I received the bass safe and sound. First thing I did was take off the hardware and work on stripping some of the paint off the headstock looking for a serial number. As yet, nothing. It's had two sets of tuners on it in it's life though.
Haven't stripped the neck yet, but dang is that one smooth neck. If it's repaired it's the best job ever.
Both original pickup cavity and the added j pup cavity are red. Hmm. Was the j pup cavity painted red to match the original Cardinal Red finish? Who knows?
Control cavity is also red.
Is it normal to have a gap in the neck pocket like this?
This photograph makes me think that the entire bass was stripped and then repainted. The original bridge was replaced and nicely, with an aftermarket bridge. My theory is that the entire bass was stripped and repainted. I also suspect the easiest course of action was to repaint it red if it was originally red. If the entire thing was stripped though, who's to say? That is some beautiful mahogany though.
Someone had painted the pickguard black. In the original eBay photos you could just see the Thunderbird stamp.
Not knowing what type paint was used, I started off experimenting with brake fluid (which model builders use to strip old model kits before rebuilding them) and model paint thinner. Turns out that using a dish washing scotchbrite pad, the thinner worked out quite well. The weird spot to the left of the pickup hole is actually distorted material. On the backside is an area which looks exactly like too much model glue was used when gluing to pieces together. It's bubbled and rough. Fortunately it's not terrible.
