SX SPB-57 Precision Bass (2/3) ~ Luthiery Laboratories

SX SPB-57 Precision Bass (2/3)

The one thing I never liked about this bass, even after all my upgrades, was that sickly orange neck. One day I was sneaking around Talk_ass ( God knows why, what a stupid place ) and I ran across some posts about stripping the orange off one of these using CitriStrip. CitriStrip is a paint stripper that you can get at Home ~~Luthiery Supplies~~ Depot, and is very simple to use. All the reports on Talk_ass * were how easy this was, and how great the results were, so I figured, why not? Hint: never believe anything you read on Talk_ass, it is a giant pile of garbage.

* b

For proper NASA-style science, here are the before pictures:

Are they trying to hide something under the orange?

I wonder why this neck has a glued-on fretboard *and* a skunk stripe. Normally you have one or the other. I suspect the skunk stripe is just for looks, and this neck actually has a proper double-acting trussrod, not a classic Fender-style POS. But I'm not going to test that.

I like the SX logo, and would rather not lose it

The serial number on a sticker is probably completely meaningless. I wrote it inside the neck pocket.

First I tested the CitriStrip on the neck heel, and it seemed to work.

The plastic keeps the stripper from drying prematurely. Just a cut-up garbage bag.

After the first application, using an old credit card as a scraper.

It took several goes to get all the orange off

The Citristrip turns the finish into goo that you can scrape off with something fairly soft that won't harm the wood. It doesn't smell too bad at all, you can do this indoors. At least Talk_ass got that part right.

It actually looked a lot worse in person

Eventually, it came out like this. Blotchy. The craftsmen on Talk_ass never mentioned that. Or maybe they just have very low standards. I should have known better than to believe anything on Talk_ass, but I was expecting something to go wrong, and had my own plan for when Talk_ass advice turned out to be crap.

As promised, there is a clear layer under the orange - a sealer coat. The Citristrip didn't attack it much. It is probably polyurethane. I tried overcoating it with spray poly in hopes that might even it out, but it didn't, the blotches are baked-in. So instead, I scraped off everything down to bare wood with razor blades. That is the only way to get between the frets. It took a while, and a lot of razor blades.

At this point I was still trying to preserve the silk-screened SX logo, although it was slightly damaged from the stripping process, as you can see below. Of course, Talk_ass said this process was completely safe for the 'decals'. Of course.

I broke the original nut trying to get it out before I started. I probably Crazy Glued it in before I knew what I was doing - bad idea. The CitriStrip would have eaten the plastic anyway. Luckily, I had a replacement in the parts bin.

After scraping, I sanded it down to about 200, which leaves a rough-enough surface for the final finish to grab on to. The back came out very nice. This is actually a much nicer piece of wood that I was expecting, I don't know why Rondo slathered it in orange - they didn't need to hide anything.

I worked around the decals for a while, but eventually decided it would be better to make a clean start, and stripped them off.

A coat of 'natural' stain brings the grain out. It's going to look good.

Here I have applied a base coat of poly to apply the new decals to. That's a nice looking piece of wood. It even has a bit of flame on the back. So much better than that orange glop.

Making the logo on the computer.

I got all the Montaya pictures I could find, and then chose the best one for a starting point. First, I converted it to a black-and-white bmp and scaled it up considerably. Then I spent a while in an image editor cleaning it up, pixel by pixel. Finally, I dropped the bitmap into InkScape and traced it to a vector graphic. That gets rid of all the bitmap jaggies and gives a nice smooth edge to everything. I did the same with an SX logo I found. After several test prints on paper, I printed two copies of each logo on waterslide decal material and picked the best two. I used a laser printer.

Working out the details with paper test prints of different sizes. The one I ended up using was actually an accident!

And the end result. I like it. I wanted to keep an SX logo as well. I made the Montaya logo much bigger than an original. I think that's a really cool-looking logo. I suppose I could have put the serial number back on, but oh well ...

To finish the decals, first dust on several light coats of rattle-can poly to seal them. Let that dry, then layer on the poly thick. The goal is to put down a single layer 1.5 to 2 times as thick as the decal itself. I spray a new coat as soon as the previous one sets up. Lay the part horizontal, and make a puddle. This way it all dries into a single layer. Let that cure for at least a week. The decal will stick out slightly. Then with 1000 grit or finer, carefully sand the surface down until the decal is just a slight bulge that you can only see if you hold it up to the light just right. Put on a final thin topcoat if you want.

If you followed the instructions on the can and sprayed a lot of thin layers, you'd end up with a tree-ring effect as you sand through them. That will even show through a topcoat, which is why I go for a single thick layer. This is also how I finish bodies - a single marathon spraying event. There are more details on the decal process linked in the sidebar. Also, check out my Schwinn Stingray.

The downside of this method is that the thick coat of poly on the headstock will yellow a bit more than the thinner finish on the rest of the neck. Still better than orange. I finished the entire neck in polyurethane, so the whole thing will yellow in time. The finish is thinnest on the fretboard, where I sprayed right over the frets. Playing will wear it down, I've never had a problem. The last step was to clean out the nut slot with a file and a tiny chisel and install the new nut with Elmer's Glue. Yes, Elmer's Glue - it's good enough, cleans up easily, and won't be a problem if you ever have to pull the nut in the future.

Head over to Talk_ass to catch up on the latest discussion of how polyurethane clogs the wood pores and ruins the tone. Idiots.

I like this headstock shape, so I made a template from it before I put everything back together. This is basically the MusicMan headstock shape. I guess Leo Fender liked it too.

Which is better? Vote in the comments.

Oh, and while I was at it, I installed a series/parallel switch on the tone control. You separate the two halves of the P-pickup and add new leads, I just replaced all the leads. Series is the default wiring and gives the standard deep Precision sound. But a pull on the tone knob puts the two halves of the pickup in parallel, for a sound much more like a Jazz bass. It's a really worthwhile mod for a Precision. Similarly, adding a series/parallel switch to a Jazz Bass can make it sound much more like a Precision.

Would I recommend doing this? Probably not, unless you have very low standards or are willing to do a lot more work than you expected. Should you get your luthiery advice from Talk_ass? Absolutely not.