RESTORING AN ORIGINAL
JOHN BROWN
1963 Fender Jazzmaster:
Formulating Its True Identity
A loyal customer that I had not seen for of Fender’s Lake Placid Blue metallic. My
many years walked into my shop carrying client made it very clear that he wanted the
a Fender guitar case. Opening the case, I formulation Fender used in 1963, and he
could tell immediately that the body of this knew I would follow through, and that I had
Fender Jazzmaster had been refinished, and the same approach—doing the best that we
it was done quite poorly. Fortunately, the could to get things as right as they could
shape of the ash body was not altered by a be, keeping in mind that we are working
handyman sanding away with 50 grit sand- with the tools available to us today.
paper. We see this kind of damaged work
more often than not. After inspecting it, I
found the neck to be in very nice condition.
The serial number on the neck plate started
with an ‘L’ followed by “0,” making this guitar a 1963 Fender Jazzmaster.
Jackpot
I really got lucky. I was able to find a source
that would formulate anything under the
sun for me. I could now get Lake Placid Blue
Metallic in nitro, polyurethane, acrylic urethane, and of course in acrylic lacquer. It was
very interesting to find that the people at
Kustom Shop listed Lake Placid Blue Metallic
as a 1957 Cadillac auto color, since other
research claims this to be a 1958 Cadillac
color. I can tell you that they nailed the color
on the money, and it is formulated as an
acrylic lacquer. Thank you, Joseph, for the
fantastic service!
The original finish intact
Hide & Seek
I began to remove the neck, bridge, pickguard, etc. to find any clue that could tell
me what original finish was. It looked like all
the hardware had been removed, and body
stripped for the refinish. But wait, could it
be? Did they forget to remove the extensive brass shielding in the electronic cavity
rout? This shielding can be easily removed
without unsoldering anything. The complete
pickguard, pickups and shielding came out
together, and there it was—touched-up solder joints, and upon closer inspection, under
the brass shielding, Lake Placid Blue Metallic!
The brass shielding was never removed when
it was refinished years back. Fortunately, the
plate was taped and papered during the
spraying process.
I used the body cavity rout where the brass
shielding plate had been inserted to direct
me in the mix and degree of transparency
in the blonde color that I sprayed before
the Lake Placid Blue Metallic was applied,
just like Fender did—only I’m protecting
this cavity from any overspray. I wanted to
preserve it because the finish there was still
original and had never been removed since
the guitar left the factory in 1963.
Like the original finish, blond was applied first
After removing it, I also found a small chip of
blue stuck to the underside of the shielding.
I could see that the body originally had first
been sprayed blonde, and then followed up
with Fender’s custom color Lake Placid Blue
Metallic before leaving Fender’s facility.
Acrylic Lacquer
It’s been a while since I had a need to spray
acrylic lacquer. I was running into dead ends
everywhere. The sources I used to get my
acrylic lacquers from were no longer dealing in it. They could set me up with acrylic
urethane, but that would not have been true
to the complete restoration of this instrument. I was able to find Lake Placid Blue
Metallic in nitrocellulose lacquer, offered as
a vintage restoration paint on the internet.
It is nice to have it formulated as nitro, but
from my research this would be incorrect as
far as being true to the actual formulation
I used stewmac.com for my spraying, sanding and buffing supplies. Thanks to Thomas
Calhoun, a multi-talented individual at
my shop, for accommodating me on the
research and restoration of this historic
musical instrument.
Jackpot in the form of auto paint
Spraying the Lake Placid Blue Metallic
John Brown
John Brown, of Brown's Guitar Factory, is the inventor
of the Fretted/Less bass. He owns and operates a full
guitar manufacturing and repair/restoration facility, which
is staffed by a team of talented luthiers. He is also the
designer of guitar making/repair tools and accessories
that are used today by instrument builders throughout
the world.
brownsguitarfactory.com
info@brownsguitarfactory.com
