18/07/2026
Finally finished a lovely project - the sort with no tight deadline, that allow for experimentation and satisfy completely at the end.
An old and quite poorly Fender Precision was dropped off by the very lovely Johnny McBrier for a discussion about how best to bring it back to life and so it started…
How it was:
The bass had been stored in a chums cupboard for decades and as such had developed an ugly fungus or mould type patina which Johnny had attempted to remove with sandpaper, primer and spraypaint.
A valiant cosmetic attempt, but there was also the gubbed electronics and the fact that a Kent Armstrong pickup had been routed in above the bridge along with a coil split switch and a pull push pot.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed, Johnny brought it to me.
What to do:
It was decided that we should try and get this poor thing back to it’s original configuration and dispense with the Kent Armstrong, this would involve filling the routing space with a wood block, then respraying the area to conceal best as possible the mend without going to a full body strip and respray.
The many photo’s enclosed will show the work that took place and the end result, but here is a list of the work carried out to get to where we now are. The Bass is dated to 1979, so I tried to keep any usuable original parts.
The work:
Dissasemble and re-assemble the Tuning Keys after cleaning.
Sand and scrape the neck to remove all traces of grime and muck
Spray the neck with 3 coats of tinted Nitro and lightly sand
Check fret levelling, recrown and polish
The Kent pickup had a sheared screw head holding it in - nightmare
Fill routed space with wooden block and level with compound
Sand down repair, prime and respray repair with satin black
Shim the neck
Fill neck screw holes that were loose
Remove the old plastic nut and make a new bone nut
Fit a new scratchplate with new pots wired up
Re-assemble everything and set truss rod
Adjust string height and intonation
Final polish and clean
Fine tune again after several days have lapsed
Loved this job, it came out really well and i’m so glad that lovely Guitar like this will be back in use again.
