So I've had this Affinity sitting around here...no reason why, other than it was $65 and I figured it might make a fun "makeover" project some day. Well, I finally got to it a few weeks back.
First was stripping the body. What a PITA, especially the undercoat. Sure, I could have just filled the dings and patched up the body, roughed up the finish, sprayed primer, and finished over the old red paint job....bat that isn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to take it to bare wood, do any filling necessary, and refinish it "right". After a few hits of Kleen Strip and some elbow grease, the color coat was off...which left the "tough as nails" undercoat. I haven't yet found a stripper that effectively removes this, so it was time to grab the heat gun. More elbow grease, a few molten shards of undercoat, and a bit of time later I had a body. A really ROUGH body. The undercoat filled a LOT of imperfections. So...grain fill, sand, patch, grain fill, sand, patch, prime, sand, fill, patch, etc later.... I had my body ready for paint. This is the PITA part of properly refinning a guitar, and the primary reason why refinishing a guitar costs so much. All the painting, leveling, wet sanding, and polishing later PALES in comparison to the amount of "prep work" that is required to do a great finish.
Anyway, body, neck, etc were ready to go. I definitely wanted to change out the pickups and electronics, so a trip to Bass Emporium got me some pots and a set of Duncan Quarter Pounders. I used a Sprague Orange Drop cap and a switchcraft jack from my private stash.
I left the "Made in Indonesia" decal on the back of the headstock as a symbol of where it had come from, and also to prevent anyone from trying to sell it as a real vintage Fender to an unwary customer. I topped it off with a set of Blue Steel Nickel Plated strings, a set of covers, and voila..."late 60's style" custom color Precision Bass !
Not bad for a bass that started out as a $65 bass !
No pics, no "Affinity Makeover", so....
First was stripping the body. What a PITA, especially the undercoat. Sure, I could have just filled the dings and patched up the body, roughed up the finish, sprayed primer, and finished over the old red paint job....bat that isn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to take it to bare wood, do any filling necessary, and refinish it "right". After a few hits of Kleen Strip and some elbow grease, the color coat was off...which left the "tough as nails" undercoat. I haven't yet found a stripper that effectively removes this, so it was time to grab the heat gun. More elbow grease, a few molten shards of undercoat, and a bit of time later I had a body. A really ROUGH body. The undercoat filled a LOT of imperfections. So...grain fill, sand, patch, grain fill, sand, patch, prime, sand, fill, patch, etc later.... I had my body ready for paint. This is the PITA part of properly refinning a guitar, and the primary reason why refinishing a guitar costs so much. All the painting, leveling, wet sanding, and polishing later PALES in comparison to the amount of "prep work" that is required to do a great finish.
Anyway, body, neck, etc were ready to go. I definitely wanted to change out the pickups and electronics, so a trip to Bass Emporium got me some pots and a set of Duncan Quarter Pounders. I used a Sprague Orange Drop cap and a switchcraft jack from my private stash.
I left the "Made in Indonesia" decal on the back of the headstock as a symbol of where it had come from, and also to prevent anyone from trying to sell it as a real vintage Fender to an unwary customer. I topped it off with a set of Blue Steel Nickel Plated strings, a set of covers, and voila..."late 60's style" custom color Precision Bass !
Not bad for a bass that started out as a $65 bass !
No pics, no "Affinity Makeover", so....
Soo cool. Reminds me of a CS Fender I saw on Musician's Friend a while ago.. Awesome work! To be honest, the first thing I was looking for when I saw this bass was a set of D'Addario Chromes, which seem to end up on almost all of your projects. I'm a BIG fan myself!
