This is a 1962 Fender jazz bass I recently bought on eBay. The body and neck (refretted) have both been refinished but all the other parts are original to the instrument. The tuners had been changed to Schallers but fortunately the original Klusons were retained and included in the sale.

Two slider switches were added to the pickguard in the '60's and it looks as if the thumb rest was moved to above the strings at some point as there are a couple of extra holes. The only other issue is that some of the screws are not correct, but I hope to replace most of these with vintage originals.
 

The area that had been chiselled out for the slider switches was filled with a small alder plug.

The whole body was stripped and fine sanded ready for the refinish. I have decided on 3 tone sunburst as this was the original finish.

The body had now been resprayed in 3 tone sunburst. Time to move onto the neck.....

The refinish on the neck was not particularly good, looking as if it'd been applied with a tooth brush, and a decal that looked like it'd been cut out of a magazine. I suspect the original lacquer might have been under this mess but it all had to come off. The stripper made surprising short work of the removal and I soon had a fine sanded neck ready for refinishing.

Fortunately the neck refinish hadn't destroyed the date stamp which is still clearly visible on the heel. 7 was the model (jazz bass), JUL (the month), 62 (the year) and 'A' (the nut width) As far as I'm aware, July 1962 was the last month of the slab board join, as all August '62 necks I've seen have been of the curved join type.  Not sure what the red over the date is, it could be the red from the original sunburst (from the neck pocket) reacting with whatever the neck was refinished in.....?

Once cured, the neck finish was flat sanded and buffed. You'll notice the edge of the headstock on the 'circle' is slightly rounded, this was done on the previous refinish. The bass had been carried around for years in a (badly designed) home made case, the headstock edge rested against a hinge that had a large bolt through it and this over time wore away the edge of the headstock. When refinished last time, the damage was simply sanded away and the result is the rounded edge you see here. Fortunately the classic shape is still there...

Originally I intended to replace the frets with a more vintage correct type, but once the existing frets were levelled, crowned and polished, they felt and looked fine. Since this bass will be more of a 'player' than a collectors piece, the bigger than vintage frets might be a good thing. The picture to the left shows the replacement decal, Klusons, nut and string guide fitted.

The tortoise shell pickguard had several holes that had to be repaired. The two slider switch holes and the extra holes from the moved thumbrest were filled with nitro topped scratchplate material. From a few feet away these repaired areas all but disappear. Other than the repaired bits, the pickguard is in great shape with no cracks or bits missing.

The pickups were tested on a meter, factory spec. at the time was between 7.3K and 7.5K, these pickups read 7.54K (bridge) and 7.49K (neck), pretty much spot on!

One of the Kluson tuners has a slight 'repair', as some of you might know, the riveted plate can sometimes come loose and swivel from side to side, evidently this happened to this tuner because a small hole was drilled in the shaft and a pin was inserted, I assume this was to keep the plate from swivelling anyway....? This was only done to one tuner and it does not in any way hinder it's performance, in fact it's hardly noticeable even to look at.

The finished article

So there we are, one fully restored 1962 slab board Fender Jazz bass, refinished in ultra thin nitro-cellulose. Some might be surprised by my decision to go for a 10 out of 10 finish, or perhaps more correctly, a kind of 'closet classic' look, I'm not sure why but I just felt that it would suit it better than a distressed look. There are a few dings and knocks here and there, marks that I didn't want to sand out, etc. so it's not totally 'new' looking.
It plays incredibly, and that sound.....I know it's a cliche, but it's pure vintage jazz bass, roll off that neck pickup and you're straight into 'Jaco' mode......awesome!

Apparently this very bass is pictured in Noddy Holder's autobiography, as Peter was the bass player in one of Noddy's pre-Slade bands.