I've got a nice Korean Ibanez SR505 that plays great and sounds good (electronics could be better). The neck is wenge and pure butter...very easy to play. The low B is surprisingly tight for a 34" bolt on. Aesthetically, it has some issues...it's got the classic dinged/scraped finish from slapping and popping. All the hardware works perfectly but is heavily oxidized/tarnished. I've got it up for sale, but Ibanez made a TON of these basses and so there are a ton of them up for sale. I have a feeling I won't be able to sell without dropping the price way low. So my question is...should I pump money into this bass and keep it for myself or just let it go for cheap? I can do the refinish myself by sanding off the finish and then using Warwick surface finisher. The wood underneath has a nice grain. Then I would need new tuners/knobs/bridge/electronics to bring it up to the bass it could/should be. Thoughts?
Like you said, plenty of these on the market with the same chipped finish. It's otherwise such a great bass, I'd Refinish it. That finish is barely holding on there as it is, should be very easy to chemically strip, or just sand off. I may eventually buy a used one myself and do just that, though I'd use Tru-Oil.
It's the perfect bar gig bass...light, cheap, and easily replaceable. And as you said, the finish comes off easily. Not sure if sanding or chemical is the way to go... I really like what the wax does on my Warwick...and I have a lot of it. I'm thinking putting Aguilar OBP-3 preamp in their with some real Bartolinis. We shall see...that might cost more than I paid for the bass new!
The 505's respond nicely to either a pickup change or a different preamp. And if you want to get the color back, get some furniture touch up dye. I've got some, I think it's brown or cherry, but one swipe from the applicator bottle and the color is back. Put some Nordstrands emgs or the good bartolinis, a good preamp of your choice, and be prepared to have a new sounding bass. You know it's a good player, no sense giving it away.
After going over it again today, I'd say it needs about $500 dollars worth of parts/work to bring it up to snuff with my other gear (Lakland 55-02 and Warwick custom shop Thumb). Soo $500 + $200 that it's likely worth and you do the math....that's $700 that could go to a better instrument. I think I'm going to sell it...
Put new strings on the SR505 today before putting it up for sale, and now it sounds 100x better. I think I like it better than my Warwick thumb that I just pumped more money into with a new EMG setup... So now I am tempted to keep the SR505 and try Bartolinis and a differnt pre in the 'Wick. GAH IT NEVER ENDS. Hardware is going to poopie, though. I snapped off part of a tuner just winding a new string up...argh.
My MIK 505 is very sensitive to string brand. I thought the stock Elixers were good until i replaced them with Curt Mangen rounds, wow!