I spent a few weekends over the past month taking a good look and working on the Dean Playmate bass guitar I purchased back in August at the US-12 Longest Yard Sale (https://luegra.design.blog/2025/08/09/us-12-yard-sale-2025-sembma-picnic-2025-misc/). Upon closer inspection, I see that the thing has been through a lot of abuse. I never planned on keeping it, but it would need a lot of work cleaning up to make it playable again.
The first thing I did was remove a bunch of stickers with the help of Goo Gone. That took a lot of elbow grease to be sure, but I was able to get them all off without taking off any paint. The biggest concern with the bass was that the pickguard was not original, but a generic P-bass replacement. Dean had cut a special pickguard for this bass, and whatever happened to it I will never know. I did some research on this bass, and Playmate was made as a low-cost alternative to Dean’s professional line of guitars and basses. This particular bass was made sometime in the 1990s, so I knew that finding an exact pickguard replacement would be impossible.
The replacement pickguard fits over most of the original area, but left a gap right around where the output jack is mounted. I first thought of cutting a special section of pickguard to cover the area, but then did not want to invest much more time and money into the bass, so instead I traced the current pickguard area, filled the uncovered cavity with some wood putty, sanded it down and applied some similar-color artist paint to the area. Not professional, but it does the job, and again, I didn’t want to pour more money into this cheap bass.
The replacement pickguard also had holes drilled for a thumb rest. Again, I didn’t want to invest more money into it, as a plastic rest would have cost around $10.00 plus shipping if I ordered it. Instead, I cut a piece of hardwood to fit, painted it with a Sharpie pen, and it serves the purpose.
Setting it up for playing was another story. The bridge saddles were set up totally opposite to what should be for a guitar, in that, if you look at the saddle placement on a typical bass, the E string saddle is usually set back a bit farther than the G string saddle, with the A and D string saddles compensated likewise. This one had the G saddle adjusted way back, and sure enough, the intonation was off considerably. As I said before, this bass must have been though a lot of sweaty hands, and the bridge/saddle area was full of surface rust. I cleaned it off as best that I could, and adjusted the saddles for better (not perfect) intonation. The screws and springs on the bridge were heavily corroded, so even with the best of cleaning, there is still some corrosion showing. It would be too much cost to replace with a similar bridge.
Looking back, I paid a bit more than I should have for this bass, and perhaps I should have given it a better once-over before handing over the money. Dean has a good reputation for its guitar lineup, but this one is over 20 years old, and the Playmate series today just consists of an acoustic bass guitar. Used Playmate solidbody basses from the previous few years go for about $150.00, give or take a sawbuck. As I said, I don’t plan on keeping it, and from the original cost I paid, along with the time and pocket change I invested, I figure that I will be losing some money on this. If I don’t sell it within the next year, I’ll probably hand it off to some young kid interested in learning the bass. It did teach me a few things about buying used equipment, as well as working on guitars that I haven’t done before.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 