Beedster

Refin in solid colour over the varnish?

Won't let me play which is odd. Says I have to sign in which I've never done before., is this adult fretless content 🤣 Quite relieved really as a) Ped'll just be another bloke who plays FL better than me and b) I'll have short-scale FL GAS

I'm also going to be stripping this soon (think it's also walnut), although it appears to be a very thin finish luckily. There is virtually no grain to speak of but I hope to bring out what's there as much as possible before finishing 👍

I'm going to open up my hole a little (Stop Sniggering Nicole), and using a similar test get a feel for the sound, and perhaps understand what design I might need for mine. I'll update, I might even A-B playing some bluegrass root-fifths on guts in A and a little bit of Jazz on some steels for B 👍

To annoy the internet 👍

I give you a week of sanding to no apparent effect to revise your thinking 🤣 All joking aside, that was my thinking also, and still is, so if I absolutely had to strip a finish like that I'd take it to a professional, although probably not a music professional, you might might find a painter, furniture restorer or similar who'll do it for you at much lower cost than a luthier. Very unlikely and others who know the manufacturer/instrument will know better, but you might be very lucky and find that it's one of those finishes that you can pretty much peel off once you get under it?

Yes agreed, but the right degree of finishing (I went fine but not too fin with the sandpaper), and the right oil and wax and even a linear and relatively low contrast grain can look good, I'm about to do the same to this walnut body, although as you can see, I've been slightly more fortunate with the grain.....

Having sanded a similarly finished bass - and regretted both the time and the results - I'd recommend a stripper, it will take a few coats and some elbow grease, but it will be a whole lot less hassle and will significantly reduce the risk of over-sanding

Mmm, that could be a quick and easy job or it could be a lengthy nightmare. It will almost certainly look better stripped and oiled but as you say, it's not an interesting or even especially attractive grain, so the improvement might be marginal at best. I stripped an ash body a while back and used black tinted wax, which lifted the grain nicely, might work on this bass?

Expensive is, to my mind, linked to the concept of a thing being more than it's worth. A Warmoth Precision with woodwork coming in at around £600 with perhaps another £400 on high quality components, gives me a FCS level instrument at £1000, and IME I'd have to spend upwards of £3000 to get anything better from Fender. So, if I'm buying a Precision, anything over £1000 is not only expensive, but unnecessary expense

IME a change in bridge can have the effect of micro EQ (change overall tonality), micro filter (notch certain frequencies), micro envelope shaper (change attack/sustain), or micro compressor (even things out a bit). On most instruments switching bridges makes little real difference, but on some it can be tangible and helpful. It's always worth some trial and error

Thinking on this, not just his music but his world view was a lot of things that Springsteen’s was in the 70’s/80’s

This is my solution, single PUP wired to jack 🙂

Stainsby Girls was indeed a great song, very Springsteen 👍