In my thread about experiments in slurrying tru-oil with stained woods, I showed a couple of shots of a recently completed project – a 1970s bass in the style of the Alembic Stanley Clarke models. It was on a tight deadline, so I concentrated on updating a detailed thread on Basschat - which is where Mick the owner contacted me from – as a means to keep him up to date with the progress.
It’s all done and dusted and passed over to Mick, so here is a brief summary of the thread for anyone who might be interested.
Mick had bought an old 'project' bass (70's/80's) on fleabay and it turned out to be in even worse condition than he'd suspected. "Now who would be daft enough to take this on?", he must have thought ",....Oh yeah....that crazy guy who made that bass out of african balsawood...wonder if he's been let out of the institution yet...."
He contacted me. Was I happy to take a look?
Of course I was
Now when it arrived.....wow.
At first sight it looked OK. A bit Alembic Stanley Clarke (although emphatically NOT an Alembic)...definitely a bass of its time...not my kind of thing but quite characterful:
That black line to the right of the centre neck splice....hmmmmm...
Now that's odd, there's a black line this side too! Worth a closer look...
...then there was the 'go crazy with a blunt forstner bit' chamber:
Oh...yes...and about those body laminations...why use glue when you can use old marshmallows?:
This isn't the stripping commencing - this is finding out how deep that crack is ( and that's a 9" palette knife!):
So, Andy. Fancy tackling this, then?
Too b****y right Andy does!!!!
Comments
I'll be watching from behind the sofa.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/61134/sarge/p1
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In normal circumstances I would rightly deserve having a bigsby strapped to my nether regions and dive bombed viciously. However, it was a Basschat member I was doing it for so...forgiven?
The others will know, which is why they're keeping quiet...there's ALWAYS more to my repairs )
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein