The bridge of the Jazz bass was seriously covered in Goop – finger grease, rust  etc.  The Allen bolt grub screws for string height adjustment were rusted in.  Not a happy sight.

 

Here’s what happened….

Removed the bridge carefully using  a Philip’s head screwdriver.  I sprayed it with WD40 (or GT85 is cool), and left it alone..

 

 

 

 

Oh no – this is looking really, really bad….

 

 

 

 

And the control plate’s not good either…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to remove the rust from the paintwork  as it was interfering with the “grounding” of the pickups (A little bare wire that protrudes through the body of the bass).  I sprayed it with “Guitar Honey” and left it alone for a while.

The control plate I sprayed with “Smudge off” and cleaned with the “chamois” cloth.  – Nice!  After a few minutes of soaking I attacked the rust on the body with an old credit card….  scrape ….. scrape …. and some more!

 

 

Results! – the rust finally loosened, and the control plate was clean.

The Allen head grub screws by now were loose enough to move.   I picked out all the rust in the Allen head with a pin.

I polished the baseplate of the bridge with “Smudge Off” and the “chamois” and reattached.

Step by step I rebuilt the bridge.  Copious amounts of light machine oil and polishing later it worked a treat and could be adjusted easily.
Restrung and result – Nice!

 

Tags: cleaning, guitar maintenance