A charity donation!  The owner has given me this to tidy up and put on sale with the suggestion that any profits go to a service charity.  It’s not a fantastic guitar but, since the owner is donating the instrument, then I think it only fair to donate my time to the project.

The hardware will need a bit of a clean, the vol and tone are both a little loose so I’ll take the pickguard off and have a general tidy and clean-up.

The nut has been damaged so I’ll cut a new one, I’ve got some bone blanks that are about the right size.

The neck has quite a back bow, admittedly its got no strings fitted!  I’ve already got the neck off and mounted in the jig ready to level the frets.

Now its held flat I’ll level the frets, they don’t need dressing but on a guitar like this levelling them off will drastically improve the paying action.  Once that’s done I’ll re-string it in the jig so that I can adjust the truss-rod with the strings at pitch and so get the correct set in the neck before mounting it back on the body.

Having got the neck securely levelled I had a good look at the frets.  Although not particularly worn they are a little uneven, not unexpected on a guitar like this.  Using a Stew’ Mac’ fret rocker I marked up the high spots, just to get an idea of bad things are.

For fairly fine jobs I like to use self adhesive sanding paper on a levelling beam.

The beam ensures I get a nice flat datum, reduced to the lowest point.

Just about done….

Now that the fret tops are all level I just need to round them all off again.

Frets levelled, re-crowned, and polished.  Cleaned off the wood and added a little lemon oil to bring it back to life.

While the neck is off I’ve cut and fitted a new bone nut.

I’ll need to finish off the string slots once the strings are fitted.

Both the Volume and Tone control Pots’ needed replacing but since the pocket in the guitar is very narrow I had to order up a couple of narrow bodied ones.  However re-wiring complete.

Body done. All I’ve got to do now is put the neck back on the jig to get the truss-rod tension set before re-fitting it to the guitar for the final set-up.

Now that the frets and fretboard are nicely finished the last thing to do is get the truss-rod tension set.  Back on to the jig, this time with strings at normal tension, and adjust the truss-rod so that there’s about .004″-.006″ gap at the 7th fret (half way up the neck).  Some people actually prefer a flat neck but I like a bit or relief.

Once that’s done bolt the neck back on the body and set up the action height and intonation.  Job done!

A word or two from the new owner:

I now own this bass. I saw it before George worked his magic on it and it was looking a little tired and in need of some TLC. Once it was complete there was a real difference to the action and the feel of the guitar. It looked a lot brighter and  apart from a couple of very deep gouges that couldn’t just be polished out it looks and feels as good as new. Top job completed by a decent bloke, many thanks!!!!!