Let's see those mark of honor battle scars!

[Baloney Balderdash]

So, yes, let us see those of your basses with distressed finishes, cracked off polythene coatings, bumps, scratches, scars and other blemishes, or as some might call them battle scars, or even charming character strengthening marks of honor.

I wouldn't exactly call the damage done on my 4 string Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass marks of honor, rather cautionary marks of carelessness and plain stupidity, but I do actually think they do kind of add some rough carefree and somewhat unique character to it at least.

First of all here's how the bass looks in it's entirety:

 

The first thing you'll properly notice it the kind of crooked star like, roughly sort of engraved, figure between the 2 pickups, beneath the strings, on the body.

This was actually done on purpose as an impulsive idea and haphazard attempt to decorate the bass, by hammering the tip of a flat screwdriver into the body of the bass repeatedly to sort of engrave the figure, all through the thick polythene coating and down in the mahogany wood of the bass's body, and it actually turned out pretty much as I pictured it, weather then I should have acted on that spontaneous whim or not, but I actually kind of like it.

Special paint that is supposed to give a somewhat marble like effect, and then, at a later point, further more transparent glitter nail polish, was then dabbed down in the cracks that forms the crude star like figure with a small brush. 

The actual point of the idea originally being to make it look sort of like a crack in a piece of glass.  

Here's a closeup picture of it:

 

The next thing you'll properly noticed is the relatively big, odd blemish above the P pickup, right at the end of the neck on the body of the bass, that is the aftermath of a haphazard and failed attempt to drill an extra pickup cavity in the far neck position, that I then later, unfortunately also kind of poorly, filled out with filler mass and then painted and varnished over.

 Kind of really regret that one, as it turned out I even didn't really need that extra neck pickup, and that I really shouldn't have used a drilling machine to do it.

The 2 holes on the last fret, that you can also see on the below closeup of the blemish, one partly filled up with a glued in wooden stick, and the other, which I actually pretty nicely managed to fill out, almost perfectly, with another glued in wooden stick (though as you can see made from a light color wood), is something that happened after I, at a later point, removed the neck to shim it, and then as I decided to fill out the holes from the neck screws, for a tight fit back, discovering that I would need to drill some new pilot holes, but ending up drilling too deep, all the way through the fretboard.

So the closeup of that:

 

   

And as you might notice on that closeup there's a chip in the fretboard just after the last fret, low E string side, which was caused by a sliding out of control drill, from that failed drilling an extra pickup cavity attempt, as I unfortunately hadn't even bothered removing the neck first.

I manage to glue back one of the chips that was ripped off by the out of control drilling machine, which actually seems to have worked well, and like a pretty sturdy fix, but another chip went missing.

Luckily though nothing happened to the fretwire, that stayed firmly in place all the while.  

On this closeup it is possible to see the missing chip a bit better, as well as the edges of the glue joints where the other piece was put back on:

 

Finally the oldest injury that my bass suffered, not visible on that first front shot of my bass, since it's located on the side of the upper part of the body, which is a relatively big piece of the thick polythene finish, which the bass is coated with, has chipped off, and later then sprayed with a clear coat of varnish, that it suffered back when it was still relatively new, when I dropped the Mikro Bass gigbag, that the bass came with and was in at that point, on the concrete sidewalk on my way to band rehearsal, partly because I didn't pay proper attention, and partly because those gigbags, that the Mikro Basses used to come with as a standard accessory from factory, for some reason only is equipped with one shoulder strap.

Kind of a miracle that that was the only damage that the bass suffered from that fall, especially considering the padding of those gigbags were kind of on the crappier and thinner side.

Anyway here it is in a closeup shoot:

 

 

As said I do kind of really regret the damage that the bass suffered from me being stupid enough to on a whim haphazardly trying to drill an extra far neck position pickup cavity, but otherwise I actually don't really mind the other scars at all.

All in all I am not all too concerned with the looks of my instruments, as long as it doesn't affects the actual playabillity negatively, and I actually think a battered instrument can have a certain charm, like the scars often kind of adds a somewhat unique character to it. 

Edited July 25, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash