Refinishing my Ibanez blazer bass

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17th October 2009

The guitar now taken apart and the electrics removed the scariest part begins.

The first 4 tasks could easily render the project a waste of time, materials and instrument.
Task 1 - Fill the cavity on the front where the electrics were accessed.
Task 2 - Carve out a section on the rear for the new electrics access.
Task 3 - Drill a hole through the side for the jack socket (output.)
Task 4 - Reshape the headstock.

After all the worry all four tasks worked pretty well even though I am using very basic tools.

Firstly I drilled through the cavity so that the rear had access in the same shape as the front access.

With some leftover 3mm MDF board (from the bookcase project) I marked out the shape of the access. Using a drill I drilled around the markings of the access section. I then used a stanley knife to cut between the drill holes. On the actual body of the guitar I cut diagonally around the edge of the cavity until I got a decent bevel. For the next half hour I used some really coarse sand paper to get a bevel on the edge of the MDF and then kept sanding until the MDF would sit in the cavity nicely. Once I got a fit and it looked reasonably level I used some woodfiller and covered the whole section. Once dried I sanded over it and had a flush face.

Using a 20mm wood drill I drilled from the side through to the cavity. This is where the jack socket will fit into.

The headstock was a case of cutting crudely with a plasterboard saw and then sanding it in nicely.

Finally the hardest part was creating the rear access. Here I had already cut the actual access hole but now I had to cut a 'border' around it where a panel (again the 3mm MDF) would sit as the access cover. This was done with a mixture of drilling, chiselling and stanley knife. I eventually got there and then used the filler to smooth off the surfaces.

The final job was to sand the whole body down. I started on P40 grit and ended with P240.













18th October 2009

I decided to sand the neck down at this point. I have no idea what finish was on it and it looked pretty good but I have my heart set on having an almost natural finish on this guitar so it was sanded back fretboard, back, headstock and all starting at P240 and finishing at P800.

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