JETGLO 1972 4001

The simple finished appearance of this early 1970s bass belies the extraordinary amount of work that it took us to get it into presentable shape. The top of this much-gigged instrument had been peppered by previous owners with dozens of extraneous drilled screw holes and routs for several different pickup configurations, including everyone's favorite Fender Precision Bass staggered array. The oversized neck pickup re-routing had weakened the neck, too.

All of this destructive modification needed to be set right, and Studio California devised a plan to do just that. First, the neck pickup rout was cleaned up and filled tightly with a dense maple block, which was in turn leveled flush with the top. Next, a 3/16" skim cut was taken off the entire top surface, and three pieces of maple were glued in place to cover all of the bad screw holes and unneeded extra pickup routs. Originally, the bass was to be finished in Fireglo (hence the beautiful flame seen on the raw wooden pieces), but at the last minute the customer changed his mind and decided to go with a Jetglo finish. Full-width crushed mother-of-pearl fret markers were installed, as was new "checkerboard" purfling and white celluloid binding. 

The finished bass is now period-authentic, right down to its horseshoe pickup, sand-cast gap-toothed tailpiece, and clear acrylic "tug bar" mounted to the treble side of the pick guard.