Looking forward to seeing this one come home. Maybe Sonny will bring it over and we'll take some pictures of it and my JohnK_10-restored '66 P together. 
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Another johnK_10 P-Bass project!
- Thread starter sd5
- Start date
Another awesome Johnk10 thread! Very nice. When I have money later this year, he's going to get my 1960 Fender P for a bit of resto work.
It's so cool to see works in progress. That little bit of time builders take to stop and take pictures if fantastic. If I ever have one built or restored I'd definitely want to go to someone who did that.
Looking forward to seeing this one come home. Maybe Sonny will bring it over and we'll take some pictures of it and my JohnK_10-restored '66 P together.
Count on it!
yep. 12oz of paint was a bit excessive!. the hard ash body is heavy enough as it is without adding 3/4lb worth of sealer and paint to it.
Is that common to use that much sealer and paint?
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,638
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
nope, not common at all. hard ash can be difficult to keep level since it has hard and soft areas in the grain, especially in the contours, but if a hard block is used while final sanding, and then sanded after each coat of sealer is applied (the soft areas absorb more paint), you can acheive a smooth, high gloss finish with no grain relief that weighs 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 oz with sealer, color and clear coats on a bass body.
that body has quite a nice grain for being painted a solid color. 10 years ago I would have screamed for clear, but I have moved to solid colors these days 
Those tuners are sexy.. Especially the tarnished ones. Where can you find brass hardware like that?
Very cool so far. My '66 Jazz is on it's way to johnk as we speak
I just got my MIM P-Bass back from JohnK and it's now the best P-Bass I've ever had in my hands. I can only imagine what your '66 jazz is going to be like once he's done.
In the 70's and 80's lots of brass hardware came from APM (American Precision metalworks). That hardware was used and sold by Mighty Mite, Fender, Schecter, Charvel. They also made the Kahler tremolos and I think also the Badass/Badass II bridges. ABM-Mueller (another german manufacturer) was another one who did brass hardware. The tuners for the P-Bass Special were made by Schaller who produced the hardware (especially the tuners) for almost anybody then. The tuners were normally not brass but special ordered by Fender for this model only. I think Fender changed the hardware to regular gold plated hardware in 1981/82.
- Feb 16, 2008
- 21,240
- 23,638
- Disclosures
- John K Custom Basses
that body has quite a nice grain for being painted a solid color. 10 years ago I would have screamed for clear, but I have moved to solid colors these days
you can't really see it in the pics, but there are a few ugly areas (knots and dark greenish discolorations) that explains why they shot it a solid color in the first place, besides being made of 3 pieces that aren't very well matched.
I've always played jazz basses but had been wanting a P-bass for a little bit so I went and checked a bunch of the Fenders out. I didn't notice much of a difference between them all except for setup issues, I liked the feel of the MIMs as much as the MIAs but did not like the Squiers as much as either. So I found an MIM on the cheap (real cheap) and sent it to John. It was ayight when I picked it up but not nearly as nice as the MIAs so I was just curious to see what he could do with it.
He did the following:
- Adjusted the neck (it was front bowed)
- Mil/Leveled/Recrowned/Polished the frets (they were very uneven)
- Re-Oil sealed the fingerboard
- removed corrosion from bridge saddles and screws (my hands don't sweat so I hate when I get used basses and there's rust on the screws. He got it all off, I bought a used Sadowsky (from Sadowsky) one time and they didn't get the corrosion off of the pickup screws so I figured that was a pain in the ass to do, John got it off no problem)
- Installed foil shielding on bottom of pickguard control area
- Installed shield (copper foil) under pickup and in control cavity
- Cleaned pots jack
- Put in a Seymour Duncan SPB-1 pickup
- Recut the nut (made it lower)
- Adjusted the action, adjusted the pickup
- Strobe intonation
After purchasing the bass, shipping it to John, paying for labor and parts (new T.I.'s new pickup) and having it shipped back I still paid less than I would have spent on an MIM P-Bass off the rack and this plays and sounds as good as any p-bass.
I shipped my bass to him, not too bad (but AZ to CA is pretty cheap).
I am going to send him an MIM Jazz and my Squier Jazz in the next week or two. I was going to do it this weekend but between my wife's classes and my son's cavity ridden dentist work I just had to drop $1000 this week on non-fundamental life expenses that have no business getting in the way of my bass purchases.
