The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Gibson Basses => Topic started by: Dave W on April 13, 2019, 09:31:14 PM
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An ongoing project, recently started. I'm following.
Part 1
https://youtu.be/eo7OLNDiOIw
Part 2
https://youtu.be/y_fnIkP4RME
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Nice project.
He is a bit of a butcher isn't he.
The way he removes the tuner ferrules with the screw driver. And the bridge inserts with the claw hammer.
And the endless fumbling with the clamps for that little piece of wood near the neck joint...
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I kind of like the format...it's all a bit gung-ho and warts'n'all. It's almost like watching an early edition of New Yankee Workshop.
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This will be a fun project to follow.
I skipped around through the videos, so I'm guessing it will get a solid color finish.
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This will be a fun project to follow.
I skipped around through the videos, so I'm guessing it will get a solid color finish.
It will be solid white.
Seeing what can go wrong, like the chip from the body that came off with the neck, makes me glad I'm not into restorations.
His technique so far does look heavy handed. OTOH he's openly telling the viewer what not to do if you're planning a faithful restoration.
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Well, he points out often enough that normally they would do it much better :)
Good to see someone posting a vid of this, two of my own EB0 hack projects and one guitar SG were similar ant ended up white. It's indeed a good colour for the sg shape.
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Oh yeah. My main bass teacher when i was a wee young lad was mainly a guitarist, and his main guitar during our lessons was a white SG custom (3-pickup) with a black pickguard and a vibrato bridge (can't remember what kind but didn't look like a Bigsby; google suggests possibly a Maestro).
That thing was gorgeous.
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Just posted an hour ago.
https://youtu.be/KSF76QH56j0
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That was fun!
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This is a joy to watch. Cheers Davey lad.
It's weird, we dumped our satellite TV subscription a couple of months ago and I'm finding that the lack of Discovery Channel nonsense washing over me is forcing me to go out and find channels like this guys on Your Tube.
Man alive , if this guy is doing it for you, you need to check out Baumgartner Restoration (art restoration), Marty's Matchbox Makeovers (an Aussie guy who restores old toy cars), and Andy Phillip (who specialises in turning gnarly old wood into bowls, then soaks them in coloured resin, then turns them again).
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Does anybody have a clue what this sort of work on a body costs?
I have a bass I will never part with ('82 Ibanez Blazer that has suffered mightily on the kitchen table),
both for sentimental reasons and because in its current condition it's worthless to anyone but me.
A much easier job since it's bolt-on and the neck is okay, but the body is probably roughly equivalent to that poor EB0.
I occasionally ponder having the body stripped, holes filled, and painted white... but I'm afraid it would cost an insane amount for what is essentially just an old budget model.
The bass cost $200 in 1982 and you can buy them in much better shape on Reverb today for $400... but then... those aren't *my* bass.
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Does anybody have a clue what this sort of work on a body costs?
That's the downside :) Unless you have a workshop and skills (to a certain point) it's a money drain. To have a luthier (or two) work on a hacked up EB-0 until it is perfect (and a paint job) must be far more costly than saving up for a good one without mods and just have it set up.
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Is it just me or did he remove a lot of material from the body unnecessarily?
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Is it just me or did he remove a lot of material from the body unnecessarily?
That is not just you, First thing I thought.
Feels almost like he could have made an entire new body for the same amount of work and material involved.
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I think his approach of opening up to the bottom of the body requires less skill than a well made plug.
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Is it just me or did he remove a lot of material from the body unnecessarily?
Absolutely. Just dowel the bridge holes and fill the pickup rout, done.
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He did remove a lot. We don't know what the customer's budget was, though, and what they discussed. I'm guessing that the customer is okay with what he's doing.
Absolutely. Just dowel the bridge holes and fill the pickup rout, done.
As he pointed out, that often causes the outlines of the plugs to telegraph through the finish. Veneering eliminates that problem.
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Here's a question. After plugging, veneering and refinishing, will the bass be more or less original than if he'd just replace the P pickup with a second mudbucker and leave the original worn finish?
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Here's a question. After plugging, veneering and refinishing, will the bass be more or less original than if he'd just replace the P pickup with a second mudbucker and leave the original worn finish?
In my opinion, it's no difference. I still say go for it, if you have a good Gibson bass that is allready tampered with, it's OK to make it your own dream bass. What someone else did to it in the past does not matter, or what you do to it. But to have such a job done to it (like in the vid) will depend on your wallet size. I'd rather have a plug popping through the fin (and I do have a couple) than have someone veneer it.
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In my opinion, it's no difference. I still say go for it, if you have a good Gibson bass that is allready tampered with, it's OK to make it your own dream bass. What someone else did to it in the past does not matter, or what you do to it. But to have such a job done to it (like in the vid) will depend on your wallet size. I'd rather have a plug popping through the fin (and I do have a couple) than have someone veneer it.
:rimshot:
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Here's a question. After plugging, veneering and refinishing, will the bass be more or less original than if he'd just replace the P pickup with a second mudbucker and leave the original worn finish?
Less original. Wouldn't look good with the cracks showing, of course, and that's probably why the customer chose the way he did.
Re: mudbuckers, since he removed the Model One, is he planning to replace it with a period-correct mudbucker, or reinstall it? With all of the non-original body modifications, seems pointless to replace the Model One. We'll see.
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Part 4 is up. All about pulling the frets. He should have sped up parts of it.
At one point, when he was having trouble with a fret, he said "geez Louise!" I never heard anyone say that until I first moved north of the Mason-Dixon line. So I did a little searching. Turns out he's located in Arvada, Colorado. Go figure.
https://youtu.be/NcLcZBveoQQ
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We'uns here in Coloradio are noted fer our moderate speechifying.
(https://cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2002/04/1.gif)
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He does have some tasty looking Tele-inspired guitars at reasonable prices in his Reverb shop (https://reverb.com/shop/texas-toast-s-gear-emporium).
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I also think he removed way too much wood. By all means plug the additional routes and bridge holes. At that point route a shallow rectangle into the top of the body and then patch this section in (Dan Erlewine did similar to a Telecaster that has a big Bigsby route in the body, on Youtube). Hogging out all that wood to depth of the P pickup route seems like total overkill.
I would like to see a breakdown of costs before I buy the line that the owner was working to a budget, or whatever. This method requires more time hogging out the wood and more mahogany to perform the repair.
From all of this I get the feeling that people are more precious about the level of invasive work when restoring a Fender instrument. Gibson basses are more likely to see big, invasive repair work for fairly trivial jobs. The guys putting pre-CBS P basses back to 1962 specs try and preserve as much of the original bass as possible. This guy restoring a '67 EB-0 basically blew 1/4 of the original wood into the wind to save a bit of time and effort. I sense the playing field isn't level here.
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Part 5 is just out.
https://youtu.be/3KR7SkSXNVo
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Nice!
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Nice work. But completely over the top if you ask me.
With less effort you could make an entire new body that was as good as the original. Without all the hassle that he's putting the poor thing through.
But hey, he loves what he's doing. That's what matters most I guess.
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I agree Rob.
I do enjoy when he says things like "...so you don't dick it up".
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This guy seems to like to make a lot of extra work for himself.
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Nice work. But completely over the top if you ask me.
With less effort you could make an entire new body that was as good as the original. Without all the hassle that he's putting the poor thing through.
I keep thinking the same thing. I can't see how this can be 'for fun and profit' even if someone got this for free.
It's like one of those hilarious tv-shows where they they restore old stuff and sell for a 'profit', not counting in the dozens of hours
of restoring done by professional craftsmen.
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Well, he says it's a buddy project. Also, if you look at many of his other videos, he obviously enjoys showing how he does things.
Rob is right, though, it would be a lot less work to make a new body.
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With less effort you could make an entire new body that was as good as the original. Without all the hassle that he's putting the poor thing through.
Gotta agree. Once I saw him glue the 1/4'' to the front and back, I was like "Uh... really?"
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Part 6 is up.
https://youtu.be/oGnln0UV1SI
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Hmm, I wonder what part seven will be like. Watching the edges at 4:50 it looks like there's quite large gaps between the old body edges and the veneer. When reshaping the veneer to original shape, I expect there will be a visible seem on the surface close to the edges front and back. That would'nt be a problem if they stick to the original solid white finish plan. Now he's talking about a stock finish and that's a see-through.
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I've lost interest. Too much talking... :-X
Plus I saw another video from him with a neck joint that clearly showed gaps, while he said it's a perfect fit...
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I enjoy these updates, but I do skip through them quickly.
I'm inclined to say he's dong things the "right" way by salvaging as much of the original wood as possible.
Whether or not it's worth the effort is subjective, and I haven't watched his other videos.
This reminds me of the work that Lou Moritz does on SG guitars.
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I must say I'm less enthusiastic now than after watching the first video. I estimate another 10 bodywork vids before the paint is shot 8)
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I must say I'm less enthusiastic now than after watching the first video. I estimate another 10 bodywork vids before the paint is shot 8)
He does like to explain and show things in detail, doesn't he? The finishing process is where I expect a lot more videos from him.
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Here's a fun LP project to follow from Lou Moritz, mostly pictures with a couple of comments:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/StMoritz-Guitars-150305525052357/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2262159310533624
For instruments like these, I feel like the restoration becomes part of its story, and documenting the process brings its own value.
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Here's a fun LP project to follow from Lou Moritz, mostly pictures with a couple of comments:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/StMoritz-Guitars-150305525052357/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2262159310533624
For instruments like these, I feel like the restoration becomes part of its story, and documenting the process brings its own value.
Now that is impressive! I looked over several of his other photo albums too, including his custom builds, Beautiful work.
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Here's a fun LP project to follow from Lou Moritz, mostly pictures with a couple of comments:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/StMoritz-Guitars-150305525052357/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2262159310533624
For instruments like these, I feel like the restoration becomes part of its story, and documenting the process brings its own value.
Thanks for the link; most of my instrument project these days are old broken SG guitars and basses - cool to see how he repairs.
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Part 7
https://youtu.be/4WqLMHRsXOw
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I am enjoying these videos; it's just interesting to see these old basses get broken apart and worked on.
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All that restoration work for a bass that has at least 50% chance of a future owner adding a bridge pickup.
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I missed the bit where he restores the factory routing to the top of the body. How did he do that??? Template, guesswork?
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I don't remember whether or not he showed that.
Considering all the time he's taking, I hope his hourly rate is low.
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No sign of part 8. I wonder if he gave up? :mrgreen:
I was reminded of this thread as I saw something cool today. The guy routing my Tele has an Epiphone Rivoli body hanging up in the entrance of his shop. It is stripped of all hardware, finish and... err... neck!
He showed me the neck. The previous owner tried to make it thinner, but hit the trussrod in the back. He then kept the bass in the garden shed for years, so the rod is exposed and rusty. He removed the headstock veneer (any guesses why?) and decided to steam the neck off the body. On the first pass he pulled a fret, drilled through butt of the heel, and missed all the glue joins entirely. On the second pass he yanked another fret and was able to steam the neck off. Solid butchery.
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He went to NAMM last month and just moved shop last week, probably too busy.
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He must have been listening to us. Part 7 is up. Progress is slow.
https://youtu.be/_nO7GVJ4A6I
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:bored:
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He's back.
https://youtu.be/VnCsvJq9N4w
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:bored: