bypassed that three way toggle and wired it like a Jazz Bass (VVT).

Cleaned the crap out of it when I got it home. ~50 years of nastiness all over it. Simple Green and some orange oil for the board.

I changed out the old sealed tuners. They were slipping and just a mess. Schalers and a Gotoh on the E with a hip shot D-tuner. All gold.

After that, I put some DAddario Chromes on it. At first I tried short scale. But the threads came over the nut. Sheesh. We measured! But, from the bridge...not the tailpiece (moron). Mediums worked fine. I had to open up the hole in the tailpiece to fit the E string ball end thread through.

It rocks. A bit of neck dive...but very light.

Next thoughts.

Probably getting an adjustable bridge like a Gretch. Looking at measurements for stud width. May have to get a new base for it too, and then re-shape to fit the top.
Also might get a gold tailpiece to match.

A little reglue of a bit of lose binding is needed too.

I maaaaaay eventually put different pickups like Gretch Thunderblade or something. If I do, I will make something out of that useless switch. Maybe wire it as a kill switch.

$250 for the bass. About $140 in repairs. I had the tuners sitting around, I think I spent $75 on those. And two sets of strings because we're idiots.

 

[ColonelZulu]