CTN
The Drama Dude
So back at the beginning of the year, I brought home this hideous beast as a fixer upper project from my sister's fiance.
He also gave me his old yamaha bass to setup and fix the electronics in, but said that the explorer bass was mine if I was up for fixing it (the original pickup was busted, electronics didn't work, and jack was missing). Not a big deal. The neck also had the vintage tinted poly chipping off a lot on the back, and there was also this, at the nut slot.
So with some advice from Zerb and kilphody, I got this far:
Messed up the finish a bit there, but it's not a problem because I will be refinishing the whole guitar anyway (if you didn't already gather from the title). I spent January and most of February mulling over what to do about the godawful red finish. I don't like red. I thought about doing a chameleon green/purple finish like on some of the John Petrucci musicmans and the Ibanez Xiphos from a couple years back. But it's not really my thing. I wanted it to pop. Thought about metallic orange. Erm... nah. Kinda hard to find metallic orange around here, for some reason.
Finally settled on something I thought would look killer, and the bonus is that when it's done, I won't look like a child when playing it. (I'm a pretty small built guy, so large guitars like explorers make me look like a kid wearing his dad's jacket...or something)
Yes yes, I am doing this:
The headstock will be fully black, starting from right behind the nut, so the little piece of poplar I used in the repair will be completely invisible.
So the hardware is all off the body now, and I spent some time cleaning the bridge and polishing the giant brass saddles as well as the control plate back to pretty much new-looking. I'm by no means a serious bassist, so I just grabbed a cheap white covered P-bass pickup from ebay, made by Belcat. Measures 8.18k and has ceramic mags. Should be nice and punchy. I'm not expecting any miracles, cuz the body is plywood of all things, but at least the neck is a solid piece of maple. But since the cover of the pickup is solid and doesn't have any polepieces poking through, I thought maybe I could paint over the pickups themselves so it blends seamlessly into the body. Or maybe I could leave them white. I might paint over the control plate though. That I think would be less weird looking than the painted pickup.
Anyway, next steps are to strip the finish off the body and the remaining stuff from the neck and headstock, try to get out some of the dents in the body, and prep both for a new coat of paint. The back of the neck will be getting danish oil, and the headstock will match the body except for the silver (or should I do the headstock in a silverburst too? overkill maybe?
He also gave me his old yamaha bass to setup and fix the electronics in, but said that the explorer bass was mine if I was up for fixing it (the original pickup was busted, electronics didn't work, and jack was missing). Not a big deal. The neck also had the vintage tinted poly chipping off a lot on the back, and there was also this, at the nut slot.
So with some advice from Zerb and kilphody, I got this far:
Messed up the finish a bit there, but it's not a problem because I will be refinishing the whole guitar anyway (if you didn't already gather from the title). I spent January and most of February mulling over what to do about the godawful red finish. I don't like red. I thought about doing a chameleon green/purple finish like on some of the John Petrucci musicmans and the Ibanez Xiphos from a couple years back. But it's not really my thing. I wanted it to pop. Thought about metallic orange. Erm... nah. Kinda hard to find metallic orange around here, for some reason.
Finally settled on something I thought would look killer, and the bonus is that when it's done, I won't look like a child when playing it. (I'm a pretty small built guy, so large guitars like explorers make me look like a kid wearing his dad's jacket...or something)
Yes yes, I am doing this:
The headstock will be fully black, starting from right behind the nut, so the little piece of poplar I used in the repair will be completely invisible.
So the hardware is all off the body now, and I spent some time cleaning the bridge and polishing the giant brass saddles as well as the control plate back to pretty much new-looking. I'm by no means a serious bassist, so I just grabbed a cheap white covered P-bass pickup from ebay, made by Belcat. Measures 8.18k and has ceramic mags. Should be nice and punchy. I'm not expecting any miracles, cuz the body is plywood of all things, but at least the neck is a solid piece of maple. But since the cover of the pickup is solid and doesn't have any polepieces poking through, I thought maybe I could paint over the pickups themselves so it blends seamlessly into the body. Or maybe I could leave them white. I might paint over the control plate though. That I think would be less weird looking than the painted pickup.
Anyway, next steps are to strip the finish off the body and the remaining stuff from the neck and headstock, try to get out some of the dents in the body, and prep both for a new coat of paint. The back of the neck will be getting danish oil, and the headstock will match the body except for the silver (or should I do the headstock in a silverburst too? overkill maybe?
:beerchug:
