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GEO's 1st bass restoration

#81
Sunlight is the best for showing off a sparkle finish -

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#83
Thanks man :thumbsup: I'm pleased with the way it's turning out! It's already fulfilled justification for me being nostalgic. (I tend to avoid indulging in nostalgia) It's stuff I've always known (as an artist) but it reminded me that life's an ever evolving journey - you start down a path for one reason and end up on a tangent that takes you to someplace you didn't expect, hopefully someplace of greater enlightenment. ;) I've always liked to improvise, which is hit or miss - but when it hits... it hits. Gotta ride the wave when it's under you. (and I don't surf!) :D

But we (my band) plays a mean surf song!

 
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#85
Dave Higham said:
Is your band's name a play on words? I ask because 'conneries' is a French word meaning BS or stupid stuff, and if the band's leader was called Sean . . .;)
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Long story but yes, I learned that "Conneries" translated to silliness in French. Somewhat suitable as our philosophy is to confuse our audience, one way being that we play no Bond material, other than that Dr No Intro for Point Break. (Bond song into surf song - very similar really) I also play in a band called Bond Girl (Bond & spy material) and have for 10 years. BG's BL Cherie took a short break from the band at one point, and Paul (horn/guitar) and Steve (drums) and I started rehearsing our own trio songs in her absence. We got a gig playing at a roadhouse in Pacifica (Winters' Tavern) on my B-day (J1) and needed a handle for the marque. "The Sean Conneries?" - good enough. When Kirstin joined about 6 years ago, I said - "this would be a good time to choose a new name", and Kirstin said "I like that name!" ... so, it stuck. I'm effectively the BL of TSC so not Sean. I sometimes jokingly introduce the band as "Paul Connery, Kirstin Connery and Phil Connery... and I'm Geo Connery" ... we are, The Sean Conneries. :) Also... TSC play a few French Ye-Ye songs from the late '60s - Kirstin (vocals/keys) is fluent in French.

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#87
Flying B said:
That looks great. I have to say I wasn't initially sold on the purple, but with all the hardware on it works well.
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Thanks! By itself - it's ok, but as an understated "feature" it rocks. I look at it like a lovely lady wearing a sexy cocktail dress. More attractive when showing less. :)
 
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#90
The Tempo neck arrived late yesterday. Today, I mounted it on the body, installed the tuners and strung it up. So far, I got it pretty close to decent action. I'll just need to add a thin neck shim to one I already added. Once the tr was tightened the skunk-stripe once again started to lift near the neck-plate. With my two added screws through the plate at that critical juncture - it only lifted incrementally. I moistened the area, rubbed wood glue into the gaps and once it set filed the slightly raised s-s flush. So far it's holding. After the work warpedneck.com put into it - the neck isn't "perfect" but considering how bad it was warped it's going to be playable, which is all I could really expect/have hoped for. My intent was never to make it "like new" - as it probably had neck issues out of the box! So getting it playable and looking spiffy is cake as far as I'm concerned.

All along the way in this project I've addressed many upgrade details. As in, today I needed to add a spacer between the bridge & bridge plate to allow room for the ball-ends of the strings to reside. '60s basses from Japan came with strings that had smaller ball-ends than those today and the 'claw' string-stop on the neck plate wasn't tall enough. I was hoping to be able to use the bridge-wheels I made of quarters but with the additional spacer I didn't need them. I did need to file the metal saddles a bit and intonation was correctly dialed so it's on to finishing.

To start the finishing process, I brushed on wood-hardener on the bare mahogany. It soaks in which will help to keep it stable and will also seal the pores/grain before spraying. I'll skip the white primer and start with the purple base colour. I need to do some work on the neck interface first - mostly cosmetic.
 
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#94
I sanded the neck of the wood-hardener. That stuff is pretty hard! It filled the grain nicely and after doing a bit of Bondo'ing at the heal (cleaning up the neck-body interface at the heal) I did a wipe-on/wipe-off using Emmet's Good Stuff. Most likely some folks here at LC know of it. My luthier Dan tipped me off to it - I've been using it on natural necks lately and it works great. I wanted something on the wood after I sanded most of the hardener off. I'll do a light fine-sanding in 4hrs and shoot some purple. Neck held true overnight with string-tension so I think were's in the home stretch.

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#99
I got impatient and finished it off. With the added neck-pocket shim I was able to re-add the 'four-bit' saddle wheels and with some tr adjustment got the action surprisingly good. I personally prefer "medium" over "low" action and that's where it's at. Installed new "Stringjoy" light gauge strings [45-105]. I was asked to preview/assess them vs D'Addario's which I primarily use. They are out of Nashville. All I can tell is they sound 'new' which is good in certain applications but usually I like strings better when they lose that 'newness', so time will tell if I like them or not. I use heavy gauge strings so light gauge is already noticeably different.

Considering my goals for this bass - I've pretty much checked all the boxes. My overriding philosophy on it has been prefaced with "for what it is" and so to summarize; for what it is it's now a very playable long-scale vintage bass that looks ('60s) period correct- with a twist and (for now) sounds like it looks. (like a late '60s Japanese long-scale one pu electric bass) Definitely better than when it landed on my doorstep. :)

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#100
JIO said:
I got impatient and finished it off. With the added neck-pocket shim I was able to re-add the 'two-bit' saddle wheels and with some tr adjustment got the action surprisingly good. I personally prefer "medium" over "low" action and that's where it's at. Installed new "Stringjoy" light gauge strings [45-105]. I was asked to preview/assess them vs D'Addario's which I primarily use. They are out of Nashville. All I can tell is they sound 'new' which is good in certain applications but usually I like strings better when they lose that 'newness', so time will tell if I like them or not. I use heavy gauge strings so light gauge is already noticeably different.

Considering my goals for this bass - I've pretty much checked all the boxes. My overriding philosophy on it has been prefaced with "for what it is" and so to summarize; for what it is it's now a very playable long-scale vintage bass that looks ('60s) period correct- with a twist and (for now) sounds like it looks. (like a late '60s Japanese long-scale one pu electric bass) Definitely better than when it landed on my doorstep. :)

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It's gorgeous! The "twist" elevates it to a class of its own. Nice work as always!
 
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