Fender headstock repair question - maple veneer to cover up past sins ..

[bostonguitarrepair]

Hi guys,

I'm looking at a potential project - for a customer that is - that involves a headstock that had been doweled to cover up past damage from "extra" tuners on a Fender headstock - I don't have the bass in hand to see what was actually done, but sounds like someone wanted a 6 string or 8 string (like the idea I was exploring) Fender - but they decided to do this experiment on a real '63 P-bass.  DOH !!!!!

Anyway - the headstock has been veneered once - and right now the bass sports a matching headstock and body, but the owner would like to put the bass back to a classic 3-color sunburst - with a natural headstock.

I may be able to strip the headstock and it will look ok - or - I may have to peel off the veneer and re-veener it.

So my questions:
- has anybody done this in the past, or seen the end results, and how good can it look ?
- any advice on what kind of maple veneer to look for ?
- I'm assuming contact cement to glue it on - any other suggestions ?

I will be heavily ambering the headstock to make it look like a 60's headstock would now - so that does do some coverup.

I welcome your advice and observations.

Krishna

[Bart!]

Personally I would use woodglue. I would not know what kind of maple veneer to look for, other than to thoroughly look for a part that has the right kind of grain. It seems aal very do-able to me. The part that would worry me the most is the sunburst refin, very easy to do that wrong.

[bostonguitarrepair]

The problem with wood glue is that I'd have to make sure I had pressure applied all across the surface long enough for the glue to set ( a few hours).  But I agree that for the long-term I worry how well contact cement will hold up.

And I'm not too worried about the sunburst - as long as I have a good sealer coat underneath I can always wet sand off the red and walnut and "do over" .

Plus - practice practice practice ...

[Dave W]

If you're considering using a solvent-based contact cement (rather than water based) then I'm not aware of any long term problems. I wouldn't advise using wood glue on a thin veneer like that.

I would avoid any figured maple veneer, just because it wouldn't look original. An early 60s Fender is very unlikely to have any prominent figure.

[drbassman]

I don't know, I would use a Titebond with a thin veneer.  I did it on my 1998 LP total top veneer and it's holding fine.  This stuff was only a mm or so, not thick at all.  I wouldn't worry about getting good pressure evenly across a Fender headstock.  An entire body?  Yep, that's a real pain I can tell ya.

[Bass VI]

+1 for Titebond, a contact type cement will leave a thicker glue-line. You will want to use a veneer that appears flat or plain sawn as most older Fender ( see Mod Dave, I can spell it out  ) necks were made from that cut of maple. Are you going to veneer the back of the headstock also? It would be more difficult to disguise, but if there are a million holes in the back it might be worth it. I have seen this done before and it actually looked pretty good, you may also have to take into account the "plug" at the end of the fingerboard if the bass has one.

Best Wishes,

S.

[drbassman]

Yep, I do remember someone telling me once that contact cement may not hold up well under a lacquer finish.  May have been the folks in the refinishing forum.

[bostonguitarrepair]

I'm only planning on doing the face of the headstock, since apparently the stock tuners cover up most of the atrocities on the back.  Hopefully I'll get this bass in my hands this weekend and be able to assess the situation myself.

Thanks for the advice guys - always helpful.

[drbassman]

Yep, I was only thinking the face or back.  Either surface should be easy to treat with a veneer.

[godofthunder]

 Late to the party but I agree with the Titebond for the veneer.

[bostonguitarrepair]

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   

[drbassman]

Good luck with it, should be interesting once you get into it.