Dear TBler,
Last year I found my first electric bass at my parents house, which I havent played (and seen) for about 6 years. Because its my first electrified instrument I decided to never part with it for sentimental reasons, but then again it needed serious setup and tuning to make it playable again. Besides from regular setup I thought that it may be an interesting project for modding, because as far as value goes, you cant really ruin much here (street price of the epiphone SG is about 150 Euro, considering its condition I probably couldnt make more than 80 Dollars on ebay). So in the end I decided to do the following:
1) Take of the neck and defret it. The net is full of guides for it, varying in quality. I found two great resources with detailed descriptions and some tipps, so if you plan to do a defret yourself check them out:
- The bass defret book (downloadable as pdf) from Link Removed, my main resource with great tipps
- Invalid Link Removed a very nice online guide with pictures
Both guides work with veneers to fill the slots of the frets. I did that too, because looking at pictures of other techniques (glue, wood filler) in the internet looked a lot messier. Many people are a bit frightened of doing it themselves, but I have to say its much easier than it looks you can dont need to be a carpenter, but you have to be very careful an patient. It took me approx 8 hours for defreting, glueing in the veneers and planing the fretboard. Here some pictures of the result (before I did the last sanding with 400 grit paper):
Last year I found my first electric bass at my parents house, which I havent played (and seen) for about 6 years. Because its my first electrified instrument I decided to never part with it for sentimental reasons, but then again it needed serious setup and tuning to make it playable again. Besides from regular setup I thought that it may be an interesting project for modding, because as far as value goes, you cant really ruin much here (street price of the epiphone SG is about 150 Euro, considering its condition I probably couldnt make more than 80 Dollars on ebay). So in the end I decided to do the following:
1) Take of the neck and defret it. The net is full of guides for it, varying in quality. I found two great resources with detailed descriptions and some tipps, so if you plan to do a defret yourself check them out:
- The bass defret book (downloadable as pdf) from Link Removed, my main resource with great tipps
- Invalid Link Removed a very nice online guide with pictures
Both guides work with veneers to fill the slots of the frets. I did that too, because looking at pictures of other techniques (glue, wood filler) in the internet looked a lot messier. Many people are a bit frightened of doing it themselves, but I have to say its much easier than it looks you can dont need to be a carpenter, but you have to be very careful an patient. It took me approx 8 hours for defreting, glueing in the veneers and planing the fretboard. Here some pictures of the result (before I did the last sanding with 400 grit paper):
). Neck adjustment (almost flat), bridge adjustment (low) and a first rough intonation check. 
