Rogue Vogue's USA Fender P/J bass

Next up is a repair for my good friend and DJ/producer Rogue Vogue a.k.a drummer extraordinaire Jonathan Marks.  Jonathan wanted this bass back to functional for use in his studio.  He wanted to have a bass that could cop the old school 70's funk and disco vibe.  We decided on flat wounds for the strings to help.  Took the bass out of the case and noticed a few things right off the bat.  This thing was looking pretty rough.  Lots of mojo on this one, chips and scratches and dents galore.  The strap button on the horn was ripped off and a huge gap was there instead. Plus there was what looked like finish cracks all around the top horn.  After some further investigation it turned out that it was actually just really old duct tape residue.  So I went at the body with some cleaner and rubbing alcohol to get all the grime off.  It's looking much better already.

And here is a shot of the repair to the horn from where the strap button got ripped out.  Patched it with dowel and wood glue.

So then I plugged it in and noticed that with the cable all the way in there was no sound.  Started to pull the cable out a bit and heard some sound.  Decided to open it up and take a look.  Removed all the pickguard screws and knobs and tightened up the jack.  That took care of it.  Then played tittie twister on the knobs for a minute or two to clean the pots out.  All good.  

The other major thing I noticed about this one was there were some pretty significant dings in the neck. They seemed like they were only in the finish.  So I figured that this would be a great candidate for a neck refinish.  I decided to use a technique that a lot of guys are using now for "relic-ing".  First thing was to tape off most the area I didn't want effected, especially any rosewood. I scrapped off the old finish on the neck with 60 grit sandpaper down to the bare wood.  Then sanded 150, 200 and 320 to get it nice and smooth.  Then put on the first oil finish coat (the soak coat).  Using tru oil for this one.  Here is a crappy shot of the neck after the first coat

You can see from the different colors where will be refinished.  

Update 10/24!

Final coat of finish is on the neck.  Here are some pics of the re-finish with Tru-Oil.  Really happy with the way this one came out.

You can even see some nice flame figuring popping out of the neck now.  The last coat needs to settle for at least a few days before buffing/polishing.

Removed all the tape that was protecting the fretboard and noticed the rosewood was looking pretty dry and crappy.  Rubbed it down with some alcohol than went at it with some Howard's Feed N Wax (love this stuff) and brought some life too it,

Flatwound strings and Dunlop Dual Design strap buttons installed.  Checked neck relief which was good… maybe could use a little tightening but I prefer slightly higher action on a P Bass.  Saddle height and intonation set.  Pickup height set.  Flatwounds are a little brighter than I had hoped (which is characteristic for the D'Addario flats from what I hear) which is fine because they will darken with time.  Here is a quick video of how the bass sounds.  All in all I am very happy with the way this one turned out.  Just need to buff and polish the neck in a couple days and this sucker is done.

4. Fender American Standard P/J Bass
-Re-Finished Neck
-Plugged strap button tear out hole. Replaced buttons with Dunlop Dual Design Straplocks
-Tightened up input jack.
-Setup/Intonate/Tightened hardware/Cleaned/Changed strings to Flatwound