MBD! (Modified Bass Day)

Rox

I picked up this Vester Bass last year, and it just never got picked up.  Sadly, I've got a gas attack for a black-black P bass type.

This looked a little twee with it's fiesta red and really thick poly.

Looking into the bass itself, it's a ply body, so I decided that it's no problem to mod it a little bit.  So yesterday morning, it looked like this:





So I stripped it down, got the heat gun out, some spirit stain and today it looks like this:







Believe it or not, they are all (except the vol and tone knobs) the same parts - including the scratchplate, which I managed to stain black with spirit stain...!

I stripped down the body with the heat gun, but the poly was really odd, and didn't come off in large bits, so I had to use a scraper and it sort of flaked off - very inconsistently.

The body is ply - and pretty rubbish ply at that.  I'd got a pot of black spirit stain that I liberally brushed all over the body and let dry - then put on another coat - sanded back some bits that hadn't taken very well, stained and sanded again.

After that, I topped the body off with some Danish oil.

The scratchplate was interesting.  I didn't want to paint it, but I discovered that fabric dye stains plastic by melting the very top layer of plastic and seeping in.  As I didn't have any black fabric dye, I wondered if heating the plastic up and then applying stain would work.

So, I sanded the scratchplate so it was a little rough to take off the shine, and brused on the spirit stain.  I then used the heat gun and the stain kind of seeped into the plastic.  I wiped the stain with a rag, and did the same thing again.  Then, I took my sander, and used that to sand the bevel on the edge to give the ply scratchplate effect.

Then, I did get my sander and just took some of the finish off of some corners and edges (not too much though!)

At some point, I'll buy a solid body and a black scratchplate, and just replace the ply body - it is truly horrible.

However, when I do get a blank solid body, I'll do the finish in exactly the same way.  I'm a bit flabbergasted, but the bass does sound better now than it did before the body was stripped down.

I know this kind of finish is not everyone's cup of tea, but as it was just a crappy ply body, I didn't see the harm, and it's worked out pretty well, I think.

The neck is really good, so I think this will end up being a 'Trigger's Broom', where I'll probably just keep the neck and replace everything else, bit by bit.

speshul91

I like the look of that a lot

Rox

@speshul91 - It's based on this - a bass I never should have sold.   This is why I really, really, really wanted (want ) a black / black P Bass.

speshul91

@rox I can see why now, I've just bought a peavey 5 string and been put on a gas ban and I want haha

Rox

A ban? By whom? Good grief man, put your foot down!

Rox

Oh, I forgot to mention that the one downside of heating up the scratchplate was that when I went to put it back on, it was a few millimetres smaller! 

speshul91

Rox;598238" said:

A ban? By whom? Good grief man, put your foot down!

by Mrs speshul @rox, I've got 2 basses, an active 4 string and a passive 5 string plus my flying v I built that does everything I need so the ban doesn't bother me, time to start building a pedal board methinks