How do I restore a "hacked up" bass body?

[Daryl B. Wolff]

I was given a bass made from various parts. The bridge was a piece of angled metal countersunk into the body. The pickup and electronics cavities were made by using a hole saw and then chiselled out. This left the bottom of the cavities irregular with drill holes in it. See image.

What I would like to do is fill cavities 1 & 3 with wood glued in, fill the gaps and scrape and sand the surface of the filled areas flush with the surrounding wood. Cavity 2 is ugly as well but is probably OK to accomodate the pots and the jack. So, what i'd end up with is a blank body excepting the ugly cavity for the pots & jack. Then rout out cavities for the split P pickups and electronics.

Cavity 1 it is where the old jury-rigged bridge was counter-sunk approx 1/16 inch deep. What I was going to do is glue a thin piece of like-wood (I think the body is made out of alder, my guess), fill the cracks and plane and sand the area flush with the surrounding surface. Cut the hole for the ground wire to connect to the bridge, I don't think the new bridge will need to be countersunk.

Cavity 3 is ugly and is really two cavities. The hole for the pickup is one inch deep. the other one is 11/16 in deep. Due to how these cavities are gouged out the bottom surface is very rough and irregular. I'm not sure how to approach fixing these.

My thought is to square of the cavities using a router and go deeper to even the bottom and cut replacement wood to fit. Then glue, fill cracks and scrape and sand the area to be flush with the surrounding wood.

The next step would be to rout out a new cavity to accommodate the pickups,wiring and to leave access for the neck adjustment nut. I will be buying a prewired pick-guard with pickups - http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/pre-wir ... -pickguard.

Another option would be to leave the cavities as they are and rout out as needed for the new pickup assembly.

I think I prefer the first option as it would make the body more solid and would probably improve the overall sound.

What do you think? Do any of these sound like reasonable repair methods?

I am a total newbie when it comes to instrument repair.

Thanks for any input on this.

[David King]

I'd save some time and fill all the cavities with bondo or lightened epoxy (slow cure epoxy with with micro balloons). The pick guard and bridge will cover all the nastiness. If something about that bothers you you can skim the top surface off and put a veneer over everything.

[Daryl B. Wolff]

Thanks. If I use a slow cure epoxy or bondo, would I still be able to work it i.e. rout out cavities for the pickup, electronics and access to the neck adjustment nut? Or would I need to create those cavities upon applying the epoxy or bondo? I'm guessing that I will be able to drill thru it for screws, right?
I apologize for my ignorance of the properties of the materials.

[Bryan Bear]

I'm not an electric guy so feel free to ignore this as I may be missing something. . . I can't help but think about all the work you plan on putting in to get this body ready to re-rout. I would think it would take much less time to cut out a new body blank and do everything the way you want it. Gluing up a blank and cutting out the outline seems like the easiest part of the whole process. Accurately routing all the cavities is the part that would take the most set-up and care; but you have to do all that anyway with the old body.

[Beate Ritzert]

Does that body have any symbolic value? To You?

If yes i would completly open up the area of the pickup cavities and fit one single large block of wood in that large hole. You might consider leaving the cavity for the electronics as is. And also fill the cavity for the bridge. I doubt that filling it with epoxy would save any time, and the dust of the epoxy is problematic.
Then reroute the actual pickup holes . The electronics cavity might just be cleaned up a bit or may even be left alone.

[Daryl B. Wolff]

I was thinking that by restoring wood to the body cavities and routing the cavity anew would give the bass a fuller sound than if i left it. If that would not improve the sound much to speak of, then I guess leaving the cavity as is and rerouting the actual pickup holes as Beate Ritzert suggests would be the easiest.
Thanks.

[David King]

I doubt anyone would hear a difference between wood and filler. If the areas are going to be covered up anyway why bother filling. People go to a lot of trouble these days hollowing out their solid bodies to get the weight down and improve their "acoustic" characteristics. You aren't dealing with any structural issues here. I disagree with Brian about starting over on a new body being the easier path. It would only be easier if you have a guitar factory all set up. That said you can probably buy a P bass body for $40. This one will be fine so no need to chuck it out.

Yes filler/bondo can be routed, drilled, screwed into, sanded and finished just like wood. That's why it's so handy. If you are going to make dust you need to keep it out of your lungs no matter what it came from so wear a dust mask.

[Daryl B. Wolff]

Good to know that the sound would not be affected either with wood, filler or left as is. So i'm going to leave it hollowed.
Thank you all very much for your advice and help.

[Mark Swanson]

When I have been asked to do this, I like to use a combination of wood and filler. I make a wood block to mostly fit the cavity, but make it smaller than I need and then I fill the gaps with the filler. That way I don't have to try and make it fit perfectly and I use much less filler. Bondo is cheap anyway, but I still like thinking that the body is still mostly wood.

[Michael Lewis]

That body looks like a good opportunity to make your structural repairs and then skin off the top surface and glue on a cap of figured wood. Cut the new openings after it is all solid and it will look like it was made that way from the factory. You would need to shape the edges to blend with the rest of the body.