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Thought I would just share a few pictures about my latest Status acquisition. I bought this bass off eBay on Christmas Eve as a project over the Xmas holiday. Double click the images for high resolution. It looked pretty rough and the eBay post didn't give much information but I managed to get it really cheap so it was worth the risk. On arrival the strip down inspection started - other than the black previous refin - the bass was in surprisingly good condition. These basses don't take long to strip down: Both the body and neck have the number 1417 the bridge has number 1700 on it. Out came the detail sander and about an hour later all the paint was carefully removed - ensuring that I kept the shape and contouring intact. The next step was to finish the body preparation going down to 400 grade wet and dry sandpaper for the final finish. I then polished the body with fine wire wool to ensure that the body was as smooth as possible before refinishing. I chose to use Danish Oil to finish the body - I love this type of finish and it has the benefits of being relatively cheap, quick and you can touch up and repair patches if you get any knocks or marks in the future. The Danish oil was applied using a lint free cloth - the initial coat soaked in well. I applied a liberal coat and then wiped the body down after about 30 mins to remove the excess ( this is very important or the finish will take a long time to dry. Its all about carefully building up the coats and making sure that they dry between them. Whilst the first coat was drying (6 hours). I stripped the hardware off the neck and clean everything thoroughly with WD-40 and a nail brush. The neck was surprisingly dirty but is in exceptionally good condition when you consider this bass was made in the early 90's. I then reassembled the neck hardware and returned to the body. A second coat was added and again any excess was removed. I then left the body to dry for 24 hours. Reassembly was again surprisingly quick and as I had ordered new black strap locks and a set of 30 - 90 Nickel Bass Strings these went on at the same time. I must admit I was really happy with the results. Obviously the neck has no truss rod so there was no adjustment required there. The action and intonation were adjusted and the bass plays ok but the strings maybe a bit too light as the neck needs more string tension to get the correct curve - there is currently a bit of back bow. I will leave it a while and see how it settles down. I had cleaned the pots with switch cleaner and replaced the battery for a new one so the active circuit works well and overall I am really surprised with the quality of the sound and the durability of the components.