Reverb Fender '74 purchase

[andytoad]

On 12/04/2025 at 10:48, Alanko said:

Dark oak Briwax took the bright white out the edge of a pickguard for me. As it contains solvents it sort of etches into the plastic rather than sit on the surface.

Just purchased some, so will give it a try, good idea..

[Longwheelbass]

On 14/02/2025 at 20:11, andytoad said:

First up, the bridge. Its in a hell of a state, I don't know if I can free up the screws? If not, I'm thinking of treating with a dash of penetrating oil (careful of the body) over the period of a few days and then gentle persuasion with the screwdriver. 

 

Dissassemble, try to clean back the rot and see if the components are still usable. Possibly replace with a quality aged replacement.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Apologies, I'm late to the party. You did what I had to do to a 69 body that had rusted out bridge mount screws - the old 5mm diamond edged holesaw! Nice job. What you had on there was an aftermarket bridge. Those saddle height screws give the game away, they're Allen wrench, which didn't show up on US Fenders until the 90's. The saddles and intonation screws will be metric. I see you've made a lot of progress (on page 5) bass looks incredible. Have you had anyone look at those frets yet? Because I wouldn't replace them, by the looks of the closeup on page 5 there's still enough height on them for a pro to level, crown and polish them. Good luck!

Edited May 26 by Longwheelbass
Further observations

[JoeEvans]

I like the black pickguard a lot. Better than tortoise to my eye... It's looking amazing, great to see an actual, genuine relic!

[andytoad]

16 hours ago, Longwheelbass said:

Apologies, I'm late to the party. You did what I had to do to a 69 body that had rusted out bridge mount screws - the old 5mm diamond edged holesaw! Nice job. What you had on there was an aftermarket bridge. Those saddle height screws give the game away, they're Allen wrench, which didn't show up on US Fenders until the 90's. The saddles and intonation screws will be metric. I see you've made a lot of progress (on page 5) bass looks incredible. Have you had anyone look at those frets yet? Because I wouldn't replace them, by the looks of the closeup on page 5 there's still enough height on them for a pro to level, crown and polish them. Good luck!

Ah thanks for the positive vibes! Yup. It was an interesting exercise to get it off and sorted..I ended up getting attached to the dirty old thing so put it back on 😀

 

It's with Andy Crockett right now, I did end up with a fret replacement in the end, he is going to get it nicely set up, looking forward to getting it back..

Edited May 26 by andytoad
Spooling mistook

[andytoad]

3 hours ago, JoeEvans said:

I like the black pickguard a lot. Better than tortoise to my eye... It's looking amazing, great to see an actual, genuine relic!

Yes, I preferred the black one, I bought some Briwax on a recommendation from this thread. I quite liked the finish, forgot to add a photo here in my rush to get it to the luthier, I will correct that when I get it back...