wesfinn

Thanks guys for all the kind words! This bass may be for sale in the next week or so. PM if you are interested!

I'm making a relic replica of this bass! complete with fuzz switch!

It's a shame Fender never actually did a production run of Precisions with blocks and binding. I've got a few pictures of custom orders that came out of the factory in 66/67 and they just looked so great! The Dimarzios are definitly a great pickup, I had a choice of this or a duncan and the Dimarzio won me over as soon as I put it in!

cheers guys! I'll get some sound clips up soon too as this is probably one of the best sounding basses I have ever heard!

Some of you may have seen the 61 P bass body I finished restoring a few weeks back in the Build thread section of the site. Well here it is in its new glory paired up with an original 69 Jazz neck to make a lovely franken-fender! This bass has completely blown me away sonically and I think it looks absolutely fantastic. The jazz neck has a really nice medium profile and is really fast. weighs in at just under 9lb. so heres the specs Restored 1961 P bass body with 1962 neck plate Original 1969 block and bound jazz bass neck and tuners 70's Dimarzio P pickup Vintage repro wiring harness and paper oil caps Ultra thin nitro aged sonic blue finish and heres some pix

Thanks guys! you should do it Robbie, it's pretty satisfying to bring something back to life! Look forward to hearing from you Stinson!

Clear coats and tinted coats on with pickguard area 'unfaded'. Will leave this for a few weeks to cure then flat and buff. I'm going to give this a light workhorse look with a bit of forearm wear back to the primer and a few small dings but nothing major. That will be done in 6 months time hopefully I will have more original parts for this by then. If anyone is interested in buying the body however I will sell it seperately! so it went from this... to this Bit of an improvement don't you think!

Got the sonic blue coats on today. The camera doesn't really show how nice it looks. It will have a bit of depth to it once the tinted top coats go on too.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='902255' date='Jul 22 2010, 07:39 PM']That 808 looks great! Any reason you replaced the originals?[/quote] They were long gone! it had been used without ends for about 15 years! making them was a nightmare! each end was a different size and I had to rout the inserts to accomadate for random PCB's and wires!

primer coats are on and plugs are now invisible! I have drilled the connecting channels from the pickup and under the bridge for the earth wire. I am going to finish this in sonic blue now after looking through my new fender book and seeing an awesome early 60's example! also finished off this little non-bass related retro loveliness....Walnut end cheeks for an early Roland 808! it sounds amazing! Wes

the stuff from tonetech is great. they use the same stuff for tins or aerosols. also if you want more colour choice try www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk his colour matches are fantastic in both forms again. it's all about practice, aerosols are easier to use but still over order your spray to get some practice in first!

Of course its not. I will be showing the rest of the stages of the finishing on here when I get round to it. heres a brief run down of how this body has been finished -Final sanding with 400 grit then give body a blast over with an airline to clear the pores out -slightly thinned nitro sanding sealer -then sand back to bare wood -grain filler(clear) is then applied using a credit card to take off the excessleaving the grain filled (available from www.tonetechluthiersupplies) -sand back again and repeat grain filling stage and then sand back again -good wipe over with panel wipe -apply blonde finish to face of instrument, fast misty coat..flip onto nails adn then fast misty coat for back and sides -if applied evenly and thinnly theres no need to sand between coats -second coat to face and back, fast misty passes again. then the sides need to be more opaque so these are sprayed slower at a 45 degree angle to get a smooth transition from sides to face (much like a burst)..repeat till you have desired depth. -then a couple of clear coats and leave to dry for a few weeks before flatting and buffing. hope that helps

updates coming soon. I have had lots of customer work to do which comes first! Thats the problem with having a fulltime job alongside doing this, theres never enough time to crack on with the other things like this bass!

[quote name='johnnylager' post='896904' date='Jul 16 2010, 09:44 PM']Another fine job underway, Wes. [/quote] Thanks mate should be a nice body when I'm done with it. then Ive just gotta collect some vintage parts and a neck to make it an early 60s bitza!

So heres something i've been staring at for a few weeks wondering when the best time would be to tackle this every so slight restoration of a 1961 P bass body.... It was originally 3TS and the original finish is still present in the neck pocket and cavities. I won't be able to refinish in 3TS due to the sections that need filling so I think I will finish the body in black. (this may change depending on what mood I'm in when it comes to it!) Heres what it had ended up as over the years Note the chiselled in Jazz pickup and chiselled control cavity extension! NICE! The biggest problem with this body aside from the rest of the shoddy work is the fact that it weighs a wopping 7 1/2lbs....why I hear you ask.. well one previous owner thought that it would be a good idea to rout in a brass block under the bridge! I figured it wouldnt be too deep down, but I was very wrong!The block goes all the way to the back of the bass (theres about 1mm of wood left under it!). I spent a few cups of tea pondering about how to set out on bringing this thing back to life and eventually drew up a plan. I decided that the best way to takle the issue of getting the brass block out would be to simply band saw a square cunk out of the body taking away the issue of the terrible jazz pickup 'rout' and the block in one! I then removed the finish from the face and back, Luckily there were no more nasty suprises under the finish which needed filling and the bass was still around 41mm thick. I then cleaned up the edges of the area which had been cut out by hand and then set about making an alder plug to fill the massive void! The plug had to be a very tight fit and was glued then hammered into place. Once dry the plug was planed down level with the body and the plug was rounded over on the edge on the table router. there were a few little gaps left around the plug so I filled these using alder dust/pva mixed together to form a filler and then left it to dry. Also while the back was drying I added the pin router hole and dowell onto the repaired section where it would of been. This wasn't really nessecary but I want to restore it as best as possible! Now to tackle the control cavity 'rout'.. This needs to be over routed using a rectangle template leaving me with a nice squared section. A plug is then made in the same way as before and then glued and hammered into place. the plug is then flushed with the body and then the gaps filled with the alder dust as before. I then use my 1960 P bass control cavity template to get the cavity back to something recognisable. The control cavity is not 100% due to the previous owner beigh chisel happy and removing bits around the edges to probably try and fit an actove circuit in! The body has now been fine sanded and is ready for the sanding selaer/primer which i will do sometime soon. Wes

the thing you have to remember is that everybody is different in how they like theyre bass set up. Most shops will offer a free set up tweak to your liking if you are going to buy the bass. The set up might not of been to your liking but to some one else it may of been nice, never be afraid to ask the shop to give it a tweak while your there though as it may just be a 3 mintue job and that could be the difference between them making a sale or not.

I am the same as in I always go back to a Precision as my main bass. My custom shop 59 in my avatar is a fantastic bass though the price was pretty high. Thanks to bassbod for giving me and my basses a mention on here. Custom is always a good option if you want to specify exactly how you want it to feel and might not be as expensive as you first think! good luck finding what you are looking for!

gilyaronguitars.com

yeah he is AMAZING. Hes a lovely guy too though he keeps some of the smaller details close to his chest. I don;t blame him though! He has been a big help for me in terms of finding out the real niggly details of things. He doesn't use the notch washers on his stack knob circuits either, this is another thing that has led me to believe they werent on the originals because he does EVERYTHING as it was done originally. Have you seen his new 59 les paul replicas he is doing? they are absolutely mindblowingly accurate!

I am trying to find out what it was too. There a guy in Israel called Gil yaron who makes the most amazingly accurate replica guitars you will find. he mods his pots to get the correct vintage value. He hasn't said what they the values are though. It's why i would like to get my hands on an original circuit to check them!