Ernie Ball Music Man JP6 Restoration Project!

**ScoobySteve** · 05-30-2009, 04:50 PM

Thanks Morbid! Keep us posted! I love this thread, its one I keep coming back to.

**Morbid** · 05-30-2009, 11:07 PM

Went ahead and pulled the soda can before it dried 100%. It's not perfect, and I'm not sure there's much I can do about the imperfections, but I won't know till I get to sand it down.

**DTJPPR** · 05-31-2009, 03:21 AM

I can't wait to see this damn thing all finished!!!

**Spudmurphy** · 05-31-2009, 05:52 AM

Morbid - you'll be fine - just take it a bit at a time - for small imperfections use some knifing stopper - spray (mist) the area with a can of paint and flat back - and they will just all jump out at ya - this bit will seem really time consuming but as you know will pay dividends.

The can trick looks a good idea. Maybe try it again but this time pack the inside of the the top rim off the cavity with an eighth inch strip of cardboard- then use the can trick again.

This will give you a deeper "wall" of filler (you'll have more to play with) which you can knock back by hand with abrasive or a file - then you can go back and fill in where the cardboard was.
I've never tried it but you could ask your Dad to try using a small router on the wall of the filler to give you a nice 90 degree angle on the "wall"
Nice work.

**marduke** · 05-31-2009, 06:44 AM

loving the progress on this project, but like spud said dont rush it.
cannot wait to see the end result, im sure it will be amazing

**Morbid** · 05-31-2009, 07:56 PM

So today was a pretty constructive day. I did a boat load of sanding and got most of the excess wood filler off. This allowed me to inspect the defects/flaws in the piezo cavity.

Immediately you can see some little dimples from air pockets in the filler, and some rough or uneven edges around the piezo cavity. But compared to what it WAS, I think it came out GREAT!

But I'm a glutton for punishment, and OCD as can be, so I added some more filler to fix these issues. I also added filler to the screw hole area to fix that.

I did a bunch of sanding to the front.

Obviously still some more to go on the selector switch area, but I waited and I'll show you why.

The top image is a closeup of the piezo switch hole. Nice and smooth, and recently rerounded (the wood filler overlapped a bit).
The bottom one is the outline I made for redrilling the selector switch...THAT'S why I waited on the sanding. That also gives you a pretty good idea of how off center the hole I filled was!
Unfortunately, I didn't have a drill bit that was the perfect size...it was either a little too small or a little too big. I went with the smaller one, as you can always make a hole bigger, but I wasn't interested in filling another one.

So I had to sand the hole a bit, so it's not perfectly round, but with the switch in, you'll never know.

I added some more wood filler to a few spots I missed. Little ones, but they were necessary to fill. Tomorrow I should be done with the filler for good and I should be able to do the final sanding fiasco.
should...

**the24thfret** · 05-31-2009, 08:48 PM

Absolutely awesome.

**sickindian** · 06-01-2009, 12:17 AM

Totaly agree!Alchemy

**KungFu Grip** · 06-01-2009, 06:37 AM

Great attention to detail. Very nice work.

**bkrumme** · 06-01-2009, 11:21 AM

This is looking really good.

**Morbid** · 06-01-2009, 06:28 PM

Today was another nice and productive day. It mostly consisted of sanding, but some careful cutting with an exacto knife also.

The piezo cavity isn't perfect, but it's about as close as I can make it. The majority of any other flaws should be rectified with the primer.

With the new pickup selector hole redrilled, everything lines up right as rain with the plate in it!

From this point on, it's pretty much sand sand sand, followed by primer and paint, provided I don't run into any more flaws that I can't live with.

PS: The light areas on the body that are obviously not wood filler, is where I've managed to sand past the nitro celly, not damage.