it's a handsome piece. congratulations on your new instrument! 
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NDB: 1961 Fender Precision
- Thread starter DavidBassista
- Start date
I thought it looked like a Spitfire. They're very nice looking guards, but nowhere close to "reproduction," just to be clear for the sake of others learning about old specs. He makes, or purchases, various types of celluloid top layers, and laminates them to modern black and white materials (which he also often laminates himself, in order to get the thicknesses of the layers a certain way). There is no proper "reproduction" of the original first-style tort guards – and likely never will be.
As for burst or blonde, it would not be common for a burst to have been made from ash, while it would have been so nearly 100 percent of the time with a blonde finish. And you can tell from the details of the refin that the entire bass was stripped all the way down to the wood before the new finish was applied. The sealers used prior to Fullerplast (e.g. Homoclad) were easy to strip, and there's no way the black would have bled through to the wood. You're seeing a dark rim that was caused by something else, post refin.
Details aside, it's a sweet bass, and congrats.
Regarding your comment earlier about the thickness of the black layer of the guard and second generation torts, I'm not sure if I follow. I compared my guard to some other photos of early 60s guards and it looks the same. For example, check out posts 71 and 75 in my 1963 restoration thread posted above.
Here is the dark area that I'm talking about. Thoughts on what caused this? I assumed it was the edge of the three tone sunburst from unremoved paint.
Im really sorry to hear your story. Maybe there is a support group somewhere for people who share your problems with self control. 
Seriously though, thats a lovely vintage P bass in every way. Its got a very classy yet still blue-collar look to it, kinda handsome and rugged at the same time.
Seriously though, thats a lovely vintage P bass in every way. Its got a very classy yet still blue-collar look to it, kinda handsome and rugged at the same time.
Great bass! I’d leave it as is, natural with tort looks kick-ass IMHO. I have ‘71 Telecaster Bass neck on a stripped ‘69 PBass body.
I also have ‘63 PBass - sunburst, wide chunky neck that I just love. That aren’t making any new pre-CBS basses! Don’t part with it!
I also have ‘63 PBass - sunburst, wide chunky neck that I just love. That aren’t making any new pre-CBS basses! Don’t part with it!
Im really sorry to hear your story. Maybe there is a support group somewhere for people who share your problems with self control.
Seriously though, thats a lovely vintage P bass in every way. Its got a very classy yet still blue-collar look to it, kinda handsome and rugged at the same time.
I knew that at Talkbass, I wouldn't have to worry about anyone giving me a hard time for making a gratuitous bass purchase
. There seems to be a lot of people here with a similar affliction.
Thanks Shadven. The 61 neck is very similar to the 63 neck, although the 63 neck feels a bit more slender. The 61 has an ever so slight "U" shape to it, whereas the 63 is more "elegant" in its contour. The slab board on the 61 is really dark - near ebony. The 63 board has more brown in the rosewood.
Yup. I’ve had that exact experience, albeit with a lesser bass. You feel a certain wind go out of you, the knowledge that hundreds of dollars are about to leave your coffers. But it’s also exhilarating and you are resigned to it. You know it’s already done.
Congrats fellow Brooklyn bass dude. Do we get to hear a clip of that beauty?
Thanks. I plan on doing some recordings of some of my little solo compositions later this month and I'll post here. I'm waiting till I visit my parents around the holidays where I have access to my B-15 and can play loudly.
Seriously cool story man, and sweet bass, congrats! Now make us all really depressed and tell us how cheap it really was!
The first-gen tort guards did have thicknesses that were all over the place, and there is shrinkage over the years as well, complicating things. There were also weird situations sometimes, like only w/b layers under the tort. Variation was the norm. But in '64, when they switched to laminating the tort over more stable w/b/w layers, the middle layer was far more consistently thin. Therefore first gen guards are generally thought of as having a thicker black layer (though not necessarily "thick"), while second-gen ones are generally thought of as having a very thin black layer.
It would only be something that would blip on ones radar until the pots and/or body date were checked out. Those things being in order would put one more at ease. As would seeing the guard in person, which would make the material used for the white and black layers plain as day (hard to show in photos).
To me, that darkness around the edge looks more like the artifacts of an amateur refin than the original finish. Plus it makes no sense that everything on the bass would have been taken down to the point at which the original sealer was chemically stripped (evident by the wood grains being clear of sealer). Perhaps I am reading the photos wrong (it's hard to tell from pix), but it looks like that dark stuff is directly over the ash grain, sinking quite a bit into it in places. The pre-Fullerplast finishes were exceptionally easy to chemically remove all the way down to the wood. There's no reason someone would do so on 98 percent of the body only. The ash grain was stripped of its filler, which you don't do by shallowly sanding, only with chemicals. Personally, without having the bass in hand, my gut says it was stripped twice, then clear coated like it is now.
Is the dark area dark brown, or black?
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Congrats! Hope you don't paint it, that ash looks amazing, 'specially the back.
Don't paint it. 50 years of aging on that stripped body looks AMAZING!
Reading what I just posted ... it sounds like I'm describing myself.
I would say its really dark brown. And I feel pretty confident that the pickguard is correct to 61 based on comparisons I've made.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,588
- 221,965
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
You are correct - it's the remnants of the tobacco burst of a 3TSB, or at least a tobacco/brown-bust. I personally would be tempted to remove the (whatever it is) clear coat and have it pro-sprayed with whatever nitro colour you would like... (as it's already not original) but otherwise - rock it!
