Adey

If we get asked for requests by the crowd, our singer will usually ask them "do we look like a fecking juke box?"

Usually does the trick...

We played at Dublin Castle on Thursday night.

Seems to have got fair reviews....

😁

😁😁😁😁🤘

As it stayed a bit too wet and humid to think about doing any paint spraying in my garage, I decided to finish of the fret job and do the levelling.

Fret board protected

Levelling in progress after truss rod tweaked to get the board as flat as possible

Levelling and polishing done.

Unfortunately, when I took the tape off the fretboard, it pulled out part of one of the dot markers. One was already partly missing on 3rd fret. I have a matching marker now on the 5th fret. More shopping to do now I guess and another job to do...

After seeing Guns N Roses I thought that Duff McKagan's Jazz Special was really cool and so ended up buying one.

But the coolness hasn't really rubbed off on me yet...

To be honest, it sounds like it is beyond repair.

I'll PM you my address so you can send it over for disposal at no charge....

It seems that the secret about how good the Westbury guitar range was has got out now and prices are going north quite quickly it seems.

A nice Custom went for close to £1000 recently, and the Standards are also fetching good money.

I've got a battered Custom, a slightly road worn DELUXE, a Track 2 and this Track 4 (OK, it's a Track 3.5 at the moment...).

Find yourself another one yourself and have a blast! You won't regret it.

Good spot! Corrected now!

🙃

Because it was a wet day today and I thought that it wasn't the weather to go spraying nitro in, I decided to slap a few frets back in....

I had to use some CA glue to hold them in as the slots had been opened up a bit when cleaing out all the old filler from when it was originally defretted. Some still needs cleaing up in this photo.

I tidied the fret ends up and then gave the fret board a good dose of lemon oil as it was extremely dry (you can see where my slightly greasy fingers from eating a cake made the fret board much darker initially at the first fret!)

Levelling up the frets will have to wait a bit.

After oiling it is a lot darker all over.

My attempts at disguising the filler in the gouge on the front aren't going too badly so far....

After applications of dark brown stain with a brush to get a "mottled" finish

a few more coats to go and then I'll flat it down and try and do a bit of fake graining before a spray application of more stain and then top coat.

Watch this space.....

The gouge was a bit of a nuisance, but I have decided to try to re-fill it and disguise it so I can re-finish to look like the wood again. The paint stripper softens it up, so it had to be removed anyway.

After a bit of sanding, re-filling, re-sanding and re-fillilling, it looked like this

I found the best way to sand was to wrap wet and dry around a rectangular pencil rubber so it could bend around the contours of the carved body.

More paint being stripped off

Asymetric horn wasn't original after all and someone had dug a big gouge into the front of the body...

Other than that, the old finish was in really good condition, if slightly roughed up for a key to the blue paint

I'm curently planning to make it look original (ish) if I can, but I quite liked the Pelham Blue colour too.

As the finish on Uncle Mats instruments are designed to resist atomic attack, I "had at it" with paint stripper.

I bought this rather sad Westbury Track 4 recently with the intention of restoring it.

At the time, it wasn't clear of it was a one off factory special with asymmetric horns (it has a "Custom" truss Road covert after all), and had the German carve around it that had been rustically de-fretted....

.... turns out it had been butchered....

Oh well. Best fix it up anyway. So here goes.....

I might start re-fretting this weekend if I get a chance. Sanded the fretboard to get most of the wear out of it last weekend and cleaned out all the fret slots.

Now I've seen the build diary thread I'll stick it in there when I get a chance.

I think you are all mixing this up. It's actually the Modgold Shirleyator....

.... if you assemble it that way at least.....

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

Sold for £206...

Yes. That was pretty much my top bid on it.

It'll be a bit of fun doing it up.

The re-fret will be fine as I've done a fair few before. It isn't too difficult if you have the right tools.

2 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

Are you going to do a build diary thread on it?

I've so far stuck a load of pictures on Weatbury FB group page showing the paint coming off and what's underneath.

I'm in process of trying to get it looking like it's meant to (albeit that the bottom horn has be trimmed off a bit).

There was a big divot carved into the top under the paint for some reason. I'm having to fill that with wood filler and will try to "fudge" the wood grain through the dark translucent finish.

... If it ends up looking shite I'll prob paint it a sold colour.....

It's sitting on my bench at the moment.

Paint stripped and various odd holes under the paint being dealt with...

White City Vultures.

I was working on BBC Television Centre demolition and refurb at the time...

Heistercamp do some really nice looking ones. I might treat myself if I get a bonus this year!

As I'm a normal height - 6'5" (most other people are abnormally short in my opinion...), I find most straps are too short.

I found XLStraps.com a while ago. (They seem to unfortunately stopped trading I see when looking for their website) They did quite a few styles so I have a few nice wide and long (or "normal") length 3+" wide leather straps.

I'd like some more, but it seems I'll have to look elsewhere now....

My bass - It's just a lump of wood?

My music - It's just a load of notes.....

But not necessarily played in the right order

My band played the Water Rats in Kings Cross on Thursday night. Everyone said we sounded great, which just goes to show how important a good sound man is! Thanks Emile!

We've all done that - using a hot air gun to remove the old finish before a bit tru-oil. It'll look great after a handful of coats.

It might need a bit of wire wool between coats though....