NOBD...or maybe OBRD...Precision refin, in any case!

[EliasMooseblaster]

I wasn't sure whether to call this New-Old-Bass-Day, or Old-Bass-Reborn-Day. I finally finished a refinish of the faithful old P-bass copy that my father and I bolted together from a kit about 12 years ago.

The kit was bought from Brandoni Guitars, who I gather are still going. Over the course of about a week, we assembled her and attempted to French-polish her, until she looked a bit like this: (on the left)


She's about 10 years old in the above photo. It wasn't long after this that I took the strings off to let the bowed neck rest. Last summer I decided to sand down what remained of the battered old shellac finish and give her a new coat. I also bought a nice Fender '62 RI pickup off the Bass Doc so I could upgrade the old one. And a nicer scratchplate. So as of yesterday, she looks like this:



Quite pleased with the finish, so I just wanted to share the shiny with you all! I'll see whether I can post a better quality shot this evening (i.e., that wasn't done with a cheap mobile phone camera).

[Fionn]

That looks really nice. What type of wood is the body?

[EliasMooseblaster]

Cheers! I've never been sure about the body - it's something quite pale and relatively light, so we suspected poplar or ash but couldn't say for certain. We stained it with a bit of brown Ronseal before the original finish, and then I used quite a dark brown shellac on the refin, so it's certainly not its natural colour any more!

[EliasMooseblaster]

As promised, a high-quality photo: http://thecrowfrombelow.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/after2cropped.jpg
(Quite a big file, so I've linked rather than posting!)

Also, if anyone wants to read about it in a little more detail, I've had a little ramble about it on the old blog: http://wp.me/p2GOWH-3e