SOLD!!

This Fender Precision was repaired and refinished and assembled from a bunch of vintage parts I collected over time.  I had always wanted to build an Olympic White with Tortoise Guard P-bass, as I think the creamy color of the aged Olympic White looks great with the brownish-red of a vintage tortoise guard.  So I assembled this example, but now have decided to part with it as I have more than half a dozen vintage Precisions and I really don't need that many.

The body is refinished with a '60s style nitro finish: yellow stain, clear sealer coat, flat white primer, Olympic White color coat and a tinted clear topcoat.  The tinting of the clear coat was done such that there is a "shadow" under the pickguard, neckplate, bridge and bridge cover with those areas yellowed less than the exposed areas of the body (see below).

The resulting bass weighs in at almost exactly 8 lbs with the chromed bridge and pickup covers on.  The 70s grey-bottom pickup (10.8K Ohm resistance) is powerful and sounds great (like they all do!) and the bass plays well. The neck has a tiny amount of relief ( 1/32nd of an inch) and plays well up and down the neck and intonates pretty accurately as currently set up.

The bass is not a mint-condition restoration, but is also priced accordingly at about half of what an original sunburst '72 P-bass sells for currently.

The bass comes in a kind of beat-up but solid early 70's Fender bass case with a fairly rare rootbeer colored lining - I originally got the case with a mutilated '73 Jazz bass that was brought to the US from London, so maybe its an export Fender case?  It has the correct 1972 - 1975 Fender logo on it.

This bass is located in the Boston area and is available for in-person examination if you're local.  For those outside of the Boston area, shipping will be extra - please contact me with your location and I will give you a quote for shipping via FedEx or USPS.

I accept payment by cashier's cheque/money order, cash in person or Paypal - though there will be an additional charge to cover Paypal expenses (approx. 3 1/2% of total).

Please direct all inquiries to me via email:  krishna@guitargarage.net  - with something like "'72 P-bass" in the subject line so I don't miss your email if it ends up in my spam folder.

Details

The majority of the parts ARE correct for a 1972 Fender Precision, but they are from different instruments originally.

The vintage parts include:
- 1972    B-width neck, refretted and refinished with repro logo
- 1970 - 1973 alder body, with routing repairs and refinished in aged Olympic White
- 1970s  grey-bottom Fender P-bass pickup
- 1969 - 1972 Fender bridge with extended G saddle screw
- 1968 - 1975 Fender 4-ply tortoise guard, with chip at point near output jack
- 1972 - 1975 "F" tuners & bushings
- 1972 - 1973 Fender hardcase, with rootbeer-colored lining

The reproduction parts include:
- chrome bridge & pickup covers
- strap-buttons
- F-logo neckplate
- pots, knobs and output jack
- various screws
- thumbrest
- nut

Body repair and refinishing

The body is a vintage Fender body, from between late 1969 and early 1973, based on the following characteristics:

- two dowel-pin marks on back, one on the body centerline near the butt of the body and one just inside the bass side cutaway (P-bass bodies from late 1967 through about 1979)

- placement of the bridge closer to the edge of the body (1969 til late 72/early73)

- no channel routed from control cavity to pickup (1958 through early 1973)

- remnants of yellow stain, which would have been applied under the finish (approx 1960 - 1973)

Most likely this was originally a sunburst body, though its hard to tell with all the modifications and refinishes its had over the past 40 years.

The front of the body is where the real mayhem has occurred !!  The body had been routed and plugged once before I even got it - for a large bridge pickup and a larger pickup in the stock middle position, as well as routing for a switch at the bass side of the pickguard and for an extra control/and or battery under the guard adjacent to the stock control cavity.

I plugged all the routed areas with alder - using epoxy as the adhesive to minimize shrinkage over the long term.  I feel that using a glue with water content (such as Titebond or hide glue) will swell up the glued-in plugs - more so than the surrounding wood - but this swelling subsides VERY slowly - especially once the plugs are sealed up and finished over (on the order of 3 months to over a year).  Using a two-part epoxy, there is little to no moisture introduced - and the epoxy itself has minimal shrinkage and is very tough/strong.

I then re-routed the pickup cavity and the edge of the control cavity - the results before finishing are visible below.

And here's the body with the flat white primer coat applied - ready for the color coats.

Once the color coats had been applied and wet sanded, then the entire body was clear-coated, with a VERY slight amber tinting to take some of the edge off the blinding whiteness. Note the back of the original tortoise guard - with some factory marks (9) and grounding foil applied.

At the correct angle, the outlines of the plugs for the bridge pickup and the switch near the pickguard edge are just visible - click on pictures for expanded views.

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The mid-70s Fender Precision bass in Olympic White with a black pickguard was the weapon of choice for the one and only Dee Dee Ramone - I remember seeing the Ramone's countless times in New Jersey and New York - and Dee Dee had as many as three identical Olympic White P-basses lined up and ready to rock - along with a couple of big old Ampeg SVT rigs.




And despite their ash bodies - you can see that Dee Dee was pretty agile even with those P-basses around his neck!


The bass I'm selling was assembled over several years as parts came my way and I had some time between other projects - and has turned out as an exceptional example of this 70s rock workhorse.

I originally acquired the neck as a project piece that had been defretted and had the fret slots filled with Bondo. I found the body a little later on Ebay - it had numerous refinishes capped with a horrendous blue spray can paint job on it and an added rout for a Jazz Bass pickup and an extra pot.

I refinished the fretboard,refretted the neck, stripped the body, plugged the added rout and began a refinish. A few pictures from this initial work are below. The router table pin marks, the ground wire rout under the bridge, the hand rest and bridge position, and the wiring rout for the pickup all identify this body as being from between 1974 and 1977.



I went as far as priming and putting a coat of Olympic white on the body, but then put aside the project for a few years.


Recently, I revisited the project and realized I had most of the parts I needed - including a 70s Fender bridge, a 1976 P-bass pickup, the bridge and pickup covers, and a complete set of late 70s Schaller-made Fender bass tuners. I hadn't plugged a small rout for an added control pot, so I plugged that and then reprimed the body.

For the finish - I applied a straight white nitro base coat, followed by a cream-tinted white coat, to replicate the aging of the color coat on 70s Olympic White Fenders. This was then followed by a few clear coats to protect the color coats. This will cause the finish to wear slightly differently than a typical 60s Olympic White Fender, where most of the yellowing happens in the clear coat. Note how the yellowed Olympic White contrasts with a plain white piece of paper!




Also note that the Jazz bass routing repair is invisible - I expect since this repair was done several years ago it will stay fairly invisible.


My observation is that the 70s polyester finishes weren't even clear coated - the yellowing happens in the top part of the actual color coat. I'd love to know if this is what others have observed as well ??

But even if that is true, this body will wear differently due to the thinner nitro finish, as opposed to the thick polyester finish that would have been applied at the factory.

The bass fit together beautifully - with a good tight neck pocket fit. Once it was set up, the frets did need some dressing here and there, but the neck flattened out almost perfectly once the truss rod was tensioned up. The neck now has about 1/64 inch of relief around 10th fret - with near perfect intonation and fairly low action.

The pickup sounds a little brighter than the pickup in my 1970 P-bass, but has the classic grey-bottom pickup sound. The pickup resistance was a little over 11K Ohms. Note that the original grounding plate and weather-stripping material "pads" are in place as well.



The tuners are correct for 1976, though I do believe that some early 1976 P-basses came with the Fender produced tuners before the switch to the Schaller-manufactured tuners later in the year. The tuners were acquired from two different sources - two of them are in near mint condition and two of them were heavily machine polished to the point where the plating is gone from the top of one of the string pegs. The ferrules in the neck are new, as is the nut.




The bridge is an original 70s Fender bridge in excellent condition, with the crease visible on the string anchor portion of the neck.




Finally, the bass comes in a rare brown-burgundy lined original Fender hardshell case. The brown-burgundy lining was used only during the 1975/1976 era - most cases were lined with the familiar orange material. The case is in excellent condition as is the exterior Fender logo.



The inside of the bridge and pickup covers bear remnants of what appear to be red or burgundy ink inspection stamps - very faint.



Ready to rock in front of my beloved Ampeg B-15N !!


The following parts are not original 70s Fender parts:
- 3-ply black-white-black pickguard
- black thumbrest
- new CTS pots, capacitor, jack and knobs
- pickguard screws, neck screws and bridge screws

All in all a really nice bass that plays great, with near-perfect intonation and low action - with a total weight just under 9 lbs with the covers on - not bad for a 70s Precision; this isn't one of the late 70s "boat anchor" Precisions (I have one of those coming up for sale soon though !!).

UPDATE: SOLD! Thanks to Eoin of the Emerald Isle - hope you enjoy the bass !! read more →