70s Columbus Jazz Bass Restoration part 2!

[Soloshchenko]

Thought I'd start a new thread rather than unearthing the one I started months ago! Bought this Columbus Jazz Bass on ebay ages ago for £70. For seventy quid it worked, that's all I'll say. It had 35 years of gunk on the neck and was scratched to hell. It had an interesting screw mod to the original bridge that had begun to disintegrate with rust. Amazingly, the bass sounded quite nice. Really boomy kind of big sound you normally associate with precisions. The idea was to bring it back to being a better looking, more playable bass for gigging with but without spending much cash or ruining the vintage vibe.

Improvements:

New Bridge (Bought a £9 chunky one from a weird company called Warman guitars)
Strip and refinish in nitro black
New Scratchplate
New Machine heads (the original ones are the cheap, crap looking ones you get on Jap crap)
Re shape the chunky neck
Chean the SH1TE off the neck!
Refinish the neck in pure tung oil
Re wire everything
Clean up metal parts with the aid of coke

A massive thank you goes to Pow 22 (Paul) on here for donating some rather nice Squier machine heads. The man's a true gent and I've donated a cheeky fiver to basschat due to the man's generousity. I can't begin to tell you how much I hated the original machine heads and how tricky it is to find machines with 12mm poles. He's saved me a massive re drilling job.

Enough yapping, here's the pics which hopefully tell their own story. The bass is now very near completion.

[Soloshchenko]

The bass as it came.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Soloshchenko

[Soloshchenko]

Stripping the poly finish and cleaning the neck (gross). I used a heat gun on the poly finish and it came off in about 2 hours in total. I then refilled it a few times and used some sanding sealer, sanding between each stage.

[Soloshchenko]

Reshaping the neck with a razor blade and then sanding and finishing after. Never done this before but, after owning a few necks that feel like tree trunks would recommend the job to any beginner. Just keep stopping and checking you are evening it up on both sides. It feels great after 9 thin coats of tung oil.

[Soloshchenko]

Refinishing the body. Primer then black then clear.

Edited August 31, 2011 by Soloshchenko

[Soloshchenko]

Waiting a week before wet sanding the body down to 1500 but in the meantime this gives an idea of how it will look.

[Hobbayne]

Looks great! I had one of those Columbuses back in the 1980's and that had those silly little tuners on as well. How about a tugbar under the G string for the vintage look?

[apa]

Ive got a Columbus 335 copy guitar and its a lovely guitar. Actually it was my first buy of any musical instrument. Not very relevent but that looks a nice build. Nice job

A

[Soloshchenko]

Cheers guys. Going for functionality over appearence so no need for the tugbar but I may get a cheap bridge cover for it.

As for the quality, I agree. After pulling this bass to pieces and re working each part of it I'll always defend the quality of Columbus stuff,it's really decent.

[Jerry_B]

I like the matt black look One thing that's better at cleaning hardware than coke is a bath of vinegar with bicarb of soda added to it. It'll fizz up, then calm down after a while, mind you. Leave the hardware in that for 5-8 hours, then clean it all off with an old toothbrush.

[umcoo]

Great job - I love restorations like this. Looks great.

[EdwardHimself]

It's looking pretty good. What sort of tuners did you stick in the headstock?

[Soloshchenko]

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='1358627' date='Sep 1 2011, 11:47 AM']It's looking pretty good. What sort of tuners did you stick in the headstock?[/quote]

I think Paul(Pow22 on here) said they were from a Squier. Quite hard to find ones that fit the 12mm holes. How's your Columbus doing mate? Still crazy dayglow coloured?

[Pow_22]

Looking good Len. The tuners did indeed come from a Korean Squier Affinity P bass

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='Soloshchenko' post='1358680' date='Sep 1 2011, 12:35 PM']I think Paul(Pow22 on here) said they were from a Squier. Quite hard to find ones that fit the 12mm holes. How's your Columbus doing mate? Still crazy dayglow coloured?[/quote]

Still unchanged from last time yeah lol.