Burns-Weill

[Mgeek]

I've just picked this Burns-Weill bass on ebay. It's a bit of a project- as the guy I bought it from decided the original finish was 'crummy'- ie a bit thin, and all cracked- so stripped it and sprayed it with some horrible rubbery feeling car paint



I've since fashioned a little red secondary scratchplate and glued it on- next to find an engraver who can make a name badge, and I'll probably reshoot the paint in nitro.


Dead chuffed to have got one of these legendary oddballs, but I have to say- the Jim Burns end of this is pretty cackhanded. The pickup routing has just been gouged out with a drill bit, and the frets are decidedly random looking, especially above the 12th. Who could have ever predicted that he'd go on to make some nice guitars! Can definitely believe the rumour that the reason the partnership was dissolved was due to Henry Weill's dissatisfaction with his quality control!

[VintAxe]

A nice historically significant guitar Mgeek. The finish issue can be handled as you suggest, you'll probably need to live with the fret placement. Back in the day, who would have predicted that anyone would want to play above the 5th fret, much less the 12th fret. I'm sure at the time Jim considered those frets purely decorative.

He obviously learned his lesson after receiving feedback from players.

[Mgeek]

[VintAxe]

Well, it's always nice to have functional vintage guitar. What are you thinking about in terms of relocating frets? Do you plan to fill old fret slots and recut new ones or plane the current fretboard, add a rosewood plank and start from scratch?

[Mgeek]

I'm not going to refretboard it- that seems a bit much.

I think the frets are more or less it the right place up to a point- but aren't helped by the totally flat, wide profile vs a properly rounded (perhaps replacement) zero fret.

I'll do some precise measurements and see exactly how far out we're talking- I suspect it will just involve filling and recutting a few of the slots above the twelfth fret. The neck is slightly bowed as well, so I'll heat and clamp that at some point too. I've done that before with good results- it's all about getting a temperature point that will melt the glue between the fretboard and the neck.

It's not quite as unplayable as I've made out...but I'd like to get it as good as possible so I can happily whip it out on stage and scare people!

I've stripped the rubbery paint off now, which revealed the two holes on the headstock where the nameplate would have originally been. This confirms it as a Burns Weill to me, as they are pretty far apart. If they were closer it'd have just been a 'Weill' as those nameplates are half the size.

Managed to sort out the dead neck pickup by buying a set of slightly later weill pickups and carefully switching a working coil in there. The later ones were close, but not an exact match, so this seemed the best way to keep things working but original