Jazz Bass Refinish Project

Hey guys! I thought I'd log the project that I'm working on currently!

I've had this MIM Jazz Bass for about 8ish years, but more recently the body has been sitting in the cupboard. Playing live this bass was always too heavy, so I stole the neck and popped it on a cheap Squire P bass I had, which was fine.


Now that I'm mostly recording rather than playing live I think I can deal with the weight again and get back into the J sound.

Unfortunately this is what I found



This is one of those MIM basses with the ultra thick finish and unfortunately the years were not kind to it, so the finish was popping off (Literally could remove chunks with my fingernail) on the edges.

I decided to bust out my heat gun and go to town, which was surprisingly easy in this case, with the finish coming off in sheets!




What I found really disappointing was the quality of the body, which as you see below is a SEVEN PIECE ALDER BLOCK! Obviously this one was originally destined to be a Sunburstbut had a flaw in the wood.



All my hopes for a stain finish were gone but that's where you guys come in.

I've purchased primer and clear coat, and now I need to decide on a colour.

My top picks are shown below, in colours available from my local graffiti art shop.
I was trying to avoid typical Fender Colours, hence the interesting choices!

Tokyo Pink

Medium Yellow

Labyrinth Green



I'm prepping the body and shooting primer this weekend, once ready I'll decide.

 

I've heard that this is actually pretty common for this era of MIM's (This one's an '06) but I haven't had much experience with any others!
Kinda sucks, I was expecting better when I bought it considering it was probably about US$800 when I bought it (It was $1100 ish US iirc)

And yeah yellow was at the top of my list initially, but now seeing it I feel like it would clash with my Yellow g****r because it will be every so slightly different in shade and that would kill my OCD.

 

That's my current favourite.

I was hoping to be able to get a similar colour to Fender's Antique Olive, but It wasn't available.
Out of what was available I think that Pink is the best

 

Kisekae didn't have Black Pearl, but It looks prety aight with white pearl

Jazz bass Labyrinth Green by amphlett7 posted Jun 9, 2017 at 9:39 PM

 

Funnily enough, all three of my original ideas have mint pickguards, and that's my main preference for this!

 

Definitely agree with that!

I really have a prejudice against stark white pickguards, so mint or parchment is where it's at

 

Sounds great!

Definitely share some photos once you're done!