Vintage ('75) Fender Jazz Neck Advice

[bhoff5150]

Hello my fellow brothers of the bottom end.

Was able to pick up a 1975 Fender Jazz with a 4 bolt neck (dates to 6th week of 1975) bass this past September. Somewhere along the life of this bass, somebody decided to refinish it and as the story usually goes, they didn't exactly know what they were doing. They sprayed some kind of heavy tinted varnish over the fretboard basically making the block inlays invisible.

Before:


I sent this to a local luthier to refinish the fretboard to help this fretboard look right again. He ended up refinishing the entire neck, not just the fretboard.

After:


The blocks are back to their original beauty. But the problem is the old broken in back of the neck is now refinished and polished and feels like a new bass instead of an old one.

Is there anything I can do to make this neck feel old again in my hand? Sand down or steel wool on the back of the neck??

If so please detail steps as I've never sanded or aged a neck before so I'm a little leary of messing it up.....

Thanks all!!!

 

[The Bass Clef]

If I were you, I'd have the guy who refinned fix it for you since it's not what you asked for. Just tell him that he changed the feel of the bass, and not for the better.

 

[bhoff5150]

Bass Clef, I would do that but this guy had my bass from Oct 29th of last year till last week!!! His communication was also non-existent. There were 6 people in the shop who all had been waiting for 4 months or longer for their instruments. One of which was just a neck adjustment on a Taylor. I'm worried if I take it back it will be gone for several more months and I'm dying to play a few gigs with it.

The pick guard and pickups are from you by the way - and they're great so thanks. All I need now are period correct tuners and she's back to period correct parts top to bottom.

 

[The Bass Clef]

That sucks the guy is so slow to get the work done. Did he refin it with poly or nitro? Poly usually is a lot harder to remove. Depending on how thick the finish is, scotchbrite pads can often take the finish down to a satin, but with a thick poly you may need to break out the sandpaper and start with a coarse grit and work your way up to a fine grit.

Glad to hear you're happy with the parts!! I can help you out with the correct tuners if you're ready. Feel free to PM me about them.

 

[BadBobbyH]

I second the scotchbrite pad comment. I've used them on a couple of my main players resulting in a perfect satin finish. One is a US Fender jazz & the other a US Fender P.

Cool bass by the way!!! Good luck!

 

[bhoff5150]

Thanks BadBobby. I will give that a try.

Tried to take some better pics but my skills with a camera are quite minimal