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Refinishing my '76 Precision

basscheez

basscheez

Nov 6, 2008
215
5
Cleveland, Oh
#1
OK, I'm not doing it, I'm sending it to Pat Wilkins, of whom I've heard good things here. But I thought I would chronicle the evolution here. It's been refinished (twice) from its original Olympic White. I've decided to go back to the original color, hopefully 'aged' to a mellow cream color to go with the new tort pickguard. Now that I've given away the finish, here's some pics:

EDIT: I can't get the images to show up, so follow the links.

Here's my baby as she's been for at least the last 30 years:

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Stripped down and ready for a trip to lovely Van Nuys, CA!:

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Here's a sheet of ordinary copy paper to give some idea how yellowed the Oly White has become:

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

More pics to follow, but it'll probably be a month or two.
 
#3
And if it wasn't re-fin'd already (once before I got it, once by me), I would leave it. But it is what it is, and Pat says his poly finishes give good tone equal to lacquer. What the pics don't show is that the grain is really pronounced through the finish, so I'm looking for that smooth feel.
 
#5
Ya know, SoM, I've never been convinced that finish makes a significant difference in tone on a solid-body instrument, especially since my P-bass was/is poly (as are all the others I own), but that's how the advertising goes. The bottom line (for me) is that Pat assured me his finish wouldn't adversely affect the tone and, given his clients, I'm inclined to believe him.
 
#6
I was in the same predicament as you with my 76 P Bass... It was black and all shades of screwed up... Lots of road wear (I know I know... it added character) So I sanded it and tried to have it refinished myself... Looked BEAUTIFUL... for about a week... took it to a band photo shoot and I noticed a bubble the size of a quarter on the back of the bass... didn't think much of it... thought I would worry about it tomorrow.. after the shoot.

Fast forward two days and that bubble was the size of my palm! Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to see what was going on under the bubble. HA! the new paint somehow chemically reacted with the original paint and the WHOLE PAINT JOB, OLD AND NEW came right off like plastic wrap.

I gots me some polyurethane and my bass resembled yours (au natural) for about a year. Drove me nuts so I had it professionally done and it looks Amazing now. Of all my basses, my 76 P bass is my favorite.
 
#7
So, my bass will be there Monday, according to Fedex. I found a picture of a high-end, Oly-white-with-tort-guard bass (Maker has a phonetic letter in the name, USA Sig model of a player whose 1st & last names rhyme) on the interwebs and sent it to Pat with a note that that was what I'm hoping to get. His reply?

"Well... since I did that finish, I don't think I'll have a problem. "

I'm giddy like a schoolboy, I tell ya!

Note: Only hinted at the bass since Pat doesn't publicly cite his clients. PM me if you can't figure it out.
 

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