Generic P Bass rebuild

[DeepEnd]

 

No - my bad on that - P Bass replacement nuts all seem to be 1 11/16 wide, (for sanding down to 1 5/8", I guess - why don't they just make them 1 5/8"??) . . .

In my (admittedly limited) experience this seems to be the case, most recently replacing the nut on a Strat copy with TUSQ. There's some leeway on either end (and in my case some extra thickness) so you can get an exact fit by sanding.

[gubu]

Hi guys,

The summer has been busy, so I've only gotten back into this project today.

 

I followed WRGKMC's advice, and used steel wool to strip the final layer of gunk off the fretboard - it worked a treat, as you can see from the pic I took while I was cleaning it. The lower 2 frets in the pic have been cleaned with the 0000 steel wool, while the upper ones still have that layer of black gunk.

 

Next, it'll be a final cleaning with naphtha and a toothbrush, before a quick treatment with lem-oil, and then it's on to the nut....

 

[DeepEnd]

It's turning out very well. Keep us posted.

[Radar-Love]

I know a lot of people use steel wool for polishing, but, I hate the stuff. The used "wool" debris seems to find its way onto and into all sorts of things -- especially magnetic pickups!

 

For a number of years, I've successfully been using a combination of 3M plastic abrasive pads and rough white terrycloth for cleanup projects. I only use the 3M abrasive pads if I absolutely need to, which is a fairly rare occurrence.

 

I've found that rough white industrial terrycloth to be an excellent polishing material. I use it with glass cleaner (Windex) to dissolve gunk / crud buildup. There's just enough alcohol in glass cleaner to do the job of cutting through gunk, but not alcohol to harm any finish that's susceptible to damage by higher concentrations of alcohol, such as rubbing alcohol (70 percent).

 

Of course, the glass cleaner is ALWAYS sprayed onto the rough white terrycloth polishing rag before the cleanup work begins. After cleaning the surface with the glass cleaner on the rough white terrycloth buffing rag, I follow up with a slightly dampened (water only) smooth white terrycloth rag. Usually, within a few seconds, all of the cleaning solvent residue will evaporate. However, if it too slow to evaporate, I will go over the surface with a totally dry smooth white terrycloth.

 

By the way, I use a small fan directed at the current work area to aid in evaporation. Also, if you are wondering why I only use *white* terrycloth, it's because the dye in colored terrycloth could dissolve if it is old and low quality, and white terrycloth will show me just what's coming off the dirty surface. I don't believe I've ever needed to use a toothbrush or any other brush to aid in the cleaning process. In some cases, for precisely directed work, I've used terrycloth on the end of a wood stirring stick

 

 

 

[gubu]

I should have given a more complete outline of how I used steel wool to clean the fretboard, so that the thread might be more useful to any DIYers who come across it while looking for info.

 

First off, the neck had been removed from the guitar, and I did the cleaning in my garden shed - to keep any steel wool particles well away from the workroom that I usually use, and away from the pickups/guitar body. I set up a small rug on my workbench in the shed to work on.

 

If you can't take the neck off, it might be a good idea to remove all of the electronics, pickguard, jackplate etc - or else you MUST tape over the pickups, controls, jackplate with masking tape.

 

During the clean, it's important to keep blowing the loose particles off the fretboard, and dusting off with a clean rag as you go. You can also use a vacuum cleaner, or a good magnet, to keep the neck/fretboard/body/work-area free of loose steel shavings as you go, but as I had removed the neck, I found that my way worked just fine.

 

Also important is to rub with the grain, or you'll end up with cross-grain scratching that will need to be done over. It is perfectly possible to clean right up to the butt of each fret by getting a little bunch of the wool under your fingernail, and scrubbing with the grain into the frets - the same as you'd do when cleaning with a cloth.

 

Once the clean was done, I thoroughly vacuumed the neck, bench rug, and work area to get rid of all the wool particles. As Radar-Love quite rightly points out above, you don't want those particles getting near the rest of your guitar. But with a little care, this need never happen.

 

On this particular fretboard, the gunk had gotten right into the grain, and will need a clean with a brush and weak solvent. The grain is pretty nice looking, and I'd like to clean it up as well as possible before oiling.

 

I hope that this is helpful to other DIYers !!

[WRGKMC]

Yes, steel wool is a bitch to work with and you do have to take precautions. When polishing frets with a neck and electronics mounted, my method is to use paper and masking tape to seal off all areas like the finish and pickups. This is what's considered normal procedure to prevent contamination and accidents. Any wool strands attracted to the magnets can be brushed away from the paper with a damp cloth and the rest gets thrown out with the paper when its removed.

 

Using fresh steel wool and not working it till its ragged out helps prevent issues with strands coming loose helps too.

 

Haven't had any issues with this procedure having used it for over 45 years polishing frets. Just so long as you use common sense and are careful you'll be fine.

 

I really haven't found a good substitute for 00000 grade steel wool polishing frets. I know Stu Mac makes some rubber pencil eraser type fret polishers, but I haven't tried them yet. The scotch pads can be used for some rough stuff but they are too rough for frets.

 

I can usually get close to a good polish on frets when I'm re-crowning them. I may use the file for the rough stuff, then I take the finest Emory paper I can find and take a strip and put it over the concave file surface.

 

I then go over the frets with the paper between the file and frets and it removes all imperfections. The paper is good for maybe 1 or two frets before it wears down (or gets filled with metal residue) As this happens the paper becomes less abrasive and polishes the frets quite well. Often times I don't need to use any steel wool for a final buffing if I use the sand paper properly. This is also very fine paper that barely removes much metal so I'm not too worried about accelerated fret wear. Again common sense rules here.

 

I have recently done some experimentation using some swirl remover. I had some finish scratches which needed fixing and I wasn't about to refinish that guitar yet. I gently used some 00000 steel wool on the area and got rid of the scratches. I was left with a hazy finish with the steel wool scratches. I had some swirl remover which I had bought for my car and figured what the hell, it cant hurt this old beast any worse then it is.

I had to use allot of elbow grease but I was able to eventually get a pretty good shine happening. I really need a medium then fine grade jewelers rouge and buffing wheel to do the job right, but I don't have a buffing wheel so I roughed it by hand.

 

I figured it worked well enough on that spot I'd give it a shot on a beat up tele neck I had. The neck was old and I had several areas worn by steel wool doing fret work. I wasn't concerned with having a high gloss any more and had already refretted it without doing a lacquer overspray afterwards. I actually prefer a non glazed fretboard so my fingers slide over it more easily. So I tried some of the swirl remover on the lacquered fret board and found that stuff did a real number on the frets themselves. The rag I was using turned black polishing the frets and they did come up with a super smooth high gloss.

 

I would never suggest anyone use this on a rosewood finger board or any quality instrument, Ant experimentation you do with Car Products is at your own risk. The two guitars I treated were for experimentation purposes so I know first hand what the results are and anything I do screw up I can either fix or I can afford to take the loss if it fails. Car polishes often contain silicone which is bad for guitars, especially frets which are pressed in. I don't want someone trying this on a rosewood fretboard then blame me for having all their frets pop up on them.

 

I tested this on a few guitar builds on my own and get some good results. I may be tempted to try it on my Rickenbacker neck next. I've refretted that guitar and the fretboard is lacquered. Its in fairly rough condition and I really don't want to overspray it so I may give this one a try just to see if it improves. The guitar is a 70's model and has some rough areas I'd like to spiff up and I don't want to refinish it because it will loose all its value which has been climbing up lately. I paid 350 and the last check it was selling for $1300 used so I want to try and preserve it if possible.

[DeepEnd]

I put a trash bag over the body and seal it off with tape. I go over the bag afterward with one of those bunny tail dusters and a magnet, and vacuum the floor in the surrounding area. Another thing that works for frets is one of those nail buffers available from drug stores (I bought mine from Walgreen's). I bought a couple that had different grades of abrasive on different sides and a foam core. I used them on the frets on my Strat. I thought it turned out quite well.

[Radar-Love]

During the clean' date=' it's important to keep blowing the loose particles off the fretboard...[/quote']

 

 

I would avoid blowing off any surface with compressed air, unless it was outside and far away from the door. Instead, use a vacuum cleaner to collect all particulate matter (steel wool grindings, gunk-dust, etc).

 

As for that distressed rosewood fingerboard, I would use Stew-Mac's Fretboard Finishing Oil restore and seal the wood. Once it has been applied and buffed after it dries, the finish will last for at least a couple of years if not longer.

 

http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_and_Supplies/Finishing_Supplies/Finishes_and_Solvents/ColorTone_Fretboard_Finishing_Oil.html

 

 

 

[gubu]

 

 

I would avoid blowing off any surface with compressed air, unless it was outside and far away from the door. Instead, use a vacuum cleaner to collect all particulate matter (steel wool grindings, gunk-dust, etc).

 

As for that distressed rosewood fingerboard, I would use Stew-Mac's Fretboard Finishing Oil restore and seal the wood. Once it has been applied and buffed after it dries, the finish will last for at least a couple of years if not longer.

 

http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_and_Supplies/Finishing_Supplies/Finishes_and_Solvents/ColorTone_Fretboard_Finishing_Oil.html

 

 

Thanks for the tip on the oil ! Stewmac's site has been very helpful during this project - a mine of information.

 

I just use my own puff to blow the particles clear, and vacuum later. No issues.

[Radar-Love]

 

Your Encore bass project reminds me a lot of my red Hamer Slammer P-Bass project from about 8 or 9 years ago. In the case of my (Made In Korea) Hamer Slammer project, it was a fully-functioning P-bass that was grimy and a borderline-biohazard that stunk like an old sock, except worse. :gag:

 

For several months, I had been kinda half-heartedly looking around for a "beater" P-bass, when I ran into this one. I figured that at a cost of $39, it could at least be usable for parts. The bass also came with a generic hardshell case. As I mentioned before, the bass was cruddy looking and stank like hell -- and even more, so did the inside of the hardshell case. I was warned about the condition by the concerned staff at Music-Go-Round (laugh) and that this bass was also a no-return item. After examining this Hamer Slammer closely, determining that the neck was strait without much fret wear and that the neck and body were nearly free of any nicks and scrapes, I bought it.

 

Once it was home, I sat the opened case outside in the sun to let the sunlight and whatever ozone was in the air to begin the disinfection process. The source of the stink was a fairly large amount of brown rancid human conjugated polymer (scientific jargon for stinky dried sweat and grime) that had built up over the years. Keeping the filthy bass, which was apparently never wiped down, inside the closed case just amplified the stink problem exponentially.

 

After taking the bass apart (neck off, pickguard off, electronics cavity opened, etc) and cleaning + disinfecting the outer surfaces of the bass thoroughly with glass cleaner on rags (i.e. -- diluted alcohol + ammonia on rough terrycloth rags), as well a bit of re-crowning on three frets with polishing on all of the frets, it was a assembled as a fully functioning and completely stink-free bass with a bit of minor relic-ing on its metallic red finish.

 

The rosewood fingerboard was cleaned and buffed smooth, then sealed with Stew-Mac Fretboard Finishing Oil (shown above in earlier post). The back of the maple neck was wet-sanded with 800 grit wet-or-dry carborundum sandpaper just enough to rid the surface of a few very minor abrasions and to make the playing surface on the back of the neck evenly satin throughout its length. Then the back of the neck and the whole body had a coat of Mothers California Gold carnauba paste wax applied and power-buffed to a mirror-like glaze (as much as possible).

 

The original P-bass pickup sounded fine and remained. I deciding to replace the pots, jack, and wiring, even though they weren't bad (yet). A set of new Dean Markley nickel-plated round-wound medium strings went on in place of the crud-filled strings that were removed immediately a couple of days earlier.

 

As for that stinky hardshell case: After a day of sunshine and fresh air with whatever ozone (this is important) that happened to blow into the case, the stink was very much still present. I distributed a boxful of baking soda throughout the case and closed the lid, then vacuumed out all of the baking soda the next day. The baking soda basically did nothing. There was no visible crud in the case, just the telltale sign of somewhat-matted black case fur. Next, I took an old soft tub scrub brush and combed out the case fur until it no longer looked matted. The stink was stronger now with the brushing. I tried airing out the case for a few months and tried baking soda once more, Febreze, and even some cheap ground coffee (a suggestion by someone). None of that worked as well as just airing it out in warm blowing air.

 

Gradually, over the past several years of having this case constantly open out in my garage -- and occasionally outside in the warm dry sunshine -- the stink has diminished. Last year, I closed the case for a month, then opened it. It stank once more, though not particularly strongly. Well, knowing that ozone is the ultimate stink neutralizer, I might have the case flooded with ozone gas professionally someday -- somehow, hopefully for free -- if I can ever run into the right person.

 

Meanwhile, my now-nice "beater" MIK Hamer Slammer bass lives comfortably in a gigbag.

 

[isaac42]

Did you try upholstery cleaner?

[Radar-Love]

Did you try upholstery cleaner?

 

 

I have yet to try carpet or upholstery cleaner in the stinkcase. Chances are it might do plenty of good if there is enough dry cleaning fluid solvent to dissolve whatever remains in the case fur so that it can be vacuumed out.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

PS: Forgot to mention that I used nitrile rubber gloves during the first (and dirtiest) phase of the Hamer P-Bass cleanup.

 

PPS: Elephant ear tuning machines were okay and remain to this day. Nut was okay. Truss rod worked and only needed a very minor tweak. Neck did not require shimming.

 

PPPS: Even tough it wasn't on the top of my list for the past few years, I finally found a "beater" J-Bass, to keep the Hamer P-Bass company, back around Christmastime last year. I really wasn't looking for a 5-stringer per se, but, a black Squier Active Jazz Bass V popped up at a nearby GC for a measly $129. The body looked a little bit hideous at first sight, as it had lots of little dull broad scratchy abrasions on the front and back of the body, all of which ended up being fairly easily buffed out. I suspect the previous owner was a teenager and was possibly overwhelmed by the big wide neck without inlay markers and ditched it in favor of something else more conventional. Nonetheless, the neck is actually great! It has a nice slick black Ebonite fingerboard.

 

Checking it out closely and test driving it at GC, everything worked perfectly and there was virtually no detectable fret wear. Still, after I got it home, I took the neck off, removed the bridge, strap buttons, and knobs, dropped the pots and jack into the cavity, and lifted the pickups and battery compartment off the body. Without disconnecting any wiring, I was able to power buff the body completely with DuPont polishing compound and apply a coat of Mother's California Gold carnauba paste wax to the exterior afterwards. I did nothing to the neck. After reassembling everything and reattaching the neck, I put the original (still decent) strings back on after a vigorous wiping with a rough Windex-laden terrycloth rag to remove any possible crud or corrosion from the surface of the windings. I wiped on some Finger Ease oil onto the strings to help preserve them a bit. The 9-volt battery tested a little bit low on the VOM, so it got replaced. That was it!

 

The 5-stringer Squier now lives in a gig bag, awaiting possible deployment with me to a jam session that I probably wouldn't want to take a nicer instrument to for various reasons (such as wandering stumbling half-blind drunks).

[WRGKMC]

Did you try upholstery cleaner?

 

I'd be a little leery about the residue that might be left behind. any kind of dry cleaning chemicals especially powders that could get on the finish and eat holes through a lacquered finish. If its poly you'd probably be fine. I'm trying to think of a non caustic cleaner that might do the same job. I know vinegar will take out odors. If it just smells bad I'd wipe the fur down with a damp rag with a little soap and water. If its mildew, ypou'd need something to kill that. I'd spray the inside with some Lysol, then use the soap after its dried to remove any residue.

 

Lysol does have alcohol in it which is very bad for lacquer but it evaporates fast and shouldn't harm anything. I use Frebreeze in my studio and it does a good number on killing odors. You could even use one of those pine odor eliminators you hang in a car. Just stick it in the pocket for awhile and it should permeate the inside of the case. Cedar chips in a cloth bag in that pocket would do the trick too and actually smell like wood. .

[gubu]

Fretboard is done. I had a few hours to spare on saturday, and got it finished, more or less.

 

Job done in the following steps:-

 

1 - Cleaned board with steel wool (as outlined earlier in the thread)

 

2 - Cleaned the board with 70% naphtha (we call it 'white spirit' on this side of the pond) and a toothbrush, and gave it another quick brush with wool, and a wipe down with a dry cloth.

 

3 - Masked off the board and sanded the frets with 'medium' wet and dry sandpaper. To be honest, they didn't need much. It looks like this bass hadn't really been played much, ever. The only real fret wear was up at the treble end, and was caused by the convex bow mentioned in the OP

 

4 - Polished the frets with 0000 steel wool

 

 

5 - The masking tape left a residue when it came off, so the board got another once over with white spirit and a toothbrush, and a final wipe down with steel wool.

 

6 - Oiled with Dr Stringfellows Lem-Oil, and the board ended up looking like this, which I'm very happy with:-

 

 

 

It's dried out a little since that first oiling, so it'll get another treatment with the Lem-Oil, and if that doesn't work, then I'll try something else - maybe almond oil - I've read some good things about it as a fretboard treatment. The proprietary fretboard oils that have been mentioned in the thread all look good, but as this bass cost so little, I'm happy to try some non-propietary alternatives. And, being honest, if I can find something from the local healthfood store that costs €2.50 for a 4 oz bottle, and works as well as a 4 oz bottle of something else that costs 3 or 4 times the price at the local guitar store, then it counts as a success.

 

Hoping to get the guitar and electronics reassembled this weekend. Then I have a 2 week wait for a new nut-blank to arrive from the US. The particular Tusq blank isn't stocked by anyone here in Ireland, and I goofed up the first one. No drama - it wasn't a problem with the nut, or with the nut who was shaping the nut !! But rather with the SLOT - I think I can home-make a tool for shaping the slot properly (cause I'm not spending €€€ on a 5/32" tenon saw), and I'm super excited about home-making some dirt simple, but hugely useable, nut files once the new blank arrives - more on that later...

 

 

O BTW, re: the smelly guitar case - I'd throw it on a bonfire, and take some snaps !!

 

Guitar-shaped box + fire = winning photos !!

 

_________________________________________________

[onelife]

nice work gubu

 

before and after pics of the fingerboard are quite striking

[gubu]

Thanks onelife

 

The aim of the thread is to show that, provided one takes care, that you can have yourself a fine instrument that will serve you well, for very little money, and without needing a suite of specialised tools. While hopefully learning a thing or six along the way !

 

So, hopefully, that point has come across so far in the thread..

 

[WRGKMC]

The fret board is looking way better. Those earlier picks looked pretty awful by comparison.

 

Not that it matters much on bass, But I do see some scratches on the frets going in the direction of the fretboard Grain. Maybe its the photo angle that highlights them. On a guitar those would act like a hack saw blade and chew your strings up. Unless you bend your bass strings allot its not as big a deal. I use ultra fine sand paper for my frets and run it across them to remove those kinds of scratches, then I use steel wood again in the same direction across the fret board and give them a mirror finish