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The Restoration Thread-Show off that restored bass!
- Thread starter A-Step-Towards
- Start date
Looks great! Do you have pictures of the process/routes/etc? My favorite part of people restoring basses (or guitars) is seeing what they have to restore under the pickguard. Almost sounds dirty.. Ha!
- Mar 13, 2008
- 18,919
- 142,470
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist Mike Lull T Bass pickups, The Bass Shop, Seattle WA.
Here are two of my 3 '76s, both were wrecks when I bought them (missing parts, wrong pickups, one had a busted headstock), the most difficult parts were the pick and bridge covers.
OK, here goes. The 65 was another rescue off of eBay. I took a huge gamble on this one since it looked plenty rough and many were throwing offers at the seller.
There was a huge Gibson mudbucker in the neck position and I had no idea how much material had been removed to make it fit. As it turns out, there was not much at all removed. The Maxon in the bridge position was a pretty easy fix. I had a 6 pole lap steel bobbin rewound by Marl "the Wiz" Walker. It is a period perfect raised lip bobbin cut down and rewound and re configured to a 4 pole. The shoes were off an early 60's lap steel as well. The toaster is a 1966 12 string long pole, which is correct as well.
The tough part was the tuners. I had to rework the holes since they had been hogged out to fit the Schaller m4's.
This tuned out to be one of my favorite basses!! The neck is super slim and it growls very nicely!
There was a huge Gibson mudbucker in the neck position and I had no idea how much material had been removed to make it fit. As it turns out, there was not much at all removed. The Maxon in the bridge position was a pretty easy fix. I had a 6 pole lap steel bobbin rewound by Marl "the Wiz" Walker. It is a period perfect raised lip bobbin cut down and rewound and re configured to a 4 pole. The shoes were off an early 60's lap steel as well. The toaster is a 1966 12 string long pole, which is correct as well.
The tough part was the tuners. I had to rework the holes since they had been hogged out to fit the Schaller m4's.
This tuned out to be one of my favorite basses!! The neck is super slim and it growls very nicely!
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Oh yea, I almost forgot. I had Dane Wilder rebuild the pots using the original cases with new guts. He returned the harness to 1965 spec. with Ajax caps and correct cloth wiring! He even rebuilt the original toggle switch! A new pick guard from Pickguardian finished it off nicely!!
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Hey Ivan! How have you been??
The fretboard on the 65 was warn in spots. I sent her across country to the Twelfth Fret in OR and they did a wonderful job of re-fretting her and repairing the board. They left the binding in place and filled a few cracks then airbrushed the binding. I can't tell where the breaks were! They touched up the fretboard without stripping all the 48+ years of Mojo off and blended the repair so I can't tell where the varnish was worn off! The guys at Twelfth Fret are real craftsmen!!
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Nice work! You have to wonder about the thought process whereby somebody thought that their 4001 would benefit from EB-3 electronics.
Exactly! Especially the possibility of weakening an already deep pocket so close to the neck!!
To my surprise, no harm done! She is strong as hell and has no neck issues.
I hadn't thought of that.
Surely you could see light through the bottom of the Mudbucker route. 
I hadn't thought of that.
Ha, yea almost! No actually, only a bit less than 1/16th of depth was added to squeeze the Mudbucker in there! Amazing, right!! The factory RIC neck route is ridiculously huge for the very small toaster footprint.
Pawn Shop find in '75/'76. This was a heavily damaged P-Bass, with RW neck that was twisted and unplayable... still I just loved it - 
A Mudbucker was poorly installed and removed (the installation destroyed the tort PG) and there were weird unguided routs for switching/wiring... the finish was trashed... you can see some of the results in the discoloration on the upper body. It was heavily oil stained. It looked like it was rode hard and put away wet many times... this was a 16 year old bass!!! 
This pic is from '79 - after a strip, with a heavy poly refin and a Fender neck replacement. (note the strap location... actually liked that for 10+ years) I don't consider this step a restoration, more of a rescue...
25 + year detour to P-J
Here's after the 1st true restoration attempt... LOTS of steps in the right direction, but it still wasn't 'right'. The color wasn't period correct, and the Nitro was sealed with a very thick poly coat, rout repairs were visible, and bad relicing, etc.
Ben Lindsey comes to the rescue...
'damaged '59 Neck is found, acquired and sent for restoration... LOTS to do... the back of the neck was in BAD shape, the nut was broken and the frets were so worn as to be unplayable. But the end result was a-neck-to-die-for!
Getting there...
Color is still not right. Sent to Ben for strip, restore and repaint in Fiesta Red Nitro with 'age appropriate' light relicing. (I did take good care of my stuff)
DONE! (and I'm quite happy with it
)
A Mudbucker was poorly installed and removed (the installation destroyed the tort PG) and there were weird unguided routs for switching/wiring... the finish was trashed... you can see some of the results in the discoloration on the upper body. It was heavily oil stained. It looked like it was rode hard and put away wet many times... this was a 16 year old bass!!! This pic is from '79 - after a strip, with a heavy poly refin and a Fender neck replacement. (note the strap location... actually liked that for 10+ years) I don't consider this step a restoration, more of a rescue...
25 + year detour to P-J
Here's after the 1st true restoration attempt... LOTS of steps in the right direction, but it still wasn't 'right'. The color wasn't period correct, and the Nitro was sealed with a very thick poly coat, rout repairs were visible, and bad relicing, etc.
Ben Lindsey comes to the rescue...
'damaged '59 Neck is found, acquired and sent for restoration... LOTS to do... the back of the neck was in BAD shape, the nut was broken and the frets were so worn as to be unplayable. But the end result was a-neck-to-die-for!
Getting there...
Color is still not right. Sent to Ben for strip, restore and repaint in Fiesta Red Nitro with 'age appropriate' light relicing. (I did take good care of my stuff)
DONE! (and I'm quite happy with it
)
It's more of a refin, then a full restoration, but it still turned out nice.
Before and after....
Before and after....
My restored '66 P. Only the body and neckplate are '66. The bridge is from a '62 bass. The body has an old nitro refin. The rest of the bass is from 2013. I like it very much.
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