Danelectro 56 refurb.

[Maude]

Hi all, welcome to the year of finishing stalled projects. 🙂

This was my plan last year (this year🤔, you know what I mean) but looking after increasingly unwell family members and fighting the black dog meant nothing got touched. 

Earlier this afternoon I decided to get off my derriere and do something about sorting these projects 

So let's kick off with this Danelectro 56 that I bought cheap about a year ago, as it should be a quick turnaround. My plan is just a quick respray with a couple of different touches. 

 

 

At first glance it's not in bad shape and could happily be used as is, but where's the fun in that 😉. 

A closer look reveals a lot of touch ups, random screw holes, some larger digs and a patch of paint missing on the side. 

A quick strip down and we have this 

 

Sanded all over with 240 and got rid of lighter digs. 

 

 

Filled the extra screw holes and sanded again with 240 ready for primer. 

 

 

All primed ready for a final prep tomorrow and it might get the basecoat tomorrow as I'll need that dry for the next step. 

It's not the usual way of painting but I'll go into detail why when I reveal (read have decided) what the final finish will be. 

 

 

I've got some bits on order which should be here next week so hopefully it can finish this next weekend or the one after. 

[Maude]

Dont know how that headstock photo ended up there but that's another discussion. 😁

[Pea Turgh]

Glad to see a Maude project back on the table again!

[Maude]

59 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

Glad to see a Maude project back on the table again!

I've managed to do it again though and buy something which doesn't add up. 😁

I was trying to work out which incarnation of 56 bass this is and it doesn't match any I can find. 

The mix of 5 bolt neck fixing, satin hardware, wooden bridge saddle, two knob plus switch and the headstock decal doesn't seem to match anything. 

Maybe it's a bit of a bitsa. 

[Maude]

Right, things are getting silly 😁. 

What I like about Danelectros is that they are a little bit mad in their design/build, and as such I feel you can have a bit of fun with them and it doesn't look out of the way. 

 

The original plan for this one was to keep it black and instead of the white tape around the sides add a faux wood side with cream faux bindings, and a red pearloid or tort pickguard, all very grown up. 

 

 I've now got some black flake coming to sparkle things up a bit, if I think it suits. I've also been trying different ideas out to get a feel for what works. 

The fake wood vinyl for the sides actually looks really good, so much so I considered doing the whole back in it. The problem then is getting it onto the sides, it won't heat and stretch like a wrap and a separate side strip won't line up with any grain on the back. I could still use a cream binding to separate but then I remembered I had some tortoise shell effect duck tape. I used the silver sparkle one on my Longhorn with a black faux binding and it worked well so I know it'll work, just is it all too much? Too many things going on? Wood back, black flake front, tort sides, cream binding and red pearl pickguard. 

I think I'm still leaning towards the original plan, albeit with some black flake in the lacquer. 

Wood back and sides with a cream line separating them looks wrong so I haven't added a photo of that. 

 

The wood effect vinyl. 

 

On the side with cream binding. 

 

On the back with tort side. 

 

 

 

 

[Maude]

Black basecoat on. 

I just used a satin black aerosol for this as it saved firing up the compressor and cleaning guns etc. 

Not ideal as aerosol is very solvent rich and it lifts any imperfections or repairs, and spraying outdoors in this wind is fairly ludicrous. But as it will be having a coat of lacquer when the flake arrives, then once the side tape etc is on the whole thing will get a further couple of coats of lacquer to seal everything in it doesn't really matter as I have to flat the satin black to key for this anyway, giving me a chance to remove any imperfections. Usually you'd lacquer straight onto the basecoat once it's flashed off so it would need to be perfect. 

 

 

 

[Maude]

I've just knocked up a pickguard out of some red pearl celluloid sheet I had. It's too thin really for a pickguard but it has a crazy depth to the pearl. It's almost black until the light hits the pearl blocks, then a lovely deep red. I've never seen any of the newer pickguard material act like this stuff. 

The shape needs refining as I just did it quickly to see if it would look OK being so thin, but I think the depth of colour makes up for lack of thickness. 

Also will need a good polish but I don't want to put the polisher on it indoors as if it gets too hot it self combusts. 

 

It's hard to catch the colour 'popping' but here ya go. 🙂

 

 

Oh yeah, the black has been flatted ready for some fun and games. 😉

Edited January 1, 2024 by Maude

[Maude]

Short clip to try and show the depth and colour of the pearl celluloid. 

Excuse the terrible work radio. 

 

 

[Maude]

I've given the body a misting of black flake this afternoon. 

I found an aerosol of black flake in a clear suspension to make life easy (I've got full on flake going on on another project), it's a very fine flake but that's OK as I didn't want anything too mad. Whether it'll be worth it time will only tell, I can't see the flake until it's properly lacquered. I had to put a couple of coats of aerosol lacquer over it to seal it in to allow me to flat it for the proper lacquer coat. The flake coat went on really dry and as such the finish is now horrific, I'll give it some time to fully dry, flat it back and then I can put the wood effect sides on and the faux binding, then give the entire thing a good couple of coats of lacquer. 

What's it they say nowadays? Trust the process. Hmm, it definitely looks far worse now than it did this morning. 

Edited January 6, 2024 by Maude

[mrbacco]

On 30/12/2023 at 17:44, Maude said:

Hi all, welcome to the year of finishing stalled projects. 🙂

This was my plan last year (this year🤔, you know what I mean) but looking after increasingly unwell family members and fighting the black dog meant nothing got touched. 

Earlier this afternoon I decided to get off my derriere and do something about sorting these projects 

So let's kick off with this Danelectro 56 that I bought cheap about a year ago, as it should be a quick turnaround. My plan is just a quick respray with a couple of different touches. 

 

 

At first glance it's not in bad shape and could happily be used as is, but where's the fun in that 😉. 

A closer look reveals a lot of touch ups, random screw holes, some larger digs and a patch of paint missing on the side. 

A quick strip down and we have this 

 

Sanded all over with 240 and got rid of lighter digs. 

 

 

Filled the extra screw holes and sanded again with 240 ready for primer. 

 

 

All primed ready for a final prep tomorrow and it might get the basecoat tomorrow as I'll need that dry for the next step. 

It's not the usual way of painting but I'll go into detail why when I reveal (read have decided) what the final finish will be. 

 

 

I've got some bits on order which should be here next week so hopefully it can finish this next weekend or the one after. 

 

Its lovely! In my humble opinion: the body is very nice, attactive and smooth in the form. The neck seem to be a bit too large for the small head and the body? or is it just the pic? It seems out of proportion? 

Edited January 14, 2024 by mrbacco

[Maude]

The 'dolphin head' headstock does seem out of proportion to the neck but is one of the quirks of Danelectro design. The small button type tuners don't help either. 

It's only a shortscale so lengthwise it looks in scale to the smallish body so that might be my photos, but the headstock is definitely small for a bass. 

[mrbacco]

7 hours ago, Maude said:

The 'dolphin head' headstock does seem out of proportion to the neck but is one of the quirks of Danelectro design. The small button type tuners don't help either. 

It's only a shortscale so lengthwise it looks in scale to the smallish body so that might be my photos, but the headstock is definitely small for a bass. 

 

thanks for the answer! 🙂 

[Maude]

Just a quick update. I put the side tape on today. Normally a Danelectro would be painted and the the white side tape applied, and it usually ends up shrinking and pulling away in valleys and edges. 

As I did on my Longhorn, I've used a wide centre tape with two thinner outer lines to look like a binding, the whole body including tape will now be clear coated which will seal everything in a help prevent any lifting of the edges. 

I really like the wood effect centre tape and I've gone for a very creamy 'binding' tape. It gives it a kind of hollow body vibe, which it is anyway. 

 

Just clear coat and a quick rebuild now. 

 

 

 

[Jackroadkill]

That looks as cool as a very cool thing indeed.  Just the ticket for putting the black dog in his place.

[Richard R]

I missed this at the start. Looks very smart indeed. 👍

[BassTool]

Great work!! 👏🏼