Washburn "Bantam" - Refin.

[mansjasont]

So I picked this thing up last night for $60 CAN (thats like $4.37 US I think). I found it on kijiji (Canadian Craigslist).

I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it yet but I don't have a fretless yet, so maybe a fretted to fretless conversion.

This might take me a while as I still have a couple projects on the go still but I couldn't say no to this price.

 

[mansjasont]

Here's a couple more.

 

[mansjasont]

So last week I pulled the frets, and glued in the veneer in the fret slots (1st picture). I cut down the excess veneer to withing +/- 1mm of the top of the fret board with an x-acto blade.

Then last night I went and bought a cheap level, and some double stick tape. I had a roll of 100 grit sand paper. I put the double stick tape on the level and stuck the sand paper on the level. This is my cheap alternative to a 24" leveling beam (2nd picture). Mine cost me $20, or you can pay $75 before shipping (shipping for me would be an additional $42!!) I used the "sanding beam" with 100 grit first, then used 220, and 320 by hand. I was very happy with my results, the fingerboard is perfectly smooth now.

I assembled the bass last night to try it out (I have no experience with fretless) and it will take some getting used to, but it should be fun. Now to strip and re-fin the body.

 

[Shardik]

Looks cool. You'll probably have to lower the nut slots a bit to get an acceptable string height close to it.

 

[mansjasont]

Ya for sure, I will wait for final setup for that though.

 

[Lonnybass]

Now to strip and re-fin the body.

Post some pics of the bare wood once you get rid of that icky red. Every once in a while some amazing boards show up that have been hidden away underneath layers of paint.

Lonnybass

 

[mansjasont]

So I got most of the body stripped last night. I tried the heat gun trick but it didn't really work, it only took of the clear coat and left the paint all spotted. So I used the RO sander with some 80 grit. 2 pads later and the top and back are stripped, and part of the sides.

I think the wood looks decent, nothing special, but not butt ugly either. And it is super light, which I really like. Does anyone know what wood it is? My guess is Basswood, but I'm no expert when it comes to identifying wood. I will probably do a dark Danish Oil finish on this.

I forgot to take pictures of the neck again, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

 

[Shardik]

I suddenly got the feeling that that is a smaller than usual bass? Or do you have larger than usual hands? Or is it something about how the photo was taken? Or is it just me going slowly crazy?

 

[mansjasont]

I think it's a little bit of all four...

The body is pretty small, but it is a 34" scale bass...

I have fairly large hands... (you know what they say...)

It is a bit of a weird angle, I'm holding the bass at arms length away from my body so I can get the whole thing in the picture.

I can't comment on you sanity, but I think the fact that you publicly announced it on a huge forum of you bass playing peers, means that you yourself feel that it is very possible.... just kidding, I hope I didn't offend you or your other personalities...

 

[mansjasont]

Does anyone have any ideas on the wood??

 

[Gone]

My guess is basswood or alder

 

[Shardik]

just kidding, I hope I didn't offend you or your other personalities...

Not at all. We all saw that coming, especially with that rather potentially rude comment about hand size and all.

Thanks for answering the questions. Looks like a neat bass. Is it light weight?

 

[mansjasont]

It's very light. I haven't weighed it, but compared to the bass I just built, its almost half the weight. I think that bass was around 8-8.5lbs