Stripping In The Blue Light District

The Ibanez body is quite a dark brown color. I thought it was a solid paint finish for many years, but if you take a fresh look there is definitely a decent bit of woodgrain going on underneath a heavy lacquer.

The bass is a lawsuit model dating from the mid-seventies and has had some remedial work carried out already. The original Gibson three-post style bridge was replaced (quite rightly) and a thumbrest was ditched. The holes left were filled with wooden plugs and under the dark lacquer the repair work was practically invisible. The bizarre shaped cutout that looks ideal for storing ice-lollies was hidden away under a scratchplate.







Half way through the paint stripping and Chewie & me are wondering if perhaps we have been a little bit hasty. It is looking quite rough now. Talking about different new paint finishes keeps us going...



Once the paint stripper has done its chemical nastiness, we attacked the surface with sandpaper. It was like trying to sand glass. At this stage other uses for the body were found, such as the latest in guitar-inspired lingerie...






It took power tools and some good old fashioned grunt to shift whatever was still clinging to the wood, but evetually the mist started to clear. The paintjob had been hiding quite a nice veneer. The body could now be seen properly and was constructed from five layers of differing thickness hardwood (plus two [ash?] veneers), with the grain direction changed on alternate layers. With the contouring on the body these layers show up as go-faster-stripes. When the hardware gets bolted back on, this is really going to look smart.

Back in the land of fboard lights, the plastic dots have been shaped using 6mm and 8mm formers. The dots have been glued into the board and here are the results:

Funny how turning the lights on makes the wood get darker...

Plane Sailing

The neck laminates are all stuck together so it is time to clean them up a bit and see how it looks. I used a smallish (10") plane which is good for getting the surface smooth. I also splashed out on a longer plane (22") which is better at keeping the surface as flat as is possible.

Being hardwood, it all takes more work than I would like. One of the side effects of planing is that the edges form really good sharp corners. Rubbing hands down the freshly planed surface to is not recommended, I managed to get an evil splinter from the wenge. It hasn't come out yet - it seems to have barbs on it! Be warned...

I chose the most suitable side for the front and set about cutting the head angle at one end. This was also planed smooth and allows me to easily tell which way round the neck is. I used a fairly modest angle of 8deg.

During this time I also offered to repair a bass with a snapped truss rod. My mate Chewie used to play bass back in the days of Head Cleaner and after several years the trusty old Ibanez 2354LB went "boink" and the neck turned into a banana. For some time the bass has been no more than an ornament, but now, if all goes to plan, can possibly enter a new phase of debananarisation.

The repair work had to be carried out on a realistic budget as in good fettle the bass is probably not worth a great deal. The googleit approach gave a few different options to try: heat, acetone, water, powertools.

The acetone method was favoured as it loosened the nut successfully and promised the least amount of actual work. We stood the neck up and kept pouring acetone into the truss rod slot at the top, but after an hour there was still no sign of the fingerboard releasing. The paint finish was responding unfortunately...

A small amount of the adhesive was scraped off and soaked in water. Nothing. It was then dried out and put into an oven at 150degC. Nothing. The glue must be the same as the wallpaper paste

NASA used inside the shuttle!

Out came the Dremel with a mini circular saw cutting between the edge of the fingerboard and the neck. This was then finished off with a hacksaw and then I was in like Flynn.

Sure enough the truss rod had gone due to a combination of shearing and rust. I expect Newcastle Brown Ale was to blame for both.