What's in a Restoration?

[David Powell]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Please fell free to ask, discuss or contribute to this tread in any way. All levels of knowledge or lack thereof welcomed. We can discuss any repairs or restorations you have had seen or may have in the future right here with some of the best guys in the biz.

OK, so the door is open for me here. I'll go with the "lack thereof welcomed"! Recently there was a topic discussed not so much here about a Prescott bass that was restored by Lou DiLeone. Most of us know of Lou and he is very respected as an expert in his field. He made several changes to the Prescott and in general I would say that almost all of these are definitely changes that made the bass more useful, better sounding, more easily maintained in the future, and more modern in features. Among the changes were the installation of a neck block, new neck grafting back the original scroll, converting the pegbox from 3 to 4 string configuration, new tailpiece with 4 holes. Im guessing, but I don't know, at least it is plausible that it got a new bass bar, some regraduation and other changes. It also got new varnish. I don't want to start a heated debate, just hear some knowledgeable responses about rebuilding / restoring a bass in such a radical fashion. To me, that bass is a Lou DiLeone bass made from Prescott parts now. Not that there is anything deleterious in that action or anything negative about it in my estimation. It is just giving credit to Lou instead of Abe for the instrument's current sound and characteristics? Any commments?