OT - My newly refinished bass

[BigRedButton]

Although I've been very impressed with the tone and "playability" of it, I got tired of looking at my plain ol' P Bass.

Here's some pictures of the new and improved body shape and finish. It was inspired by the $6000 Carl Thompson masterpieces I'll NEVER be able to afford (nor am I worthy of).

http://www.trixiestudios.homestead.com/misc.html

Overall I'm very pleased with how it turned out, although I plan to remanufacture the reshaped pickguard out of a thin durable piece of (dark stained) wood.

Let me know what you think!

[skip b]

Very Nice!!Indeed.

[KingFish]

I don't know why I always assume the worst, and expect to see something butchered, perhaps I should have a look at that, in a bit of self analysis.

Nevertheless, really nice job, it looks great !

[kojinsei]

Looks good! The AntiMatter inspirational bass is beautiful.

[Stone Knife]

Kingfish- That's OK, because most of those do-it-yersef' jobs are awful...
-But our pal BRB, not being 'most people' ...has done a fine job with this 'conversion'.

BRB- did the shape/finish change make any noticable difference in the tone of the instrument do you think??? Did you do the paint? It looks a bit like a violin finish and I like that a lot.

[Paul Curtiz]

as someone who thinks it's very hard to improve on the "classic" shapes, I think you've done an excellent job ! And the pickguard shape is waaay cool. I say Bravo !

[BigRedButton]

Thanks guys!

I agree, a lot of "improvement" jobs are anything but, but given the chunk of "less than perfect" alder wood had to work with; I'm pretty pleased with the results.

To answer some of your questions, here's the low down. All in all, the project took a week. There was a bit experimenting, a few happy accidents, and a lot of elbow grease.

I started the job by sanding off the layers of clear coat. I then tried removing the black paint using paint stripper, but to no avail. After five attempts with the paint stripper, I rolled up my sleeves and got to sanding (thank God for my Black & Decker hand sander).

To break up the monotony of sanding, I went to work on the pick guard. I drew the cut line on the back with a Sharpie pen and made the cut with a razor blade. It took about ten passes, and I had a nice even cut. I then smoothed the edges out with my trusty sander and I was done. Eventually, I'll recreate the "teardrop" pick guard with a thin piece of wood stained to match the rosewood fretboard.

After the paint was about 75% removed, I went to a friend's wood shop and the real fun began. I made the cuts to elongate the horns on a bandsaw, routed the edges with a 1/4" bit, and drum sanded all the edges, to the desired shape and finish. My hope was to use his planer to finish striping the top and back surfaces, but the guitar body was about 1 inch too wide for his planer (bummer), so it was back to the ol' hand sander.

After the guitar was back to it's "natural state", I began experimenting with stain. I ended up using a MinWax water based stain (color: Vermont Maple). The first attempt turned out pretty uneven, and I realized than even more sanding was necessary. After I resanded the entire body back to blonde, I stained the bass again, and after three coats, it looked really good. I then decided to stain the sides a darker shade than the top and back, so I masked off, and threw on another four coats on the sides. I was very pleased with the results, so after it was dry I applied the first coat of clear satin polyurethane. All was going well, then disaster! The second coat of polyurethane did not dry evenly and was very "globby". Ugh! Oh well, I thought, I'll just get some super fine sandpaper and remove the polyurethane and touch up any stained areas that may be affected. WRONG! The hard wood of the bass is not very porous, so the stain did not soak in very deep. As soon as my sander hit the bass, stain started coming off. Back to blonde again!

After the bass was returned to it's natural state once again, I restained it to the desired shade and then tried an idea I had though of early on in the project. I sanded the sides back to blonde and then masked of a thick strip on the top and back of the bass. After applying only ONE coat of polyurethane (which turned out VERY well this time), I had the exact look I was going for.

So far the tone of the bass does not seem different. The bass is (slightly) lighter in weight, so the tone must have changed, but if it did, it hasn’t been noticeable so far.

The whole project was, in part, an attempt at dipping my foot into the waters of custom guitar making. I’ve refinished half a dozen drum sets, and built a guitar (if you could call it that) in woodshop 16 years ago, but I’d really like to try building a couple of exotic custom pieces with the hopes of selling them. I’m not the greatest wood worker, which is where my good friend Luke comes in. Not only does he have a great shop, he’s an AMAZING woodworker by trade. I’d design the guitars, do most of the concept work, as well as the marketing and sales, while also trying to keep all my fingers in tact, and he'd supply the wood, and do the majority of the woodwork. We’ll see what happens, and I’ll keep y’all posted.

Does anyone else have any similar rebuild stories and/or pics? This could get interesting!

[jjhuntfox]

Have you seen this place? They are a great source for parts. The guitar necks are great.

warmoth

John

[Jorge442]

Hey, I think she looks GREAT!!
big improvement!

congrats and good luck!!!


cheers,

jorge

[da BaSsTaRd!]

if you keep sanding, its going to end up looking like this.