Squier Jazz Bass Upgrade

[andrewdosborne]

Ok it's about time I got back to guitar related activities after a bit of a break.

First off the rank a Fender Squier Jazz Bass upgrade project for someone. Neck refinished with FW old Baltic and a few thin coats of poly. Neck quality is similar to a Mighty-Mite neck. De-branded. Upgraded nut, machine heads, string tree and tuners. For the body - Gotoh high mass bridge, USA spec electronics, knobs, Tonerider pups and pickguard. All new screws etc. The body on this is Alder and very well matched considering. Interestingly the pup routes are same size as pickups (no large or swimming pool style) and are US Fender compatible, along with the screw holes for pickguard. It now feels and sounds not that different to a more expensive USA JB

Next stop - spraying my Pitbull JB-4 project.......

[wokkaboy]

looks great Ponch, so have you got before photos ? Some nice upgrades you have done on this

[andrewdosborne]

Cheers Woks. No b4 pictures but it basically looked like this

http://www.squier.com.au/squier-bass...dyShape&bcid=0

Stock was a shocker. Sounded nothing like a jazz bass (If you managed to hear it over the noise it generated). Tuners very average but surprisingly the frets were level!


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[wokkaboy]

no worries Ponch, so you did the upgrades for a mate ? Well that's a bonus at least the frets were level !

[andrewdosborne]

no worries Ponch, so you did the upgrades for a mate ? Well that's a bonus at least the frets were level !

Yep. We always keep a keen eye out for cheap (2nd hand) Squires for modding (fleabay, farcebook marketplace, road side chuckouts (!) etc..

[wazkelly]

Top job Ponch.

Looks like it has the narrower 38mm nut too, just as a traditional J Bass neck should be.

[andrewdosborne]

Cheers waz. Yes it has the 38mm JB neck. A bit too narrow for my humongous hands (I prefer P-Bass width) but does play nice

[wazkelly]

Does 3mm width make that much of a difference?

[Simon Barden]

It does to the feel. When Gibson added 3.1mm (1/8") to their guitar neck widths in 2015, almost everybody hated them (except for one weird friend of mine). They didn't sell many and almost no-one wants to buy them used.

I believe the string spacing on the 38mm nut is only about 1mm narrower than the standard width, so finger positioning isn't that different. I was looking this up because the neck heel width is the same as on the wider nut Jazz basses, and so if the string spacing was narrower at the nut, but the same at the heel position, then at the strings would be wider apart at the bridge and so the bridge and the bridge pickup would need to be wider to accommodate this. By using a narrower nut/lower neck width but only slightly reduced the string spacing allows the bridge and pickups to be the same. Had the string spacing been reduced by 3mm as well, then there probably would have needed to be some bridge and pickup variations, otherwise the strings would end up a lot further away from the edges of the fretboard near the heel than at the nut.

[andrewdosborne]

Ah yes Simon. The 2015 Gibson models felt terrible in the hand. Ok if you played with your thumb in the middle of the neck but otherwise felt like clawing a classical guitar


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