23 September 2018

Fender P Bass 1978


Another bass,another job. Day by day, month by month. I'll fix every instrument in this country as best as I could.
This vintage 1978 P Bass had suffered a butthurt syndrome for an unknown while. The neck angle is quiet off making the saddle un adjustable. I noticed it had a fretwork work done to it, fairly recent I believe.


The fretwork is excellent in fact better than mine if I may say. Thumbs up. The truss rod nut had max out denying anymore movement. The neck is quite ridiculously bowed. I wonder why this was not a priority before the refret work commenced. In my opinion a refret is considered redundant if the neck straightness issue is not resolve. What ever setup work came after would be merely guesswork and unsatisfactory to the paying customer.


I disassemble the bass and found some shim in the neck pocket. First of all, there's nothing wrong with putting shim in there to correct a neck to the right angle. It's perfect normal and applies when there's a need to do so. However, on this bass the targeted elevation was done in reverse as though it was done to clear many bad fret buzz after 12th frets onward.


To resolve the butthurt syndrome which the main cause of this mess, I applied the same solution like I done to another bass in the past. Some of you may remember that post not many moons ago. After that the neck were straight enough to allow predicted comfort play. As I anticipated, there were many bad fret buzz that needed fret leveling.


The pickguard looks DIY. I filed a semi circled clearance near the truss rod nut so I/anyone don't need to take out the neck to apply any adjustment at the truss rod nut. My work does look crude but it serves the purpose. This bass now plays well and will love anyone for long time.


I cannot tell you much about the pickup. It says Dimarzio on the cover but from the inside I don't believe it is. But that's just my hunch. I guess that ends this repair journal for today.

Thank you
yustech

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