Bass restoration

[samanthacay]

Alright, as promised, here it is.








This old thing has had a rough life and it is time to begin its second hopefully not so rough life.

The plan is to due a full on restoration, the big tasks are going to be a refinish, refret and rebind.

The body as you can see has been refinished before (really poorly) there are gouges nicks and scrapes all over.
Inside the control cavity there are two spots that have been drilled out to be deeper, this will be a lot of work.
The current plan for the body is to go over it with ca and epoxy to fill all the missing wood with the exception of the drilled out control cavity which I'll clean up and fill with some maple scrap
and as well any dents will be steamed out rather then filled.

The neck's finish looks to be original but unfortunately it is flaking off like mad and being that it needs a refret and binding it looks to be more sensible just to go ahead and refinish it as well.
Fortunately the headstock face is pretty preserved and I should be able to leave it be and not have to re-do the logo.

So with all that I think I have a pretty good plan for how this will go down but being a not so Mosrite savoy individual, I've still got a few concerns, or rather questions if you will.

First: The owner of this bass said the seller, who supposedly bought it from the original owner claimed it to be a '77.
Is there any way to confirm/debunk this and if so how do I tell exactly what year this is.(FYI the pots are from 72)

Second: The pots are CTS from 72 but the wiring is very sloppy, bad soldering, excessive use of flux, mismatched wires and it even has a splice in there!
So I'm guessing it's been mucked with in this regard but seeing a date code from 72 makes me think it may have just been partially redone.
Can anyone tell me what might have been used in there originally in regards to wire, pots, cap, switch and jack?

Third: What is the original finish, not as in color but as in type?
From the looks of it, I'm guessing some form of poly but would like to be sure.

Forth: There are two parts missing one is the bridge cover and the other is one of the tuner bushings.
Any idea of a good place to source these out?

I'll probably have more later but that is tops for now.
Thanks in advance and thanks for looking,

Samantha.

[KRamone27]

To answer the first question the year and date are usually stamped in the neck pocket and under the neck heel. You might try Bob Shade or Artie at front porch music as I understand that they sometimes have vintage mosrite parts. For the bridge cover there is a drawing here in this thread. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3240&start=20 on the third page.

[samanthacay]

To answer the first question the year and date are usually stamped in the neck pocket and under the neck heel. You might try Bob Shade or Artie at front porch music as I understand that they sometimes have vintage mosrite parts. For the bridge cover there is a drawing here in this thread. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3240&start=20 on the third page.

Yeah I was afraid of that as I have seen pictures of them with the stamps.
As for the neck, it has been sanded there, so that would make sense as to why it's gone but the finish in the pocket looks original and there are no stamps to be found???



Also thanks for the lead on parts, I'll pass this along.

[KRamone27]

Also thanks for the lead on parts, I'll pass this along.

No problem. It's definitely a 70s' bass just can't pinpoint the year.

[dorkrockrecords]

It's not a '77, it's a '72.
Cheers,
Adam

[samanthacay]

It's not a '77, it's a '72.
Cheers,
Adam

Ha! ok, are there any particular reasons you would conclude this to be the case?
Is it that Mosrites are known for having pot dates generally corresponding directly to the date of manufacture?

[dorkrockrecords]

Because they didn't make basses like this in 1977, but they did in 1972. Since the pot codes corroborate that date, just trust me and go with it.

[MWaldorf]

Adam (aka DorkRockRecords) is right. In addition to the fact this style of bass wasn't made in 1977, there were also changes to the logo screen on the headstock, and the style on this bass is early 70s.

One question - are you sure the frets need to be replaced? Mosrites came from the factory with really low "speed" frets, somewhere on the order of 0.020" high. The frets in the photo of the serial number look "rite" to me. Just something to consider.

[dubtrub]

For comparison sake, here's a couple photo's of how the wiring looks as untouched. Even though these are for a six string, they are wired the same on a bass. Your photo looks to be wired properly but it sure looks nasty. It would be my guess that the wiring is original but was dirtied up in the disassembly and reassembly process of refinishing.








Also I'm curious about that pickgaurd's fit at the switch control cavity. Has that hole been enlarged beyond the edge of the pickguard or is that pick not original to the guitar? Again for comparison sake, here is a photo of my '72 that I previously owned. Notice the amount of pickguard material in front of the switch following the curvature of the horn and cut away.

[samanthacay]

Adam (aka DorkRockRecords) is right. In addition to the fact this style of bass wasn't made in 1977, there were also changes to the logo screen on the headstock, and the style on this bass is early 70s.

Cool! I'm sure my customer will be quite glad to hear this.

One question - are you sure the frets need to be replaced? Mosrites came from the factory with really low "speed" frets, somewhere on the order of 0.020" high. The frets in the photo of the serial number look "rite" to me. Just something to consider.

Yeah the frets are quite worn and as well they've been filed in the past and then never crowned so there mostly flat on top.
There are string divots all over the lower end and in a lot of spots there isn't enough fret left for it to be leveled or crowned.