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Old 03-29-2017, 01:41 PM
Michele Caramazza Michele Caramazza is offline
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Join Date: 08-02-2011
Location: Italy
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Ken, thanks for your reply.
Actually, I'm not for a refinish job. First, I'm a firm believer that if a refin job is for whatever reason needed, the instrument maker is the only person entitled to do that. So, given distance and costs, my BT stays the way it is.
Second, I actually LOVE the signs of time on my bass.

My goal is not to make the bass shine like a brand new one. I just want to take some of the previous owner DNA off

NECK:
The back of the neck is bare wood in the frets 1 to 7 area: down there it's really smooth from years and years of hand friction. The rest still have lacquer but at the headstock end of the neck, just before the Coat of Arm carve there's some nasty, sticky grime build up. Same on the body end of the neck, where the lower horn cutaway is.
Could I gently rub the grime away using naphtha? To my knowledge naphtha (or white petroleum..that it is) is safe on bare wood but under the grime there's still lacquer...

BODY:
The body really has almost all it's lacquer on except for the spot between the pickups (thumb resting), the "I plucked the hell out of it" area, the right forearm rest area.
I guess that I could safely use a lacquer polish product. Just a little amount, sprayed on the cloth and not getting into those worn areas to avoid what you said about the product finding it's way under the finish. I have the Alembic polish handy and I've previously used it without harm even on nitrocellulose lacquer.

I would also add that I have a bottle of Howard's Feed and Wax. Carl Thompson gave it to me when I picked a bass from him years ago. He uses it all over his basses. The bass is gone, the Howard's I still have.
It's a mixture of wax and essential orange oil. Could I use this product to feed and give some protection to the worn area of the neck? Could I use it also on the fingerboard?

Last edited by Michele Caramazza; 03-29-2017 at 03:36 PM.
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