Manton Customs

A tinted lacquer would be the way to go if you really feel you need to change the colour. A stain wouldn't work very well (even after stripping the original finish) as the woods used for acoustic tops (Spruce, Cedar) don't dye/stain well, often resulting in a splotchy uneven colour. Adding tinted lacquer would require a few of the toner coats then ideally followed up by clear coat. If you didn't strip the existing finish beforehand you'd likely end up with a rather thick coat on the top, which is less than ideal and could alter the tone a little as mentioned above. If you stripped it back it'd be a fair bit of work, but you may end up with a thinner finish than the factory. However you would need to make sure the rosette is a "real one" rather than a decal buried in clear coat (as they often are on cheaper guitars).

If you're not in a hurry and nobody else has already sent you a PM I could help out. Mega busy so couldn't do anything for a while though. Send me a message if you're drawing a blank elsewhere!

Generally if you haven't done a lot of this type of repair it tends to end up looking worse rather than better. But with some practice, it can work well. The video below (drop filling with superglue) is the best method if you're finish is not Nitro. If the finish on your bass is Nitro, then thick Nitro lacquer is the best material to drop fill with, as it will burn into the surrounding finish. If you want to find out if your finish is Nitro, test it with Acetone on an inconspicuous area (like inside the control cavity)...if the Acetone damages the finish, then it is Nitro. The Gluboost product which @ikay posted above is essentially the same process (colour and superglue), they just give you the pigments to help match the colour. Also the glue and activator is supposedly a bit better, but I've never used it. I use the method below when I have to. The problem you may run into with superglue is witness lines around the repair as it does not burn into the surrounding finish, so some skilled blending is needed. Here's a before and after pic below of a repair I performed recently. This one came out invisible, but it wasn't missing any colour which made it a bit easier. before- after-

Not a bass I know, but a cool story so thought I'd share. The guitar is an EKO Ranger, made in Italy in the 1960s. While it's nothing really special in itself, it has great sentimental value to the owner as he has had the guitar since new, when it was given to him by his wife as a present. Disaster was just around the corner though as early on he tried to fit an output jack to the lower bout, unfortunately instead of fitting an endpin jack, he decided he was going to fit it on the lower bout... in the thin side wood. So when he came to drill for it, the side split and it generally made a mess. He repaired it, but the fix was....umm how shall we say - less than professional! So I was asked to put it right. Here's the mess, while it's certainly ugly looking now, it's about to get a lot worse. Some sanding revealed the repair, there's wood filler, screw holes and a piece of plywood around 3 times the thickness of the side! You can see by all the light coming under the straight edge here how far it's been pulled in and distorted. Without drastic measures (coming up!) nothing can be done to make this look right again. Obviously having a 1/4 piece of ply stuck to the side of the guitar is less than ideal also... Problem solved...an extra sound hole (joking of course). In case it's not obvious, here I have cut out the damaged, distorted, ugly wood and removed all traces of the repair. Here's the "repair" I dug out. As mentioned above, he used a very thick piece of ply, then drilled holes in the side of the guitar to insert screws to pull in the repair to the side. It was never going to work and there was still a decent sized void between the ply and the side, so he filled that with expanding polyurethane foam! Now onto my repair and filling the large gaping hole. The best material to fill it with (and any hole in wood) is wood of the same species, being a guitar builder I have no shortage of Mahogany and some of it is quite old, meaning it's very stable. It's also nice to replace material with wood of a similar vintage. But first I need to make a frame to support the new patch of Mahogany. I also make this frame out of strips of vintage Mahogany, making sure the strips are a good deal longer than the patch to give plenty of gluing surface. They also need to be bent to match the side of the guitar, this is done with steam (and patience!). In this picture you can see I have bent all the frame material and the patch itself (on the left). You'll have to ignore the dodgy pickguard on the guitar, I'm guessing that's another story! Here's the frame all glued into place. I used traditional hot hide glue, which is exceptionally strong and period correct. The strips are glued to the side of the guitar and also to the kerfing on the bottom edges. Now I glue in the patch, using a caul which I made up to match the profile of the side, this is made up of two pieces off a body blank screwed together to give the required width. This caul ensures even pressure during the glue up. A nice tight fitting patch all glued into place. It needs to be a tight fit as if there were any gaps you could get problems with the patch "telegraphing" it's outline through the new finish over time. Fortunately no gaps here, just a few lacquer chips round the edge which will need to be taken care of during finish prep. I mask off anywhere I don't want lacquer and spray a couple of coats of clear Nitro to get an idea of anywhere which may need more work/levelling. I repeat this process until I'm 100% happy before spraying the colour coats. Then I mix up some black Nitro to match the original finishes colour. Here the colour coats have been sprayed, the masking on the binding removed (the binding gets clear coated, but obviously not painted black!). This is the clear coat straight out of the gun so there's a very slight spray texture, but so minor it won't require too much wetsanding and it's reflecting a clear image (i.e me!) without too much distortion. I now need to leave this for a month before proceeding with 1000 grit and through the grades before buffing. The finished article! No trace of the repair and straight sides! Thanks for watching.

You'd be looking at approximately £80-£100 from a full time pro luthier. Obviously less from hobbyists, but you get what you pay for with a fretless conversion as the board needs to be levelled properly.

It'll be Poly. Fender stopped using Nitro in 68. They continued to do the headstock face in Nitro until sometime in the mid 70s though.

It's called a drop top. Generally more common on guitars for some reason.The forearm carve is cut into the body blank before the top is glued on, then the top bent to the contour. It only works with fairly thin tops and sometimes it's necessary to score the underside and pre bend the top wood to avoid cracking! A vacuum bag isn't a necessity (it can be done with clamps) but definitely a benefit!

Yep, I'm happy to admit I'm wrong on that one part as Sandberg are doing just that, I'm rather surprised by it though and believe it really is not the best approach, or necessary if the correct wire was used in the first place. It's certainly not the normal procedure. If they wanted a bit extra clearance they could simply install a zero fret the correct size (i.e slightly larger, not so big it needs filing), or not level the zero fret when levelling the other frets. But perhaps there are some other things to be considered that we wouldn't be aware of when it's at a factory producing a large number of basses. I really have nothing against Sandberg or zero frets at all, and apologise if I hurt anyone's feelings.

Yeah, you'll see in that response from Sandberg that they say they use a higher zero fret. That is not the usual way, but it obviously works for them. Can't see the point to be honest, they're sort of using the zero fret as a metal nut. Why not start with the right size wire in the first place. The usual procedure is to have the same wire as the rest, this gets levelled along with the rest of them. This ensures perfect action at the nut as it's the same height as the surrounding frets. Sandbergs way does not.

I'm not expecting anyone to do anything different than they have been doing for decades. The correct clearance is built into the bass in the first place. That's one of the main benefits of a zero fret (aside from the more even tone with opens) - that you get the perfect clearance at the first fret without any fiddling. You will never need to go lower, or that will result in not enough clearance....think about it - if all things are equal and you went lower at the zero fret, that would make the zero fret shorter than the height of the first fret. You may need to go higher as the zero fret wears (like the OPs) but you can't do that on a regular nut anyway. The trade off is that if a harder material is not used at the zero fret, you will get wear rather quickly as the string is making constant contact and the strings are often harder material than the zero fret (Nickel silver). FWIW, I've built a fair few guitars and basses with zero frets...

Sorry but that's not how it works. With a zero fret equipped instrument the correct height at the first fret is set by the height of the wire used for the zero fret. No decent manufacturer, tech or luthier would ever file grooves into a zero fret to lower the height.

No that's not normal unfortunately! It should be unmarked and the nut holds the strings in place. Your zero fret is wearing out. Lots of manufactures use stainless steel zero frets to stop this happening so quickly. Those grooves will effect open notes, so you'll get buzzing when playing opens soon (if you aren't already). The fix is to pull and replace the zero fret.

The 3M fine line has a low tack adhesive and you can get a low tack version of the frogtape I mentioned also. But don't leave the tape on there any longer than you have to - the longer you leave it the harder it is to remove. Regarding buffing: not essential no, it depends on the type of finish you're going for (satin, gloss or anywhere in between) and how high your standards are. You can definitely play it by ear as you go, and stop when you like what you see. However chances are it won't really look very authentic without some level of gloss. A vintage bass will typically not be uniformly satin and still look fairly glossy, less so than a new instrument, but not looking like someone has attacked it with fine grit paper (you'll see sanding scratches in certain lighting conditions). I'd use a coarse or medium compound to achieve the look you're after.

Sounds about right. A few extra things - Don't use ordinary masking tape for the headstock face, or your colour will likely bleed under and you won't get a nice line. You need a vinyl tape like the 3M fine line, or Frogtape also works well enough. Don't sand your amber coats and do your best to keep them even. You'll obviously need to wetsand and buff after about a month too, so make sure you have built up enough lacquer to do so.

It's a job for a luthier or someone with some experience... unless you're ok with the possibility of ended up with a mess! Things to keep in mind if you have a go at it yourself: The truss rod rout - don't touch the centre if you want to play it extra safe, or do so with great care and a magnet. If you carve into the truss rod rout the neck will be irreparably knackered. How you're going to keep it even and accurate - I use facets drawn up on paper beforehand, then transferred to the neck. You need to plan ahead and know what profile you're trying to achieve (rather than just having at it!). Consider how you're going to refinish it afterwards, things like - What type of finish, if you're going to strip the whole thing, or how you're going to blend old and new finish. The concerns regarding stability afterwards might not be completely irrelevant but seem to be often over exaggerated, I've never had any issues with that, but if you got too close to the truss rod rout you could have issues. Small differences in the profile = a big difference to the feel so err on the side of less rather than more wood removal.

While all that is very accurate, it really only applies to instruments which have not had proper fretwork done. Which is actually a lot of mass produced instruments, typically the frets are not levelled on these at the factory - just installed using a method which is very consistent to ensure they are level. However it will produce that slight hump you describe. This doesn't happen when the frets are levelled by any good luthier as they will always level the frets along the string paths. Which removes this (very slight) hump.

Ah! I didn't think it looked that lacquer like. As mentioned above - drop filling won't work quite as well, as the repairs won't burn into the existing finish, so you'll see witness lines between old and new material. However if you're not worried about it looking perfect you can still use a similar procedure, except instead of using Nitro, use super glue.That's the recognised way of drop filling Poly. But a refinish of the headstock face would be the best bet....or just leaving it.

What @Norris said, (provided it is definitely Nitro) would be the fix. How come it's Nitro, is it a vintage P bass? I don't think you're in much danger of losing the decal though, unless there is an underlying finish adhesion issue or you keep whacking it into things . So the option to just leave it as mojo is there. If you do decide to fix it- Wood dust on Maple doesn't really work, Maple is too pale and the wood dust will darken when glued/finished, so the filled areas will actually be more obvious. I can't actually see an application for it here anyway either. Also if you buy Nitro sold for spraying equipment it will speed things up, as the aerosols have a lot of thinners in them, so most of what you put down evaporates. The spraying type comes with a higher solid content and is supposed to be thinned to spray. Where you buy it from will depend on how thick it is. I have some here which supposed to be thinned 50/50....it's very thick and treacly which makes it good for drop filling. That's what this technique is called by the way, so if you want to do some googling of "drop filling lacquer" you may find some more helpful info. Anyway, you could perhaps buy a bottle of the spraying variety for the drop filling the larger areas and an aerosol for the final over coats if you don't have spray equipment. It may also be good to start with the thinner stuff so you can wick it in there as Norris described. You should definitely be able to solidify it, but it'll probably not look perfect.

Meguiars Ultimate works well (smells good too) and if you want mega levels of gloss and more importantly an even nicer smell you can follow up with their ultimate polish too. That's a finer version of the ultimate, so it's still mildly abrasive - does little for removing scratches, but gives an extra shine. I also really like the Menzerna range of compounds, they seem to perform a bit better than Meguiars, but are less available without buying online. As others have mentioned take care not to burn through round the edges, but usually the factory poly is very thick, so quite difficult to burn through with this level of compound.

As explained in my previous post there is too much exposure on the Ebony fingerboard picture, it is in fact as black as Ebony gets. Both basses are lacquered, not sure why you'd think otherwise, unless you're actually suggesting that the colour can affect the tone. If that's what you're getting at - the black bass was dyed rather than having colour coats sprayed, so there is no additional finish thickness. Not having a pic of the headstock is an odd observation, they are on my website but I'm not allowed to direct people there, so have tried to avoid doing so. Sorry I can only laugh at black v.s chrome hardware and I'd be happy to do so in the face of an "aggressive audiophile" too You can not tell the density of a piece of wood by looking at a pic like this and darker does not mean denser. This is Indian Rosewood, the most common species used for instruments and well below Ebony in density, stiffness and Janka hardness. The Ebony is certainly not sapwood. Both pieces are rated as AAA grade by the suppliers due to their colour. I've included another pic at the end of this post of the headstock where you can see the Ebony and how the light is over exposing the pic in places. There are no shims in either neck pocket, I would count that as a failure if I built a bass which required shimming from day one. As said before both necks are cut from the same board and the same dimensions, so they are both under the same stress and required the same amount of truss rod adjustment. No, I didn't use a torque reader, one generally doesn't when screwing into wood. So I really don't think you have noticed any additional variables, apart from the Chrome hardware thing....lol

:)...Just the lighting of the photos, the Ebony has direct sunlight on it and is buffed to a high sheen so it's reflecting back a bit. The Rosewood pic was taken on a much greyer day, so looks a bit darker than it is.

Ebony Rosewood

I suppose! I do believe the woods make a small difference, but it's not that relevant of a difference for most people in any real world situation. This difference can be heard to a certain extent in the clips, it's definitely there, but it is fairly subtle. It's more pronounced acoustically, but these are electric basses. Both basses sound nice to my ears and if there were any characteristics there I didn't like I'd use the EQ on my amp (obviously not in the test though!). But I can't say I have ever had to do that before to make up for something which I believed was caused by wood choice. I don't believe there is one wood which is going to make an instrument sound either amazing, or unpleasant. I have used some seldom used woods (perhaps never) in guitar building and not one of them has sounded completely different. Just subtle differences again. As some woods in the same species can vary massively (Ash can be featherweight or a boat anchor for example), I don't think there's any way of accurately predicting how the bass will sound as a whole based on the species of wood picked. Especially when you start using multi species laminate necks. Another area where the tonewood thing gets a bit difficult is describing the tone...it's really not that easy to do and some people will hear different things. I've had people describe the tone in these clips in completely the opposite way that I hear and would describe it. So I generally pick my woods on suitability, stability, weights and appearance. Those things will affect the ownership experience far more than any slight differences in tone. But I'm not saying it's not there, or that this is the only way to see it.

Step forward the one guy who voted option two (Ebony, Rosewood, Ebony, Rosewood) you got it right :). Thanks all for voting and commenting.

Answer day tomorrow, thanks for the votes and comments so far.