Yesterday I stopped into a local higher end guitar shop to ask about techs, and saw a fender bass neck sticking out of a pile in the corner. It turned out to be a mid-80’s MIJ p-bass that had been disassembled and abandoned. While the body was beat up the neck was essentially like new.
While I need another bass like a hole in the head, I offered $175 - and somehow the owner talked himself down to $150 with a used set of rotosounds. I put an order in for the missing neck plate and replacement saddles, and will find out soon if there are any surprises.
The poly finish has fully cracked and started to peel off on the side. It has me considering heat stripping and refinishing it in something other than sunburst (I have too many burst guitars) like Mocha or Mary Kaye white. However - if I did this I would leave the poly on the neck because it’s pretty solid.
Should I care about devaluing this bass? Any great colorways or alternatives I should consider, and would it look “off” to have a poly neck and nitro body?
Brilliant score for a vintage MIJ and it would have been Fujigen that made it, you need to try the lottery next. Nothin like that ever happens to me.
If the poly is falling off there is only one thing to do, and that to remove it.
If you use a hot air gun be careful not to dwell in one area too long, only enough to soften the poly enough to scrape off. with the best will in the world you will probably experience some scorching to the bare wood but that will either sand out or any discolouration will be eventually painted over any way.
One other word of caution though:- using heat on wood may lead to cracking of the body wood and it worst cases I've heard of moisture boiling in the heartwood until pressure builds up enough to pop the wood in that area, however if you take it easily enough you will be able to remove the poly entirely. I won't say it's a 5 minute job but you sort of go into autopilot and after a while as you move the heat source and the poly becomes pliable enough to scrape off you start to work faster as you get a feel for how long to dwell on the next patch.
If using heat, unless you are a magician I doubt whether the finish will be anywhere near good enough for a natural finish, there will be scorch marks especially at 90 deg. corners like the neck heel cavity. if you are painting though this will not be a problem.
Use what we brits call a "shave hook" it may be called the same in the US a triangular piece of steel with a handle that will help to remove fron hard to get to places.
What you will end up will be like the poly removed but rough bits on the wood that need to me sanded. Ignore any cracks for now, but concentrate on sanding. Use something like a 120 grit to roughly remove any remnants of melted poly, then use intermediate grits to 600, finally finish with 0000 steel wool.
Lay a damp towel over night to re-moisturise the wood the heat gun has removed, the grain will raise slightly. once dry re-sand. repeat the action with a damp cloth or steam iron so the grain raises again, next time the grain rise will not be so noticeable, continue until the last application of moisture has no effect on the grain. Remember to sand and use steel wool at each stage of this.
If you are lucky there will be no splits from the heat gun, if you are unlucky you will have to fill with a suitable filler for your primer and undercoat. Once dry sand back to the same finish as rest of body.
As for the colour? You do you. It's gonna be much better than it was, whatever you do, even do a Hoppus pink if that's what you want.
I'm not a huge fan of burst anyways but even if you restore the finish to burst most MIJ aficionado's will say it's refinished so valuewise you'd never get top dollar, as for the gloss neck Rickenbacker have been doing it for years and Sire Marcus Miller doing it now as well as other manufacturers. As long as you always know what it is and the stamp will be in the heel cavity, control cavity and maybe on the end of the neck heel you will always know how it's life started. Fujigen are not gods, they made remarkable guitars (some say better) for Fender back in the day, but you are going to make one of theirs even better. It's a keeper. Good luck and post us some pics when you've done it sometime.
