Hey guys,
I just recently finished working on the restoration of my very first teenager bass, a Taiwan-made Yamaha BB300 (probably early-mid 90's). It has spent nearly a decade not being played at my parents place, and the last time I picked it up and played it, I realized that even unplugged, with a missing E string and the stock crappy tuners which buzz like crazy, 1) the neck was still pretty straight and mostly 2) it sounds still very nice.
So I decided that it deserved better than rotting away, and set myself up to restore it so as to make it my P-bass / backup axe (my main bass is a Sire MM V7 5 strings).
The bass originally looked like Invalid Link Removed, except for the fact that in excess of teenage passion, I had painted electric blue lightnings on the body (hum, yeah, I was young. yeah). The program at first was a total change of hardware and electronics. Then I thought, hey, while I'm at it, I might as well try and change the paint and varnish, because it was the perfect occasion to experiment with that.
So after long hours of removing the varnish (which seems to be the same as the one used for armored cars, that stuff is tough!), sanding, failing miserably several times at the varnishing stage, it's done!
I found out that the original black paint had left a nice looking dark taint on the wood, which was thinner (and thus went away during sanding) on the edges.
I also found out that it's a BAD idea to try removing the varnish with micro bead blasting... Hence the white epoxy spot on the back of the bass (at least I had the good sense to try it on the back)...
As I said, I had a rather hard time doing the varnish, as it would always peel away. So in the end I just opted for a satin finish wax, with which I'm not totally satisfied, but oh well.
All the hardware is inexpensive Sung Il / Wilkinson stuff; I didn't want it to cost more than the bass itself. We'll see how it holds with time. I relic'ed it using Ferrum Chloride (and it's always interesting to see that the plating on the chinese made parts is waaaay thinner than the one on the Gotoh strap buttons!). Note that I tried relic'ing the plastic vol and tone knobs using the infamous tea+coffee technique, to no avail.
The pups are Entwistle PBX. So far I haven't played it plugged, so I don't know how they sound, but the unplugged sound is pretty convincing!
I plan on taking it to rehearsal next Saturday, I'll let you know how it went!
F.
I just recently finished working on the restoration of my very first teenager bass, a Taiwan-made Yamaha BB300 (probably early-mid 90's). It has spent nearly a decade not being played at my parents place, and the last time I picked it up and played it, I realized that even unplugged, with a missing E string and the stock crappy tuners which buzz like crazy, 1) the neck was still pretty straight and mostly 2) it sounds still very nice.
So I decided that it deserved better than rotting away, and set myself up to restore it so as to make it my P-bass / backup axe (my main bass is a Sire MM V7 5 strings).
The bass originally looked like Invalid Link Removed, except for the fact that in excess of teenage passion, I had painted electric blue lightnings on the body (hum, yeah, I was young. yeah). The program at first was a total change of hardware and electronics. Then I thought, hey, while I'm at it, I might as well try and change the paint and varnish, because it was the perfect occasion to experiment with that.
So after long hours of removing the varnish (which seems to be the same as the one used for armored cars, that stuff is tough!), sanding, failing miserably several times at the varnishing stage, it's done!
I found out that the original black paint had left a nice looking dark taint on the wood, which was thinner (and thus went away during sanding) on the edges.
I also found out that it's a BAD idea to try removing the varnish with micro bead blasting... Hence the white epoxy spot on the back of the bass (at least I had the good sense to try it on the back)...
As I said, I had a rather hard time doing the varnish, as it would always peel away. So in the end I just opted for a satin finish wax, with which I'm not totally satisfied, but oh well.
All the hardware is inexpensive Sung Il / Wilkinson stuff; I didn't want it to cost more than the bass itself. We'll see how it holds with time. I relic'ed it using Ferrum Chloride (and it's always interesting to see that the plating on the chinese made parts is waaaay thinner than the one on the Gotoh strap buttons!). Note that I tried relic'ing the plastic vol and tone knobs using the infamous tea+coffee technique, to no avail.
The pups are Entwistle PBX. So far I haven't played it plugged, so I don't know how they sound, but the unplugged sound is pretty convincing!
I plan on taking it to rehearsal next Saturday, I'll let you know how it went!
F.
