Restoring a basketcase

I was doing my usual trawling for 2nd hand pick ups and came across a semi destroyed bass guitar that had a pick up I wanted, so I bought the lot and decided to restore/rebuild it.

The previous owner had taken it apart to refinish it and lost interest (I found out why, later)
It came as a box of bits, and with only a few missing pieces of hardware I had lying around was able to get it to playable condition.

And it mostly looked like this:
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Looks ok, eh?
It sure played ok.

Sadly it also looked like this:

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and this

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So.. I haven't owned a fretless bass guitar for years, and decided it might make a good project.

At this point I hadnt made up my mind on what to do with the body.

nice one Beef, so are those pics how you got it or is the front photo after you restored it ?
fretless bass's are awesome

My word, you are on the ball. I just posted this!
No, thats the $100 wonder bass as I got it.
The Lace pick up was the clincher.

So I set about the basically pointless activity of removing the incredibly thick paint and sander sealer.
And even after about 15 coates of stripper, and a liberal dose of heat gun, it still looked like this.
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The sander sealer looked like congealed honey, and while the very thin enamel(ish) gloss came off pretty easily by comparison, I was wonderign if the other gak would ever come off.

Then I realised I had access to one of these.
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wow what an absolute mess Beef getting the paint off.
Yeah those flap wheel sanders are awesome. Great for sanding the cutaways and hard to get rounded surfaces

Next day I had it looking pretty much like this:
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You can see the heat gun damage to the back, where it has gone orange.

My original idea was to go and copy Pino's bass in dark burst.
But in my practice room was this plank ...

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Stupid ideas began to form in my mind.

Meanwhile, I needed to do some ironing.

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And they all came out as neatly as a meth-head's teeth. (Probably neater)

come up pretty good Beef considering how thick the paint and sealer was.
Whats the idea of heating up frets before you remove them, does that make them easier to remove ?
That's a new idea !
What colour are you staining/painting it and will you fill the pickguard screw holes and leave the pickguard off ?

My most played instrument doesnt have fret lines or markers, so I wasnt keen on the whole lined fretboard idea, so I tried to match things up.
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Filling the fret slots with mahogany vaneer and glue from the nice timber yard out Windsor, NSW way.

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Cutting them off with thing Id never heard of called a Japanese saw.
Sanding them down and staining the board a few shades darker.

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After a bit of a sand and tidy up, I realised all the neck side position dots are in the wrong place, so I whipped them out, got some dark wood filler, and also addressed some minor nicks in the neck, and restained the whole neck a few more times.

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I also took the time to remove the original logo from the headstock.
Interestingly the timber had 'aged' around the big black logo, but leaving the unstained neck out on sunny days resolved this in about 20 hours of direct sunlight.

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The frets come out easier if you heat them up, just softens up the glue. Some people use a soldering iron.

wow looks excellent Beef. What did you use to stain the fingerboard ? looks ebony colour - well done

A colour called Japanese Black from the locally owned timber and hardware.
Its not black black, but it lets some of the grain show.

I have to admit, the body looks like garbage.
I dont think any amount of staining or lacquering is going to make these six slices of packing crate make for a good finish.
The up side of this, is it reaffirms my theory that active pick ups could make a cricket bat sound good.

It was then after some practice and arranging of things I decided to do this to the body:
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It is mezmerising!

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I live in a lovely small old house by the sea, so there aren't really any dedicated workshop places. Its one of the things that drew me to pitbull guitar kits and the dingotone product. It could all be done in the kitchen and around the house.
I was thinkng I would have to hand paint an acrulic over the top, but would have preferred to spray.
At first I had been against spray lacquering because I could not think of a place that the instrument could be left undisturbed by others in my family and by my cats and dogs.
Then it hit me.
Where do I go to be undisturbed by my family and cats and dogs!
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the dunny is your spray booth wow !
so what is the shiny finish Beef ?
So must be Feast Watson Japanese black ?

As some of you might be able to see on the headstock, it has the major brand name logo decal on it now.
You will be pleased to know that where the "TM" is meant to sit in the centre of the logo, I got the designer to replace it with the word "FAKE" and it looks awesome :D

22 karat gold leaf from Thailand
:D

wow Beef what a different idea !

Loving this project! Way to go!

One of the best parts about this project was needing to find out more about gold leafing, and getting sprung by my (adult aged) son wanting to know why was watching this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHTFw2gt5Io

Also, you guys may not suffer from the puerile sense of humor I do, but scroll on thru to about 5:28 for about 10 seconds and see if you can hear the words that had me cracking up for far too long :D

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Not wired and torsion bar adjustment is settling in, but happy with everything else so far.

looks pretty cool Beef, presume there's no clear coat, how tough is the gold leafing in terms of knocks and scratches ?

there are about 10 clear coats :)
sanded with 1500 grit between the last half dozen

gold leaf is about as tough as cigarette ash, you cant actually touch it

ah ok nice one Beef, so the clear coats looks like it hasn't dulled the gold colour

That's a unique idea SB.