
The bass has already undergone some significant modifications and a metallic blue refinish along the way...

While the owner wants to keep the aftermarket Bartolini pickups, I chose to fill the old amateur routes with fresh maple, and reroute the cavities nice and clean....

The fretboard had popped loose when someone attempted to adjust the truss rods....THE WRONG WAY.....

I removed the truss rods for inspection and rethreading, and took that opportunity to reglue the fretboard separation....

The rods have been straightened and rethreaded, the adjuster nuts retapped, and the cleat deburred....

The bass is now in white primer. The binding was airbrushed to camouflage the area where the second output jack once was....

The owner chose these two green shades, and I custom mixed them using tinting pigments in nitrocellulose lacquer.....

An extra route was later added to accomodate a preamp, and the control cavity was deepened to allow room for push-pull potentiometers....

I've just finished buffing the cured lacquer......the small route in the back will house the 2 9v batteries for the active electronics.....

I cut a custom pickguard that closely resembles the original Rickenbacker unit, but will allow the use of a Bartolini neck pickup and custom switches and potentiometers....