Hey guys - right after doing Henry's CAR Tele Bass I got this project in the mail - a Nov 62 Jazz Bass in ROUGH shape. I'm redoing it for a customer who bought it on ebay and had it sent directly to me.
The ebay auction rather optimistically described the bass as being in "excellent" condition. I beg to differ. The pictures in the listing did indeed make the bass look pretty decent.
The reality was that the bass had not only been defretted, but the fingerboard had been brutally sanded and thinned down - so much so that 1 1/2 of the clay dot markers had been completely sanded THROUGH!! Notice how the tops of the side dots are beginning to get exposed ..
There was also some heavy grooving from the strings at the lower notes.
A feeble attempt to cover this up was that someone had painted a fake fretboard edge at the butt end of the neck .. oh yeah, and taken a chunk out of the corner of the neck ..
And then stained the whole neck using a toothbrush ..
Finally - the body, which looks great in the listing - had a terrible refinish on it. The paint had actually been applied nicely and was an accurate ice blue metallic - but the body hadn't been prepped at all and in fact had obviously been stripped with something like a rotary grinder or wirebrush or rotostripper .. very sad.
The good news - ALL the parts appear to be correct and original - the tuners, bridge, covers, both pickups, guard, pots, knobs, neckplate and the various screws and strap pegs.
Haven't started a blog post on it yet - I will soon - but the bass is actually coming along nicely, and I'm optimistic that it'll turn out "wicked shaaaaaahp" as they might say up around here ...
I'll update soon .. the photobucket album has a bunch of progress pics if you're curious ..
The ebay auction rather optimistically described the bass as being in "excellent" condition. I beg to differ. The pictures in the listing did indeed make the bass look pretty decent.
The reality was that the bass had not only been defretted, but the fingerboard had been brutally sanded and thinned down - so much so that 1 1/2 of the clay dot markers had been completely sanded THROUGH!! Notice how the tops of the side dots are beginning to get exposed ..
There was also some heavy grooving from the strings at the lower notes.
A feeble attempt to cover this up was that someone had painted a fake fretboard edge at the butt end of the neck .. oh yeah, and taken a chunk out of the corner of the neck ..
And then stained the whole neck using a toothbrush ..
Finally - the body, which looks great in the listing - had a terrible refinish on it. The paint had actually been applied nicely and was an accurate ice blue metallic - but the body hadn't been prepped at all and in fact had obviously been stripped with something like a rotary grinder or wirebrush or rotostripper .. very sad.
The good news - ALL the parts appear to be correct and original - the tuners, bridge, covers, both pickups, guard, pots, knobs, neckplate and the various screws and strap pegs.
Haven't started a blog post on it yet - I will soon - but the bass is actually coming along nicely, and I'm optimistic that it'll turn out "wicked shaaaaaahp" as they might say up around here ...
I'll update soon .. the photobucket album has a bunch of progress pics if you're curious ..
If I ever need a vintage refinish, I know who I'm sending it to. You do amazing work, and with such care and scrutiny! I'm very impressed 
