Well it finally arrived (Mail Day Thread link) and it turns out to be a real beauty.
So obviously after playing around with it for a bit I took it apart.
The action needed lowering especially since it’s a fretted bass that’s been defretted. The previous owner had simply lowered the bridge harnesses as far as they’d go, but this still gave an action that varied from reasonable at frets 1 to 5 to utterly ridiculous at fret 12 and suborbital by fret 24.
I removed the strings and examined the bridge. It really was as low as it would go. I reassembled the bridge and moved on to the neck. A thin cardboard shim I tried was too drastic, making the E string buzz on the fingerboard even at maximum saddle height. Some sources suggest sandpaper shims (a good choice because they stay put and the sand is incompressible.) I took Neve for a walk and now I’m plotting my next step.
The person who filled the fret slots clearly didn’t want fret lines. Not even on the top edge of the fingerboard. For now I’ll be going with stick-on edge dots, but placed at the correct fret distances instead of behind the fret as is customary with fretted bass. Once I’m happy with the intonation I intend to mark fret lines, probably using a white acrylic marker pen and a straight edge.
O anjo azul, my gorgeous blue Ibanez, is hanging in my wardrobe. Why do I feel guilty about this?