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Restore Ibanez SR505 or sell it for cheap?

B

BigKD

Apr 19, 2014
347
203
#1
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?
 
#2
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.
 
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#3
Gilmourisgod said:
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.
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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!
 
#5
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.
 
#6
JGbassman said:
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.
Click to expand...
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...
 
#7
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.
 
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