Restoring a Lake Placid Blue '63 Bass VI

[Pacafeliz]

This is friggin MAGIC, man

[Biloxide]

Exciting, great job and care !!!
Looking forward to the sequel, it's thrilling

[N0_Camping4U]

Such great work. I may have missed it, are you doing the refinishing? If not who is?

[Highnumbers]

Such great work. I may have missed it, are you doing the refinishing? If not who is?

Thanks!

I haven’t shared that yet, but this one will be going to Carson Hess for a body refin to match the headstock. Only light aging to match the hardware and neck, it won’t take much.

Carson is best known for his aged Blackguard Tele restorations and builds, but his work with other Fender colors looks excellent. He recently posted a ‘69 Strat Lake Placid Blue refin on his Instagram page that really nails the shade of LPB that I want for this VI, and the light aging:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxtcfkCy5Di/

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

Fantastic!

[MattK]

Oh boy that is absolutely perfect. Hope it’s not brutally expensive but it is what it is, I guess!

[Highnumbers]

Oh boy that is absolutely perfect. Hope it’s not brutally expensive but it is what it is, I guess!

He is very fair with the prices and in my experience, aged paintwork is not a place to save budget anyway. Maybe I'm just picky though!

Plus, with the rest of the restoration done in-house, I won’t have that much into this project all-in. Barely more than what the “pawn shop” Bass VI models are selling for (and far less than a custom shop). I can splurge a bit on paint

[MattK]

For some reason I thought it cost you twice that much before I went back and checked.
What’s more important to me - and I genuinely means this - is the sense of making things right. A beautiful instrument that was built with care, which was a little abused (altho someone clearly wanted to play it if they went to all that trouble modding it) and now it’s made whole again.

[Highnumbers]

For some reason I thought it cost you twice that much before I went back and checked.
What’s more important to me - and I genuinely means this - is the sense of making things right. A beautiful instrument that was built with care, which was a little abused (altho someone clearly wanted to play it if they went to all that trouble modding it) and now it’s made whole again.

Thank you! I'm really glad that is coming through in this thread. Not necessarily on OSG, but elsewhere I've run into people just don't understand the point of restorations (usually some kind of remark like "the damage is done, it won't be original again, what's the point?" and there really isn't any point explaining it further. It's more about the gratification in making something right again than anything else.

I've always taken the same approach with other restorations, even non-guitar projects (such as the classic car restoration that I'm now 8+ years deep into...). Guitar projects are just more enjoyable because I can do a few of them every year without a lot of time invested.

The bonus is that *hopefully* the result is a great playing/sounding vintage Bass VI at a low cost to me, but that's not really the motivation. This process is more fun to me than buying a mint example off the rack.


P.S. As for this guitar being played, I think this thing was modified out of convenience more than anything else. There's evidence that a guitar neck was on it at one point (added screw holes in the neck pocket), and that it was played left-handed for some time, which could explain why the Bass VI neck is in immaculate shape... it was likely stored away for a while! I can only assume that the person who modified this had a few zany ideas and this thing happened to be sitting around for lack of another guitar.

[JVG]

P.S. As for this guitar being played, I think this thing was modified out of convenience more than anything else. There's evidence that a guitar neck was on it at one point (added screw holes in the neck pocket), and that it was played left-handed for some time, which could explain why the Bass VI neck is in immaculate shape... it was likely stored away for a while! I can only assume that the person who modified this had a few zany ideas and this thing happened to be sitting around for lack of another guitar.

The other thing to bear in mind with regards to people customising/butchering offsets in the 70s and 80s is that there was negligible market interest in such guitars at the time.

I clearly remember seeing dusty old Jazzmasters and Jaguars hanging around in guitar shops for months (if not years) in the 1980s, at ridiculously low selling prices. They could barely be given away, and we used to laugh at them as some kind of weird historical curiosities.

As such, chopping one up to customise it would have seemed like a fair thing to do, rather than doing it to a more ‘valuable’ instrument like a Strat or Tele (although they were being mutilated with Floyd Roses and EMGs at the same time!).

Seems hard to imagine such a time these days!

[Highnumbers]

P.S. As for this guitar being played, I think this thing was modified out of convenience more than anything else. There's evidence that a guitar neck was on it at one point (added screw holes in the neck pocket), and that it was played left-handed for some time, which could explain why the Bass VI neck is in immaculate shape... it was likely stored away for a while! I can only assume that the person who modified this had a few zany ideas and this thing happened to be sitting around for lack of another guitar.

The other thing to bear in mind with regards to people customising/butchering offsets in the 70s and 80s is that there was negligible market interest in such guitars at the time.

I clearly remember seeing dusty old Jazzmasters and Jaguars hanging around in guitar shops for months (if not years) in the 1980s, at ridiculously low selling prices. They could barely be given away, and we used to laugh at them as some kind of weird historical curiosities.

As such, chopping one up to customise it would have seemed like a fair thing to do, rather than doing it to a more ‘valuable’ instrument like a Strat or Tele (although they were being mutilated with Floyd Roses and EMGs at the same time!).

Seems hard to imagine such a time these days!

That's certainly a factor too, it's less likely this would have been hacked up if it was a Strat or Tele even back in the late 70s when it was likely modified. Plus this being a Bass VI, it's a bit of an estoeric instrument that would be a more likely candidate for experimentation.

A friend and I were talking about this last year -- what happened to all of the pre-CBS Strats with Floyd Roses? Look back at photos from the mid-80s and there were a whole lot of homemade "super Strats" with a Floyd on there in the wake of EVH's superstardom yet you rarely see those guitars today. It honestly makes me wonder if many of the average refin Strats we see on the market are repaired Floyd Rose conversions.

[welshywelsh]

This thread is so inspiring. As others have said, the attention to detail is so pleasing to see and the skill involved is another level.

[clintburgess]

Such great work. I may have missed it, are you doing the refinishing? If not who is?

Thanks!

I haven’t shared that yet, but this one will be going to Carson Hess for a body refin to match the headstock. Only light aging to match the hardware and neck, it won’t take much.

Carson is best known for his aged Blackguard Tele restorations and builds, but his work with other Fender colors looks excellent. He recently posted a ‘69 Strat Lake Placid Blue refin on his Instagram page that really nails the shade of LPB that I want for this VI, and the light aging:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxtcfkCy5Di/

This is sooo coool. Carson's work is impeccable. I've been a fan of his for a while. I cannot wait to see the work he does on this restoration.

[letterstoboddah]

wow i cant believe your going to save this wonderful guitar! i didnt know this level of damage could be fixed but it looks like your going to have it back to new in no time. it is very clever with the template reverse thing i dont think my brain could work backwards like that hahhah

[Highnumbers]

wow i cant believe your going to save this wonderful guitar! i didnt know this level of damage could be fixed but it looks like your going to have it back to new in no time. it is very clever with the template reverse thing i dont think my brain could work backwards like that hahhah

Thank you! It definitely took a lot of thought and even some math to work out subtracing the router bit thickness and what oversize bearings would be needed. A computer and laser cutter could have done it in minutes, but where's the fun in that? (Also I don't own that equipment!).

Actually credit to this YouTube video which demonstrates the concept pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmIMmdCTYA


I should have a great project update later this week, really only a couple updates left before it's time to ship this out for paint. Definitely the fastest project I've done so far, I haven't even had this thing a month!