The Last Bass Outpost

Back,not done fixin,


top with stain and  grain filler. gonna sand tonight I hope

Im gonna have to decide on opaque green or a natural reddish  finish ,that red residue is  a PIA!

You need to get all that grain filler off the SURFACE of the wood - its a lot of hand sanding - I used a small rubber teardrop cross section sanding form I got at Rockler and it worked well.  I think it will look very good once you're done sanding off the excess filler. This looks almost exactly like what I went through with the Starfire I redid natural - see the archives or my website for pics of that process.

You will not get the red out of the end grain on the neck nor the sides - been there and tried that - as popeye would say "Imposski-bill!!!".

can you post a pic of that 'stang? i love daphne blue.

The Mustang is still coming along - needs the final buffing out - but meanwhile, here's the 1971 MusicMaster I redid in Daphne Blue, but with no yellowed overcoat, since they didn't clearcoat the Musicmaster's in the 70s.

I LOVE this color !!

I think you're going to have to subtly stain the patches - with some red in there it looks - so that the base color matches.  The transparent green is a pretty dark color though and I bet it will obscure a lot of the differences. 

I'd use a darker grain filler so that the grain is visible through the darkish green tint -  ideally the filled grain should look like little black dots under the green finish.  But make sure any join lines are filled before applying the filler - cuz the filler will enhance those lines too otherwise.

Maybe this is all stating the obvious.

Krishna

I shouldnt even get into this discussion - since I'm a liberal pinko elitist - blame it on formative years growing up in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and too much reading of the International Herald Tribune and NY Times .. and my mom.

But here's an observation (no I dont have time to get the actual numbers) - I believe the US has one of the highest rates of per capita private gun ownership - on par with the "tribal" areas of Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Israel.

We also have gunshot mortality rates on par with those countries - with the exception of israel - where the reason there are a lot of guns is that a big chunk of the population is actually in the military reserves.  So I'm not even sure if that qualifies as private gun ownership.

So how bout this - if you want to own ammunition - you have to be willing to be conscripted for 2 years - it'll give you training, a career potentially, help out the nation and teach you how to be responsible with a gun.  Of course, conscription should include non-combat options hopefully !

if you just want to own guns - e.g. - a gun collector - no problem, you just can't get ammo for them.  Kind of like all the guitars I have that I NEVER plug in actually.  I guess the musket owners could get around this restriction by casting their own shot and mixing their own black powder, but its REALLY hard to do a drive-by with a muzzle loading musket !! ... Gotta drive REAL SLOW!!



Oh by the way .. I watch the Colbert Report a lot .. so .. maybe take this post in that context ....

Got a look at the bass in question finally - a great player - and remnants of an odd modification - looks like someone had made it into a 6 string at some point - and thats what was doweled and veneered over.

The face of the headstock was painted - and the dowels were just barely visible - even though there is veneer OVER the dowels - I thought that was odd - the veneer must have been very thin - it wasn't really visible from the edge due to the painted headstock just barely wrapping over the edge.

Bottom line is that I'll just have to strip the face of the headstock to see what I have - I'm worried that the veneer may have sanded through or come close to sanding through above the dowels - surprising thing was the doweled areas seemed slightly raised as opposed to sunken - I'd have expected the repair wood to have shrunk vs. the wood of the headstock, not expand.

I won't be getting the bass to actually work on for a little bit - so it may be a little while before I have a substantial update on this - but so many other "fun" projects   

Replying to my own question:

I tried a 63 P-bass that had a Seymour Duncan Antiquity 2 P-bass pickup installed - and it sounded a lot more like what I'm used to - not "clanky" at all.  They aren't cheap - but they are a lot cheaper than finding a working grey-bottom pickup these days !

Krishna

Chris - the bass is a complete 64 - so it will have a clay dot 1964 neck on it.  The only non-original parts on the bass are the pickups  and the knobs.  It played beautifully before I took it apart and I'm sure it will once I bolt it back together.

Dave - re ReRanch lacquer - I haven't had any durability problems with it, though it does need to be overcoated unless you're going to do a LOT of color coats.  I just have more control of how heavy the paint goes on and what kind of spray pattern I get with my two HVLP guns - so touching up an "oops" is easier, plus doing things like burst finishes is much easier and more reliable.  The other issue I had with one ReRanch refin I did was that when I switched cans to touch up a refin (this was for a Daphne Blue refin) the color changed slightly - meaning I had to recoat the whole guitar.  I think the reason had more to do with me not shaking up the can enough and making sure the pigments were fully blended - and this can happen with any tinted color, but seems easier to visually confirm that my paint is mixed when its in a mixing jar !

That being said - I'm just finishing a Dakota Red Musicmaster bass - with a ReRanch can - and it looks great !!