Restoring a Lake Placid Blue '63 Bass VI

[MattK]

I got chills seeing the fit-up! Fantastic work!

[OffYourFace]

HELL YEAH

[zhivago]

Amazing work!!

[Pacafeliz]

Geez you guys are GODS

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Geez you guys are GODS

Totally!

I was pretty shocked to see just how much of the original body was lost.
Those first couch pictures may not quite get the point across but this picture says it all...



Incredible work so far!

[welshywelsh]

This is absolutely unbelievable, so impressive!

[ThePearDream]

Brilliant!
Really cool templating process. Thanks for sharing that. I love that it removed the bare minimum of the original wood.

[cestlamort]

Amazing work. The pieces coming together clip is unexpectedly gratifying (like whatever those pleasant sound videos of people kneading bread or lentils (or whatever) on the TikTok.)

[Highnumbers]

Thank you all for the kind words. Projects like this are really enjoyable, it’s a lot of problem-solving.

Amazing work. The pieces coming together clip is unexpectedly gratifying (like whatever those pleasant sound videos of people kneading bread or lentils (or whatever) on the TikTok.)

Thanks! I had to make that one a GIF because it’s so satisfying seeing the puzzle pieces come together. Glad you dig it.

[caples]

Incredible progress!

[gishuk]

Man I'm always so impressed with the quality of your work and also how you find these butchered vintage guitars to save!

Whoever did this to a custom colour Bass VI should however be held to account

[Highnumbers]

Man I'm always so impressed with the quality of your work and also how you find these butchered vintage guitars to save!

Thank you! That's very kind, I'm no professional at this and have just learned from trial-and-error but feeling confident about the work nowadays.

It's always motivating when the guitar has as much potential as this one.

[Highnumbers]

Just a quick (but important) update for today -- glued the repair slab to the body using two-part West System marine epoxy. This stuff is the absolute best epoxy for repair jobs and generally gluing stuff that you don't want coming apart. It also fills gaps nicely and does not shrink, ever.

The tricky part is the working time is pretty short with "fast" catalyst, you get about 15 minutes so everything has to be laid out ready to clamp up. I also like to tint the epoxy to match the wood, so if there are any micro gaps, it all blends more easily.





Pretty weird shape to clamp, getting a tight seal around the repair edge, and also flush top/bottom. It took a lot of clamps and frantic work before the epoxy starts setting (and then I'd be in deep shit). This whole stage is rather unsightly.

[MattK]

Is this piece to add thickness? Was the body sanded down at the top surface?

[Highnumbers]

Is this piece to add thickness? Was the body sanded down at the top surface?

Not sure what you mean, Matthew. It's just the repair slab that I showed earlier being epoxied to the body.

The little blocks of wood you see in the photo above are just so my clamps don't dig into the surface of the body.

The repair slab of alder is thicknessed to exactly the same as the body, so it will require minimal sanding to blend it all together. The body wasn't sanded down at all, front or back.