Jacob's Thinline tele and Dan's Washburn bass

Up next thru the shop were a couple of standard fret level/setups.
First up was my buddy Jacob's Fender Thinline Tele. Jacob had just recently purchased this thing used and was loving it with the exception of some weird fret buzz. He took a go at doing some fret filing before realizing he didn't really have the right tool for the job. You can see the divot in the frets below.

So immediately I knew this would need a fret level. I also saw some weirdness on the bridge. 2 of the intonation screws were bent really bad. I don't know if this was someones attempt at adjusting for intonation but I didn't like it. So I replaced the bent intonation screws with straight ones.

Then it was pretty much a standard fret file from here on out. There was a shim in the neck pocket that I eventually ended up taking out just to try to even things out. Here is a picture of the guitar in the leveling jig right before re crowning the frets.

Didn't get a final pic of this one but Jacob was very happy and I even got to play a gig with him shortly after returning it and was happy to see the guitar getting it's work out.

I also had a friend and fellow bassist Dan, bring me a bass he was thinking of buying from a friends music store. Normally when I see the word Washburn on a headstock I avoid it like the plague. But this bass was unique. Nice Bubinga top, ash body, Bartolini pickups and a heavy duty Wilkinson bridge. Dan wanted me to put it thru a setup to see if it would be worth buying.

This bass had been hanging on a hanger for probably the better part of 10 years and it showed. I started by cleaning it up and removing some very old pricing stickers. Then I went to work. Did a setup first just to see what I would be working with. There was some serious weirdness going on with the neck. I also noticed there were some pretty uneven frets. Onto the jig it went for a fret level.

After finishing my fret level I went for a setup. I was getting some really high action on the top 12 frets so I figured I would give the neck a shim and see what happened. The shim helped but didn't really solve all the problems. I re leveled to compensate for the shim and was still getting a dip in the neck around the 9th-14th frets. Turns out the neck was just very slightly misshaped from hanging for so long without any love or string changes. Good thing was, Dan likes medium action, so I was able to dial it in to an acceptable level thru the whole neck. Here is a final shot of the bass all setup and ready for action

21. Jacob's Thinline Tele
- Replaced bent intonation screws
- Fret level, re crown and polish, re string, setup, cleaned, tightened hardware
22. Dan's Washburn 5 string
- Shimmed neck pocket
- Fret level, re crown and polish, re string, setup, cleaned, tightened hardware

Joe's Lakland P Bass

Been taking a little time off of the repair blog while I finish up some new builds and huge projects.
Before this bass came thru the shop I had done a hand carved mac ebony nut for one of my earliest clients Arthur. He wanted to convert his 5 string Ibanez to E-C tuning. I also did a setup/neck shim on a short scale Ibanez for one of Arthur's buddies. Didn't get a chance to take any pics of those repairs but they went very well.
Then a great young bassist who I met at a Lakland get together, Joe, had inquired about some fret buzz on his Lakland P Bass. He recently said he changed from flats to rounds and was getting more buzz than he wanted. I told him to bring it by!
So I began by checking the setup. Joe likes his action very low. But unfortunately it was just to buzzy as it was currently setup. I couldn't quite dial in the amount of relief I wanted with the truss rod. Saddles looked good. One thing I did notice is that the nut slot height seemed to be way too low. So I decided on shimming the nut first to see if that would solve the problem.

And here is a shot from the side to see how much height was added

Then I went ahead and put the nut back on and re adjusted the slot height. After all that it was still buzzing way too much so I decided it needed a fret level.
Pretty standard from here on out. Got the bass on the leveling jig. Did most of the leveling work, crowned and polished the frets. A little more nut height adjustment.

And then strung it up to check it. A little more fine tuning and it was ready to go. Didn't get a final picture of this one but it came out real nice as well.
18. Arthur's Ibanez
- made hand carved Mac Ebony nut for E-C tuning
- Re string, setup, cleaned etc.
19. Arthur's friend's Ibanez short scale
- Shimmed neck, setup, re string, cleaned etc
20. Joe's Lakland P Bass
- Shimmed nut, fret level, setup, cleaned etc.

Putting it back together

Next up thru the shop is a BC Rich Gunslinger guitar that belongs to Shawn Makarov. Shawn has a refinishing shop here in town and actually did the lacquer finish on LowDown Basses #003. Shawn had refinished this guitar himself and wanted someone with a little more knowledge of repair work to re assemble it.
So pretty straight forward here. I started by bolting the neck back onto the body. Then I tackled the tuners and bridge system. This was my first time working with a Floyd Rose and found it to be a really cool bridge. Took me a minute to get the bridge angle just right but got it dialed in eventually. Then I got the nut installed and also got the neck pickup installed.
After that I strung it up to get an idea of where the action was and also to get the floyd rose really dialed in.

I was waiting on Shawn to choose a bridge pickup and eventually he decided on an EMG passive humbucker. I got everything wired up but was having trouble with the neck pickup working in series. It was fine in parallel but really weak signal in series. Double checked my wiring a few times and eventually just decided to wire both pickups in parallel.
Here is the guitar all put back together and setup and happy!

17. Shawn's BC Rich Gunslinger
- Completely reassembled guitar including re installation of all hardware and re wired in new pickups
- Re string, setup, cleaned, etc

Joel's Guitar and Joel's Bass

Up next thru the shop were two instruments each owned by a different Joel.
First up, a Fender Japanese P bass Special owned by Chicago bassist Joel Kelsey. I did some setup work on Joel's main bass, a very nice Sadowsky, a little while back. When I was there I was checking out this P bass and Joel had mentioned it could use some love. I had him bring it by the shop so I could check it out. Originally I thought it had some nut issues but after checking it out I realized it just needed somme fret work.
So I did my usually process of taking of the strings, cleaning everything up, and then taped of the fingerboard.

I leveled the frets as best as I could. Unfortunately there was a pretty serious hump in the fingerboard so I couldn't get it quite as level as I wanted. But all in all it was a big improvement. Crowned, polished and re strung the bass up. Started doing my usual setup process and noticed that I couldn't get the pickup height dialed in like I wanted to. Joel said one of his main issues with this bass was that it sounded kind of weak and thin. I double checked all the electronics and they seemed solid. It is a passive bass so good pickup height is very important. Opened things up and found this.

Definitely not a very good foam job. So I placed some pickup foam under both pickups and added height adjustment screws. Got the height dialed in and finished the setup and here she is!

Next up was my good friend and all around great musician Joel Norman's Ibanez semi hollow Artcore guitar. Joel was having problems mostly with the jack… because it was inside the guitar :)
So pretty straight forward here. Got the jack fished thru the side hole, added an extra locking washer for extra support.

Then I re string the guitar with a nice set of flats and gave it a setup, cleaning, etc. Came out playing great and sounding way better with the flats.

16. 2 Joel's - 2 Instruments
- Fender P Bass Special. Fret Level. Setup, Re String Cleaned, Adjusted pickup height foam and added springs.
- Ibanez Artcore Guitar. Repaired detached input jack. Re String, Setup, Cleaned.

Rickenbacker 2060 El Dorado Restoration

Up next thru the shop is a personal project I decided to take on. 
A few months back I came across a Rickenbacker bass on craigslist that I didn't recognize. After a little research I found out it is a rare Rickenbacker 2060 El Dorado. From what I can tell they were made in the nineties as a "alternative" to the traditional Rick models. I was looking for a restoration example for the shop and this one seemed to fit the bill. The guy didn't really realize what he had and I got it for a great price.
When I went to pick it up I found it to be in way worst shape than the ad had lead me to believe. But I decided it was still too good to pass up. Here are some pics I took of the bass when I got it home.
The headstock was all dinged up and sporting an odd Aria chrome tuner. 

The maple fretboard was nasty and had cigarette burns by the headstock. Frets were very worn, especially in the lower notes.

The neck and body…

And the pickguard and hardware… it was in pretty bad shape.

I started by removing all the stock hardware and cleaning it. I found out that pretty much all the intonation screws for the bridge were stripped. I managed to get them all off and replaced them with some stock screws I had in the shop.

Got the neck separated from the body. You can see the spider webs and cracks in the finish on the body.

Another shot of the pickguard and electronics, this time with the bridge removed.

Here is a shot of the controls still hooked up. Pretty interesting setup. 3 way pickup selector switch and a master volume and tone control.

And the controls separated from the pickups…

And here is a shot of the underside of the pickups. Another interesting aspect of this bass is the pickup height that is adjusted from some hex screws on the backside of the body.

Here is the body completely stripped of hardware…

The next thing I tackled was the neck. First was to plug the mounting hole from the odd Aria tuner.

The hole for the actual tuning machine was a little bigger than the others but I tried out one of the other stock tuners and it fit reasonably well and seemed sturdy.
Then I started removing the frets.

After that, I sanded down the maple fretboard to remove the gunk.

Then I started tackling the binding. The finish over the binding had become discolored and was chipping off all over the place.

So I started stripping off the chipped finish with a razor blade to make things a little easier for whoever was going to do the finish stripping. Here is a shot of the binding stripped and sanded smooth.

Then I sanded off the finish on the neck with 120 grit and sanded it down to 300. Then I applied a french polish with Tru Oil which came out really nice. Really complimented the subtle flame in the maple. Here is a shot of the headstock after the last coat of Tru Oil.

Next up was to make a new pickguard. I ordered a white sheet from Stew Mac and traced around the original pickguard to get a rough shape.

Then, using double sided tape, I taped the original pickguard onto the rough shaped one and used the original as a template and shaped and sanded accordingly.

And here is the new one side by side with the original.

The neck was ready for the re fret and the body was ready for stripping and re finishing.
After some research I found out about Marty Bell and after seeing his work decided he would be a great candidate for the body refinish. He was great to deal with and had a really quick turn around time and was very reasonably priced for the work that had to be done (especially considering all the binding).
Here some pics Marty sent me after the re finish. He did an amazing job!

Once I got the body back I ordered all the period correct hardware. This bass was originally equipped with Schaller Tuners which are more or less identical to the Scahller M4 tuners which are made now. The bridge was an early model Roller bridge. The newer Schaller Roller bridges have three mounting screws instead of 4 like this early model and the footprint of the early model is slightly different. I was able to find the same exact knobs on the Pick O The Ricks website. I also ordered new gold pickguard screws as well as a new gold input jack plate.
Here are the electronics, knobs and pickguard installed.

And here is the sidejack plate…

And the Roller bridge…

I am still trying to acquire all the necessary tools for a re fret so for the time being I brought this one to my good friend and expert repairman Carl Pedigo (a.k.a The Chicago Bass Doctor) for the re fret. He did an amazing job as usual.
Once I got the neck back from him I installed the tuners and the nut. There is tiny gap from the odd Aria tuner but you can barely see it from the back of the headstock.

Then I hit the neck with some Howards Feed N Wax and tried to buff out some minor scratches that came from Carl's neck jig.

Then I strung it up and started to dial in a setup. I decided to shim the nut to accommodate for the new frets. I filed down the nut slots to get things just right and then dialed in the rest of the setup. Then I screwed the truss rod cover/emblem back on and BAM! Here she is all restored and setup. The bass plays really nicely and the tone of this thing is very unique.

The original neck plate with serial number…

And here are some of the comments from Talkbass.com

- "very nice. love these start-to-finish bass rescue threads. thanks for sharing."

- "Nice restoration on one of Rickenbacker's sleepers"

- "Tslice - excellent refin job. Nothing better than a bass "brought back to life". Congrats!"

- "Man I don't know how I missed this when you first did it wow is that pretty congrats on breathing new life into a great instrument."

15. Rickenbacker 2060 El Dorado

- Complete restoration including Re Finish, Re Fret, new gold hardware.