the OFFICIAL Series10 Restoration thread

we spent a hour on the phone yesterday working out the final details on it. He needed to be reminded that he can put a righty nut on it as the E will be on the bottom. He was confused cause some righty had a strap hole on the short horn and he thought I was gonna flip it over because then the bridge would look retarded
NOPE, normal lefty bass played with inverted strings
he will paint it soon and in a couple weeks I'll have it back

then By June I'll give him my 710 Kramer to install a 7410, but now he FOUND a job, and I'm happy for him and that is most important.

Thanx eric.

Except for here and (sit on my) facebook, I really don't have anywhere to promote my work.

Sure ... I want to promote my work so that one day, I might not have to work for someone else but also ... a lot of this stuff is easy and I encourage players to do their own maintenance.

Refurbing a neck like this is 80 grit (first sand ... be careful not to score the wood. Just get some of the finish off), 100 grit (first onceover the fretboard ... stay off the frets, go with the grain and use the manufactured straight edge of the paper to get up to the frets), 220 grit (do it again), 400 grit (do it again) and some steel wool and masking tape (cover the fretboard either side of a fret and polish back and forth with the steel wool. Don't go thru the tape or you'll score the wood against the grain.)

Tongue oil finish when done ... brand new neck. You can do it on a saturday.

Cut the pickup ring and routed to fit the jackson pickup (its real tall).

Put it all together, set it up and played it for 10 minutes. It works.

Took it all apart, fine sanded everything, primed white and shot a coat of ivory white paint. White is tough.

Fine sanded it again. Ply basses have a ton of holes in the plus. Im gonna have to do this several times.

youll should have amy take a pic of you playing it flipped...she probably asked how you can play it, but since the strings are inverted-you could

we had a nice show last night I let my friend in the band after us use my rig. I hope someone took a picture of his epi-bird because he broke the neck years ago and put a 3/4scale on it red epibird with a maple FB short neck on it...
very unique, He used my rig and was happy he didn't have to bring his. I let him put the EQ where he and his bandmates thought it sounded good..wow did I have to turn up the wireless preamp gain to get it to hit the amp hard like my Charvel does into my rack mixer. typical epi OEM pickup sound like my old one.
the headliner out of NYC rolled up in a van that looked like it was from 1972, they all had makeup, gelled hair, skinny girls pants, and tried to look like nikki sixx...yuk. BUT the metal-boys and girls make-up'ed the same way in the audience were lovin it I made enough cash to pay for a weeks worth of gas and pizza or hogies lunches at work (130.00 ) instead of home-made sandwiches from here.

their bassplayer was using a natural gib-bird hung so low on his body his arms were straight down ( looked VERY uncomfortable ) thru a SUNN300T ( looked like 4 tubes in it ) and a vertical 2x15 SUNN cab...meh, not the nicest combo of instrument + amp sound at all. I would have LOVED to hear that sunncab thru my mackie.

anyway, I'm glad it worked with no shims under the neck since that kahler bridge is a little taller than the OEM junk...but that junk bridge will go on my chinese junk bass to put that one together again and I'll leave me spare jackson bridge on the shelf for now ----or sell it cause someone just got almost 50 bucks for 1 on ebay :O

and gasoline yesterday is now up to around 3.55-3.60 for regular.

Those sunn rigs are my dream rig. Great smooth low end growl and punch. What limited experience I have with them, they can handle anything that gets thrown at it.

But when I rarely see them for sale, they are beat to crap, abused and rediculously overpriced.

Someday maybe.

Hey mike ... someone on phila CL has a white BC rich ironbird for$ 350. I can't afford it right now.

oh wow i wonder if that is Bob out there from the leftygiutarplayer.com cause i saw many pics of that and he is in phla
let me PM him and find out.

I didnt mean that sunn was weak or anything i just meant all that money for something that really didnt sound any different than my ghetto rig. Plus he was using a muddy tbird to begin with.
heres a pic 2 from the show last night ( they are starting to upload all the pics to everybodys fb pages this morning )
that's the band called wildstreet from NYC

Cool shots, Mike! I love seeing the band live!

Actually, my second bass amp head was an old Sunn 100 watt tube amp. I don't believe it was a Coliseum, but it was definitely made for bass. The thing was slightly larger and heavier than a Marshall JCM800 is. I remember thinking that it was a huge upgrade in volume from my first amp, which was a Fender Bassman 50 head and matching 1x15 cabinet. I ran the Sunn through my homemade 2x15 cabinet loaded with a pair of JBL E140's. It was pretty loud! But back in those days, I had NO ear for tonality, so I couldn't honestly tell you if it actually sounded good or not.

ya Mike that ironbird is indeed my friend bob's. i asked him how much for me figuring in 35 for shipping and i'm gonna buy it if he can make the price just a little lower.

if i buy it it's not that rare that I've never seen another so if in the end of summer or something you want it i'll sell it with no regrets or sentimental value.

now if it was a lefty---well...... ( and you wouldn't be interested in the first place anyway )

Kewl ... thanx mike.

Got 4 coats of ivory paint down. Ill post some pics tomorrow.

thanks for the update Mike. he is going to box it up and I told him to hold it until the end of this week and I'd paypal him as soon as I get a check in the bank. He asked me to buy that thing last year but I was not in the market for another righty I would let sit on the shelf and only use in the basement. here's some pics if you want them:

https://s1043.photobucket.com/albums/b436/leftybob/BC%20Rich%20Ironbird/

6 coats of paint down ... the plus are disappearing.

2 more coats tomorrow morning ... then the lacquer starts.

Waiting for the stacked pots and knobs to come in. I ordered a few for the custom too seeing as im gonna redo the electronics in it, fine crown the frets, do some custom personalization and keep it.

Then assembly and setup.

Pictures.

Then back to pittsburgh.

the what is disappearing?
you meant the plys in the plywood I assume.

yes ... stoopid spelllink chegger on mi fon. it wont let me misspell stuff.

yoo kno, sumtimez mizspellin stuf iz uzed onporpise.

"DAS HOWE AYE TAWK!"

good thing that's the last coat ... i'm out of paint.

i forgot about the stacked pot to replace the b+t on the mr ming so no more holes drilled.

and did you drill a big hole and need a football plate + stereo jack or did you find one of those skinny 3prong jacks to fit in the existing hole. ( I never thought of that )

you want me to send you a check for the extra parts your buying?

i haddent even addressed how i'm gonna install the ming's now that you mention it.



i guess its not gonna fit in there, huh? not a problem ... i can make the on the side of the body hole bigger to fit the stereo 1/4" jack on the ming's ...



... and i'll make another plate outta the black pearloid and pickguard screws to mount the 1/4" in for a side of body mount. Square with 4 screws (my choice) or football shaped with 2 screws plate?

so, now that i got my phone attached, i can post some pics and give you some progress ........




pretty cool pickup ring right? it looks wide but its actually only 1/8" wider than the stock. needed to be to cover the original pickup rout hole. the holes i made to mount the thing are stock pickguard screw size and just have enuff around that humongous hole to mount.

that jackson pickup is real tall (the screws and legs on either side for adjustment). i couldnt get it to sit right, so i had to make the pocket deeper on either side where the legs reside ... see it in the body hanging pics?

color?



its hard to tell in the basement fluorescent light glow, but it is ivory, not just white. i primed it in white and ... wow! be glad its ivory and not white! that was just really way bright and that was just flat primer! i like the ivory color a lot. its warmer and more of a velvety feel than just a white ... and the more satin lacquer i put on it the better it looks. personal choice i always go for the darker colors and dyes (blue, purple and black) but this may change how i think about picking a color for a bass or a restoration repaint.

i was also looking at a color they had called offwhite #5. where as the ivory is tinted with yellow and brown earthtones, the #5 is done with blues and greys along with the earthtone. its darker ... but it looks cool.

i'm really taking my time with the lacquer. the paint was tuff (10 coats? ... light colors is hard to cover) and you bothered to pay me to do it, so i want it to last forever. i'll probably end up doing 15 - 20 real thin coats.

the headstock. they always give me a hard time. there was that lacquercellulose sealer stuff on the face so i figured i'de utilize it like primer. i even put white primer on first. second coat of ivory ... it curdled and wrinkled all up ... like old man skin. yuk! it just wouldnt stick to that stuff ... i dont get it!?!?! most companys use that stuff under their paint and, after the hours and hours i've struggled to get their paint off, it seems to work for them. maybe its a chemical reaction kinda thing and my paint just doesnt do that and furthermore, is repelled by it ... because thats what its supposed to do; protect the wood.

i took the reciprocating sander to it, took it down to the wood and redid it. it looks perfect now.

the 50K stacked pot and concentric knobs shud be in tomorrow.

i still gotta file the tusq nut.

and tongue oil the neck.

i'm still on (my) schedule to have it done next week.

marvelous

i can see the deeper holes in the HB area, and that black pearl ring is fine.
the hole for the jack can be 2screw football or 4screw square whichever is easier.
the white looks too washed out on your phone, but i'm sure the "older/antique" colored the better.
had I known white was gonna be a lot more work I would have said blue/red/green whatever. For you it was a learning experience on how hard it is to cover wood in white I guess.

i don't like pure white anyway too bright as my futura and concert show the huge difference:

.
remember this is not my 2300.00 custom build from you and I'll take anything that looks good with suggestions from anyone on this board if I'm being blinded somehow and forgetting things.

and this is so trivial it don't matter but did you take a pic of the logo and scan it into your computer so you can put a black waterslide sticker on it?

I got the "series10" logo vectorized already. I just gotta get some black psa vinyl and find someone with a cad cut plotted. I think the t shirt guy down the street has one. Ill call him tomorrow.

well that sounds good

talked to bruce today. yeah ... he has psa vinyl and will cad cut it for me ... so i'll be able to do logos again.

now i gotta go find that artwork ...............

it is only needed for authenticity, not for resale value.

plus with an all white head it will offset the white a little.

progress pics



when you asked me for which knobs - i say tort swirl sided to match the tort trimring, but since you don't have and silver swirl knobs - 2nd choice would be the chrome cause i have plenty of jackson knobs over here if i wanted to change it to black.
glad the preamp fit

and although the logo is way larger than it should be, that logo is perfect and people will see it. i love black on white. I wish all the Charvys had matching heads for whatever color they are

.

oh i just noticed something the pickup is upside down mike-

The silver with the black centers are set screw, not press on a split shaft. The pots are split shaft ... ill haveta find some cuffs, but I can never get them to center on the pot shaft. Ill put them on, give you back the originals (they are metal press on with the insides dry rotting a bit) and a set that matches the concentric pretty close, so you'll have a choice.

Yeah I know, I gotta flip both pickups back. The cable leads will run under the pickups so after I test it, ill flipem and shield underneath real good.

The logo is .4" wider. Any smaller and it wouldn't have cut or picked as clean. I didn't cut em and I didn't want to be a pain in the ***. It came out real good.

Furreal, I went back and forth with the pickups. Left handed bass, set up right handed, for a lefty. It could go anyway but sideways at this point. The natural instinct is to have where the leads come out of the pickups on the pots side ... but the leads were plenty long so.

This was my personal choice. The p pickup that was in there was spring mounted. I've just never liked that. Going, boing, boing, boing. I've used that set up with no ill effect, but I just always pull the springs out and put in the foam rubber base. It just feels more secure and stable (and noiseless ). Foam mousepad works great. Of course the jack humbucker is springs in a pickup ring and will be. This is where springs should be used. I'm proud of my pickup ring ... it came out really good.

Just wanted to post the status ... final assembly. I have the precise work of filing the nut today. Silly chinese measurements; the standard tusq nut won't just drop in there. Its 2 or 3 RCH's too small. I built it up with extra graphite I had (and now its huge) so I got a bit of filing to do. I went out and got that nice file set ... ss rotos still work better for the slots.

Nut, set the neck, machine heads, build the bridge, intonate, straplocks (I got a case of them) and I think that's it.

Ooooh. I gotta see how much pearloid I got left. The back coverplate is all scratched. I made you a pearloid truss nut cover so with that, the pu ring and the backplate, everything will match.

Lastly, and I think I just gotta live with it. The black neckplate is scratched. I might have a nicer one but I bet its chrome. Eh.

Ill put some pics up tonite.

cool, a nice update to wake up to. i'm sure the cover could have stayed scratched since it is on the back and nobody sees it, but since you already did it. and the TR cover thats a bonus. I may put the black TR back on so the head is only B+W like putting the black knobs back on it..eh, who knows.

Ill send all pre and post parts with so, you can pick and choose and, have some extra parts for the box.

Im out of the pearloid. I have like6 or7 prices ... all too small. Ill see what I can find.

you can send the stuff back, I'll shelf it or use it..either way will work.

any recent pics of the thing yet Mike?...some people are asking what it looks like now. I don't care about you sending it back yesterday, but if you have any pics I'd appreciate it. I also created another thread here to get some action on this forum since it is slow lately......

I got the jackson bridge today and put it on. You were right ... its a really nice bridge. I just eyeball intimated and set the height. As is, it plays awesome! Looks great too.

Its 95% done. I just need to 1) do an overall finished fine tuned set up. 3) track down the ground issue. A spot of solder shud do it. And d) polish it up, take some pix and post them heere and ship.

I pulled my unmolested pink lefty out to take a pic yesterday..haha they used a righty bridge on it as well with the saddles grooved the wrong way!!

yep I "thought" they would actually use a lefty bridge on them but nope...so me reversing the strings actually makes the string size match the grooves...

If the guitar was a expensive unit jackson would have made a REAL lefty bridge, or used something else..instead they just used that bridge on everything like I suspected...funny, after owning that pink thing for 2 years I never had an issue, and until recently when we were going back and forth about them, I never even thought about it.

OMG! ITS DONE!

first just let me say, that im happy to do this for you mike; you participate on this board, your an active musician, your a fellow pennsylvannitarian and we've become friends and thats cool.

so dont take this the wrong way. this is just the way it goes and its the reason i choose to do refurbs and sell them and not do repairs for people. i have taken basses to so called luthiers and gotten my crap back with less than satisfactory results. sometimes its just clearly just shoddy workmanship that they do. sometimes its that they commit to more than they are capable of doing. other times its just that they dont know what they are doing. sometimes its ok. sometimes its just the way it goes when everything they touch either crumbles in their hands, doesnt go the way its supposed to, boogers something else up or just sits on their bench for so long they begin to get discouraged and end up not caring. what if they dont care and do a crappy job? ... we still gotta pay the bill and get our bass back!

this series 10 was that way. started off on a good clip, but the last week i've worked on it, i've handled it so delicately because i was afraid something else would go wrong.

so many things didnt work out as planned that i decided on thursday that i just need to disassemble the whole thing, sand out all the imperfections and lacquer it again. glad i did because i was starting to not feel good about my work. everytime i looked at it i'de see this wrong, and that wrong, and a scratch here, and that doesnt line up there. ugg. this gave me another shot at it ending up like some workmanship that i can be proud of.

so i guess what i'm saying ... if its my bass that i'm stripping down and refurbishing and it sits on my bench for 3 months or ends up exploding or going down in a ball of flames, thats one thing. if its someone elses bass that they have paid me to work on ... and its not really replaceable, theres a bit more stress involved. i just manned up and went larry the cable guy on it and godderdun.

pics .............

after the re - rout for the jackson bridge, pocket paint and re - lacquer.


glad i had the opportunity to re - do the mr. mings too. came out much cleaner this time ... less crammed in the cavity.


stoopid camera!

muy bueno ........


a bad shot of my foot .......

the headstock repair ......

tongue oil finish ... that was a lot of sanding! i think you'll notice the difference and like it immediately.

no more scratches on the control cover .....



the pickup configuration with the mr. mings gives this bass ridiculous range now ... from acoustic piano string sound to big boomey bass sound and everything in between. i even got some nice growley tones with driving the ++ dB's on the high and low tones.

the action is decent for what it is. i like lower but i hate fret buzz and these frets arent plecked straight. surprising that it has decent action without buzz through the majority of the playing field. the only dead fret i found was at the 13th on the D string, set that string height so it wouldnt buzz there and set the rest accordingly in relation to it.

you can set it with more relief and probably get it a little closer, or go about a set up if you go for a different style of setup all together. point is, i bet this bass plays better than it did before.

the intonation is perfect now.

i'm also sending it back to you with the yamaha push ons that i thought looked cool, the original black knobs and a set of black dunlop strap locks in the classic style so you can use the locks or like a regular strap button (because they go on all PXR basses and i have a case of them).

i'll go down to ups monday morning and ship it out to you.

what can I say but wow.

and now that I'm home from the play tonight and the drive back from ohio after we stopped at a bar we are playing at in may out there and can type on my computer I guess I have to say the same thing....wow.+
I never played it remember, I took it out of the box on day1 and hit the head on the beam in my basement. laughed took the string off put it on the shelf and that was that. Like the white charvel I'll keep this thing around for years because this is bass#2 custom.

this is the original ebay pic before i got it and killed it.


from your pics i didnt even think to look if it had flamey scarf neck when i unbolted the thing and stripped the parts into the baggies before i sent it to you.
BTW are you one of those people who leaves a mark on your work somewhere hidden to show you built the bass to potential buyers?

I was thinking of putting a PXR and/or a phoenix somewhere on it. Back of the headstock maybe.

If I had engraving technology still (like at my old job) I could make cool neckplates.

feel free to sign it, stamp it, sticker it, anything you want to show people it was built from you.

So ya keep the kahler for yourself to use on something. With the ironbird money keep another 100 and you owe me only 200 because you did a lot more on the series10 than we bargained for in the beginning.

as an off topic item this play pulled in 3400 first night from ticket sales and food and sodas, 3100 last night, and today should be a sellout crowd one more time and hit at least 3grand again.
yes the drummers wife ( the musical director ) had expenses but they told us that the schools profit will be somewhere around 4500 after this show is done provided they pull in 3grand again....GOD I wish we were getting ALL that money almost 10grand for 3shows

the principal of the school told 2 of the city council workers who do outdoor summer festival plannings already who approached Mike last night ( our singer ) and want us to do outdoor BIG shows ---..I never played anything like what they are offering in all my years.
Salineville Ohio is no NYC or Chicago but when they do their outdoor shows, the bands get paid up to 5grand depending on the show and have drawn in 7500-10,000 people in past years in the pavilion they have out there.

They wanted us to do one in May in Hookstown Ohio for their summer festival already, but we had to say no because of the Pittsburgh Marathon was the same weekend

can you say "musical carrear launcher"? all from us doing a stupid highschool play background music? why didnt this happen 10 years ago...lol We may never play in Pittsburgh again.

Dood ... that's awesome!

I think as bass players, we get stuck in second fiddle status. A guitar player stinks or isn't as good as another lead and they say, "ill just play bass". These are the reasons I have hung in there leading 40ws. If this is opening doors, getting you recognition as a player or, most importantly making you money ... that rocks.

last night was filled with tragedies, but quickly remedied..

it was very hot in the room, very bad for us, the kids and the audience..probably 75 degrees on the floor and 80 in front of the lights on the main stage and the side stage we were on, so the performance was a technical difficulties night.

-- someone stepped on a cord of the main mic on the stage and killed it, the numnuts plugged all 3 main amps into the same outlet and didnt split them up on a 15amp breaker like he did the first night..ya it tripped it during the first 5 minutes so no mics and no keyboard but got fixed. the keyboardist from the school just got another keyboard to use and wasn't used to it and her sheetmusic flipper was slow on some parts.

the pre-show pep talk before the gig from the director with the whole cast asked each of the band members a helpful hint, they all spoke up i wasn't paying attention she caught me off guard and wanted me to say a couple words also...all I could think of since I had my phone with me and was kinda staring down at it was "wait a sec i'm texting" the laughter from 30 kids was awesome.

the kids computer he was using for the sound effects got a win7 update and the audience laughed when they heard the ding and voice etc..but was still fun and a good audience despite the heat. I am bringing some of the most stupidest 80's gear for the finale just for photo purposes with the theme ---afterall, the 80's was the prime of my life.

and oh ya....the bassplayer standing in front of his cab like he always does didnt know the treb knob on the mixer he was using was accidentally pegged..another great audience moment for a laugh when I just blurted out by accident "oh wow thats me" because nobody could figure out where the feedback was coming from... None of this stuff happened friday night - one more show to go

I only say this, because its something I had to learn to take it as such when it happens to me ...

Ha!

well todays show was great like friday. no mishaps and the a/c was on so not sweatbox
when all the vids and pics are out I'll post in the other section. at the end they asked us to do one song-so we played rockin in the free world, something a little more of our natural musical environment.

much more fun when it's cool.
especially for a 50yr old bassist who was really going gung-ho for it today to end with a bang while standing up most of the show and carrying a 10lb piece of wood on my shoulder.

well it arrived today here at work. I pulled it out of the box but didn't unwrap it, because it's easier for me to transport it in the bubblewrap as I have a bunch of junk in the car, plus I'll use that shipping box for something else and I'll leave that here. Yep they wrapped the hell out of it so I'm sure it's in one piece under all that wrapping. I got the little box with the knobs and straplocks, but I'll save them for something else and put the extra wide charvel pins on it ( I probably have 6 sets of those on the shelf ) because I don't want to have to use one strap on it all the time.

thanks again, and I'll post pics tonight when I get home next to the kramer and charvel so you can see the "white" comparison.

cute



yep it works and the dead fret is pretty bad...oh well I'm usually not up there and again not my main bass. looks and sounds nice though. very flamey neck for a cheap korean unit.

strings are a lot lower now and I tightened the tuners a little but im not pulling the covers off to tighten the screw under them...it stays in tune. I may swap them off for a set of jackson ones i have in the drawer.

tonal? yep and the difference in pickup tone is very apparent and easily blended. Some day I may swap the mr ming out for a jackson one, but for now it hits my pre on the rack hard and no buzz under the fluorescent lights in the basement.

That dead fret drove me crazy ... I actually dressed the one in front 3x. Its better, but not perfect.

Yeah ... the back of the neck came up nice. I don't know why anyone would want a neck anything but tongue oil.

And yeah ... I wasn't happy with those tuners except for that they were black. If they were chrome or didn't stay in tune, I would have gotten a set of mighty mite or allpart tuners.

Glad you dig the electronics ... there was definatly some trial and error going on before I got it right. The split p sounds good thru the mings.

ya, all my gear is still in Ohio from the play over last weekend. I'll jam a tune or 2 on youtube as soon as I get that stuff back to the house. I could not stop playing it last night even straight into the PA mixing board with none of my usual effects and was in the basement for a good hour just noodling. The neck is not as flat as the Charvels, but more than adequate for jamming a whole set in one of our gigs without me saying yuk this thing is so fat and rounded and my thumb hurts, which you can count on me doing this summer.

one thing I was bummed about the charvel is I like reverse-p. When I flipped the strings that ended that, but now that this series10 is NOT rev-p..it is now and sounds wonderful.

kewl.

and fyi ... sent you some mail.

what address did you send it to? work 229 or home 3309

229

thats cool either way it will get to me I just don't receive the mail here at work, but when they see my name it will come to me regardless.

so ya I was bored and tuned it to drop-C CGCF:
who cares if the dead fret is there. I'll never use it