Ibanez Musician Restoration.

[W1_Pro]

I've always had a soft spot for eighties Jap basses. The Musician, IMHO was one of the best of the bunch. A really nicely made guitar that could compete with pretty much anything. Why they discontinued it is a mystery to me....
Anyway, I bought one on eBay a little while ago. I got it for a reasonable price, but it was pretty battered, cosmetically, when it arrived.
I'd been very impressed with the work that Andy had done, on Norris' recent SB1000 restoration, so I got in touch and asked him to have a look at it.
Here it is in it's original condition.

Edited May 26, 2016 by W1_Pro

[W1_Pro]

So here, I think, is the pic...apologies, never done this before...

[W1_Pro]

Aha, that worked, excellent.
So, Andy had a look over the bass, decided it was in pretty good shape electrically, but needed a stone and a set up, and after some valiant attempts to patch the old finish up, a complete respray.
Here is the bass being stripped down.

[W1_Pro]

And here it is, a week or so later, stripped down ready for painting.

[scojack]

Nice one, i had a soft spot for these back in the day, great to see it being restored to it's former glory.
Going for the same colour ?

[W1_Pro]

I think so. It's a walnut one. So that is to Musicians what tobacco sunburst is to precisions of a certain age, I've always thought...;0)

[Norris]

Ah- so it's yours! Very nice bass, if a little on the weighty side. I hope you don't mind but I had a quick noodle when I popped round to see him not long after you dropped it off. It plays beautifully and is going to be stunning when Andy has finished

Edit to say that Andy is also one of the three instructors at a guitar building course (more like a club really) at Rawlins College in Quorn on a Monday evening. I'm currently making a Telecaster guitar there - bass next! They have a page on Facebook, or I'll be happy to provide Andy's contact details via PM to anyone interested in joining

Edited May 26, 2016 by Norris

[W1_Pro]

Hello Norris, yes it's mine and no, of course I don't mind.
Thanks are in order to you for 'introducing ' me to Andys work. What he's done so far looks very good indeed.
It is a nice player eh? I was very pleasantly surprised when I got it, and yes, it is bloody heavy!
Good luck with the telecaster, the guitar building course sounds like a hoot. I'd love to do something like that one day...

[Highfox]

Nice.
I recently picked up the fretless version, very nice basses.
I have left mine with all it's battle scars, it still plays nicely and I think it sounds great.

Your's looks like it will a stunner when it's done.

[W1_Pro]

Thanks Highfox, and congrats on the acquisition. The fretless ones are lovely- does it have an unlined board?

[TheGreek]

Dave Swift is a great exponent of these basses and uses one as his "go to" bass - we were both watching the same one on Ebay last week which had been fretted/defretted/refretted during it's life. (Name drop) Jools couldn't understand why somebody would do this. TBH nor could we...

[W1_Pro]

..well quite. Of course the biggest mystery is, why did they stop building it?
Fender have been spanking the P for 240,000,000,000 years. Have we learned nothing?

[Highfox]

[quote name='W1_Pro' timestamp='1464339896' post='3058542']
Thanks Highfox, and congrats on the acquisition. The fretless ones are lovely- does it have an unlined board?
[/quote]
Yes, here "She" is.
Had the tuners on the right side replaced with ones that match now.
[url="https://flic.kr/p/FBHcG9"][/url][url="https://flic.kr/p/FBHcG9"]I[/url]

[DarkHeart]

verrrry nice!

[W1_Pro]

Thats lovely.

[W1_Pro]

Is the FB original do you know? Looks very...sort of..modern....with those dots on the bottom edge.

[W1_Pro]

Highfox, did you manage to source Velve tune machine heads? One of mine is an odd one and I can't find replacements anywhere. If you have a source, I'd love to know!

[Highfox]

[quote name='W1_Pro' timestamp='1464408217' post='3059270']
Highfox, did you manage to source Velve tune machine heads? One of mine is an odd one and I can't find replacements anywhere. If you have a source, I'd love to know!
[/quote]

Thanks.
Unfortunately I didn't manage to source any Velve's , when I took it to my luthier he had a box of old tuners and he just used the ones that matched best.
The neck is original and shows signs of wear on close inspection, and being neckthru I'd imagine they would be a pain to try and change.

[W1_Pro]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Unfortunately I didn't manage to source any Velve's ,[/font][/color]

[font="helvetica, arial, sans-serif"][color="#282828"]​Ah well, heigh ho. it was worth a try. Thanks anyway![/color][/font]

[W1_Pro]

Here's a quick update to this. Andy was unhappy with the first coat of stain, so he stripped it back.
Here is the bass after the re-refinish and clear coat, just awaiting a final buff- Lovely!

Edited July 18, 2016 by W1_Pro

[W1_Pro]

Thats what I said, funnily enough.
Apparently, it's the wood grain, which will polish smooth......

[Andyjr1515]

I love the thru-neck on the back shot. Great finish. Excellent work, Andy!

((one of) the other) Andy

[Highfox]

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1469383016' post='3097876']
I love the thru-neck on the back shot. Great finish. Excellent work, Andy!

((one of) the other) Andy
[/quote]

Yes, very nice.

[Winny Pooh]

I've got mine sat at my parents house. Great clear sounding bass. I did quite a couple of superglue repairs on the finish years ago which helped but stripped the bridges' finish which was not an improvement. I should try and get it sorted again.
I really like the body contours and cutaway styling on these, the huge headstock less so, mine has the two brown cover p90-ish pups

Edited July 30, 2016 by Winny Pooh