So this is the post my wife will hate but does anyone have a good strategy for finding messed up gear? I’d love to fix up, upgrade or just generally tinker with broken bases, guitars, amps, and pedals. It would be cool to resell them but maybe better to keep them 
I’m a novice woodworker and solderer secretly I have more fun working on the bass rather than playing the bass (shh don’t tell anyone)
Anyway just curious and looking for tips on adventures in misfit gear.
Craigslist at 2 in the morning.
Hahahaha so it’s 2am and not 1:30? Hahahahaha
Just to be on the safe side.
Bars close at 2, shortly after is when some poor decisions are more likely to be made. At least in my experience.
Only in the US 
I believe @MattyD is in the US.
And the poor/desperate/fortunate-for-others CL decisions very likely do occur in the wee hours. 
I would say start with any used Squier or Harley Benton. Dirt cheap and they are usually going to be reasonable starting points before working on them. There’s lots of things you can do to improve them that are not too hard but still a serious project for a start. Things I have done:
Entire replacement necks are also an option, but I haven’t done them. Same for refinishing.
Some caveats:
All that said, they can still sound just as good as a Fodera.
The only reason I am not giving the advice of “just buy a good instrument instead” is you are going in to this with the plan to get some hobby luthier skills going, which is cool
Depends on the state
Or even the county yeah
Bars are still open. Most closes at 2am.
I’m in the US ¶ So bars close at 2 if not earlier. Most of what I’m seeing used/busted are entry level instruments. Which is fine. I won’t feel so bad if I mess them up.
It sucks though because the market seems to hold on to prices even on used/replacement parts.
I’m sort of thinking that the best deals might be offline, pawn shops, flea markets etc.
My father in law basically lives at flea markets so maybe I can tell him to keep an eye out.
Yeah probably!
The only thing I would caution is to not expect this will turn in to something very profitable (or even at all profitable).
Probably not, but learning how to do it would save on taking it someone to work on for you. In that case, better to learn on basses that aren’t ones you rely on.
Absolutely. In fact this is the only reason I did any of the above
May I also suggest Facebook Marketplace? (provided of course you’re on FB) Very heavily depends on your exact location, but if you’re in a large area, you can probably find anything from an IKEA slat with some pickups slapped on it, all the way up to some sorta limited edition “only 10 of these were ever made” Bacchus (this one apparently showed up recently in my area WOODLINE4-S10A CW #04/10 | Deviser ｜株式会社ディバイザー｜長野県松本市のギターメーカー)
Nice Woodline. Really limited editions like that are pretty comon for Deviser. Other than their main production models, I think they only do small runs on Bacchus and Momose instruments. A good example are the Sakuras; they have made dozens of models of these but only a few tens of each per year.
Oh yeah, it’s amazing and I really like a lot of Deviser/Bacchus stuff. My point though was just to illustrate how wild FB Marketplace can be.
For example, and more along the lines of cheap/beat up, here’s something else in my area:
That’s beautiful! Had a chuckle at material, “crotch walnut” 
I quit Facebook back in 06 because they kept making security changes that made all of your private posts public. Not that I have much to hide but I like being a private person and not co-mingling social groups.
Facebook marketplace sounds great though. I’m a CL guy (even bought my house on the site). But their selection has been shrinking.
Maybe I’ll borrow my wife’s phone for FB marketplace.