Jazz bass Mod becomes Build?

Some years ago I got an SX Jazz bass for about $100 as a backup and a platform for experimenting with mods. Over time I replaced the pickups and electronics twice, cleaned up the fret ends, gave it a bone nut and proper setup. It's got a new tone control plate and pick guard, Schaller strap locks and Gotoh GB640 Res-o-lite tuners. It sounds and plays pretty well, although it may still need some fret leveling...

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...But I'd really like it to be lighter..So I got it a paulownia body. Also got is a Sung-Il locking bridge.

It occurred to me that when I put it back together the only parts that will be OEM are the neck, neck-plate and string tree.... Which I think means it will no longer be a modded SX bass, but has become a build with some a few SX parts. That made me think about when the build began? I have had the new body for a while, but only recently started work on it. The pickups are a PJ combo (EMG Geezer Butlers), so I routed the neck pickup cavity to accommodate a split Precision pickup.

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I'll add the Sung-Il bridge as well. At the moment I am planning to use the SX neck... But I have also asked Tim about whether he can get a Jazz Bass profile neck for me. Adam got me one that has become my favorite neck...that might be ideal if they are still available. In any case, will keep a diary of the build here ;-)

The paulownia body has quite a lot of character! I never realized it could have that much pattern. For my axe bass the paulownia had no pattern at all.

How heavy is the SX jazz at the moment?

The bass now weighs about 4.5 kg (9.8 lbs). Not all that different than my G&L ASAT bass (similar looking to one of your Tele bass builds). By contrast, my semi hollows weigh around 7.6 and 6.9 lbs...and my paulownia Precicision is under 6.3 lbs. I am pretty sure that I'll play the Jazz more if I can get some weight off. As is, both the ASAT and the Jazz make my back twinge if I play them very long.

On the character of the wood, the three bodies I have are pretty well figured. Just dumb luck. I ordered them without seeing them. I also have the remains of a bunch of 1/4" thick small boards that my kids broke in Tai Kwon Do, and I have experimented a little with a finish. Will post later. I am not great at transparent finishes, but it seems a shame to use a solid color on nicely figured wood...unless I screw up a transparent finish first ;-)

I had to google the G&L ASAT bass. Looks nice! Is yours natural colour?

My pine basses are between 3.4 and 3.7 kg (assuming my luggage scale is accurate), and the Victorian ash bass was 4.2 kg.

Ha! I think it's the last bass that Leo Fender designed. As far as I know the only Fender bass that has a body like the Tele guitar. (I am, of course, talking about Fender-designed basses, regardless of the logo on the headstock). It has the same electronics and pickups as the main bass that Leo Fender designed for G&L, the L2000. Aside from the body shape the real difference is the neck profile which is like a Jazz bass, but with a flatter radius. (The L2000 has a similar neck to a Music Man)

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The electronics in mine have been modded to get more sounds, and the have to have easier access to the battery. Not a great pic but you can also see that it has an aluminum strap extender so that it balances better; without it the bass has quite a bit of neck-dive. It has a "blue swirl" finish that makes it look a bit like a bowling ball. I bought it for the neck, which was the best I had ever put my hands on when I got it. I think the Jazz profile neck I got from PB feels just as good, and I tried to get the finish as close as possible. It's a great bass, it just makes my back twinge after a while. It's not that heavy at about 4.6 KG. My interest in light basses says more about my back than about the basses

Very Nice. I have also never seen or heard of a "strap extender" to stop nose dive - (I lead a sheltered life!). Is yours attached to the neck plate?

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

Very Nice. I have also never seen or heard of a "strap extender" to stop nose dive - (I lead a sheltered life!). Is yours attached to the neck plate?

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I have not heard of that strap extender either.
Would like to know a bit more about it. I have a SG copy that dives.

Nice looking bass there.

These were sold by a guy who was a huge fan of ASAT basses. He offered them to folks who sent him an inquiry at Talkbass or at the G&L bass forum (https://www.bassesbyleo.com/forum/index.php). I don't know if he's around anymore. He milled them out of .25" aluminum, anodized them black and included three* slightly longer neck screws.

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I am not sure you can get them anymore. I think the guy who made them stopped. I am sure there are people with the skills to build them on the forum though ;-)

Steinberger makes something similar. When I have taken the bass out, the Tele body is always an eye catcher, but no one seems to notice the strap extender. T-Birds, LPs and other basses with a short upper bouts that are prone to neck dive might benefit from something like it.


*Old G&Ls have three bolt neck plates.

Thanks for the info fender 3x. I might try and get an extender and give it a try.

I was amazed at the difference it made.

Thanks for the info Fender.

I decided that if I am going to all the trouble of finishing a new body for this bass, I might as well go all in and get a new neck too. I am not unhappy with the SX neck that I have...but I like the feel of my Pitbull custom ordered Jazz profile neck better. I think mostly it's the satin finish (the SX is thick, glossy and very yellow). I asked Tim if he could get me another one like the one I have...but I don't think that part of the biz is up and running yet.

So I went to eBay... The least expensive jazz profile neck I could find (US$60) was from Yinfente in China. The company seems mostly to specialize in violins and bows...but also makes some guitar bodies and necks. The one I bought got to me remarkably quickly, and is pretty much ready to finish with just one place on the fingerboard where there is a bit of a scratch. Should not be hard to fix. It has a Fender style headstock that I may try to re-shape a bit. It's bound with a light colored rosewood fingerboard and square Mother of Plastic inlays. The binding job is really very good. The neck is dead-straight and flat without touching the truss rod. All in all it seems like very good quality for about the same price as a PB neck. Hope my luck with this one is as good ;-)

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

My pine basses are between 3.4 and 3.7 kg (assuming my luggage scale is accurate), and the Victorian ash bass was 4.2 kg.

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I went back to look at your scratch Tele's. I am impressed how light they are. I have seen pine used for weight savings. Looks like it works. My swamp ash Fender P-bass weighs in at 3.9 kg. Both your pine basses do better. I am surprised by the weight of the Victorian Ash bass. If it's what I think it is (Eucalyptus regnans) it should weight about the same as as white ash. Basses made of that can weigh as much as almost 5 kg. This caused me to go back to your build pages to see if you had chambered it... It's lighter than my ASAT bass which has a basswood body. I wonder if the hardware makes that much difference? The ASAT has massive humbuckers and a high mass bridge.

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Originally Posted by fender3x

I went back to look at your scratch Tele's. I am impressed how light they are. I have seen pine used for weight savings. Looks like it works. My swamp ash Fender P-bass weighs in at 3.9 kg. Both your pine basses do better. I am surprised by the weight of the Victorian Ash bass. If it's what I think it is (Eucalyptus regnans) it should weight about the same as as white ash. Basses made of that can weigh as much as almost 5 kg. This caused me to go back to your build pages to see if you had chambered it... It's lighter than my ASAT bass which has a basswood body. I wonder if the hardware makes that much difference? The ASAT has massive humbuckers and a high mass bridge.

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The Victorian Ash Tele does have a slightly larger control cavity, no control plate, and the slight belly and arm contours. Also, the one single coil pup. I was also expecting it to be a bit heavier!

Small progress. I got the headstock cut. Initially I wasn't going to cut it. I didn't take a pic of it before cutting, but here's a pic from the posting where I bought it.

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It's obviously not the neck I received because the grain is different, but the cut was the same.

I was aiming roughly at the old 1960s Epi batwings. The one in the pic is from a 1965 Epiphone Newport bass which would have been within a year or so of my first bass, also an Epiphone Newport.

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Here's what my attempt looks like, posing with it's Tele sister that is also on the production line.

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I used an old router template from the last bass headstock I shaped. As you can see I had to draw it twice. The pencil marks have gotten a bit faint from handling, but after I traced the template outline on the first time, I realized that I should probably check to make sure the tuners fit. All my other bass builds use Hipshot Ultralites that don't take up a lot of room. But this bass will use Gotoh Res-o-lite tuners (GB640). I got the Gotoh tuners to replace some full-sized steel tuners, and wanted to be full sized so they would cover the screw holes. They are not as light as the Hipshots, but they are much lighter than steel. https://g-gotoh.com/product/gb640/?lang=en They may not be the lightest of light tuners on the market but they are the smoothest and most precise bass tuners I have ever had. I could say the same thing the Gotohs that I have on guitars as well.

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Ultimately this shape fit inside the original fender form-factor and feels like a tip-of-the-hat to my first bass. Also it takes a bit of weight of the end of the neck/lever--which is good since my shoulder is the fulcrum.

Nice work. They look great!

On my Tele build (in progress) I tried to add color to the body using Garnet Shellac. I am not unhappy with the outcome, but found it difficult to apply evenly, so not a 100% success. What I did like about it was using a water based hardener (PC Petrifier) with a maroon 3m sanding pad and a bit of sawdust as grain filler. This stuff is cheap, easy to apply, and does a pretty good job of sealing and grain filling. Not sure how much harder it makes the wood, but every little bit helps with paulownia. So, I plan to use that...and want something that could work like stain, but over the top of the sealed/hardened/grain-filled wood.

I have have been reading on the interwebs that using alcohol based-dye with platina shellac may produce better results than using colored shellac...and the range of colors is more extensive... So I have been experimenting a little. I had in mind something between a sort of translucent turquoise and seafoam green...

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I showed it to two of my kids. My daughter liked the blue better. "More lively" she said. My son also liked the blue better. He said the green was "too Christmasy."

So I guess it's going to be closer to turquoise than to the green. My ASAT bass is a dark blue swirl. My "hybrid" is sort of a daphne blue. This is not quite the same as either of them, but should probably be my last blue one...assuming it works. One thing I learned with the garnet shellac is that it is a lot easier to apply a nice even finish to a flat plank than it is to all sides of a curvy piece of wood on a rotating spit.

The blue-red combo looks good!

The alcohol-based dye in platina shellac could open up a huge number of colour options! Do you make (Mix!) your own shellac?

Yes, I make it from flakes. I have always used blonde or platina (aka ultra blonde) prior to my garnet adventure. You get a tiny bit of color from platina. You can see it if you put it on untreated maple, but not enough to think of it as a stain. I use it between products, like water based stain and water based top coat, and the difference in color is so subtle that I am not sure I would pick it out in an A/B test. I also make it in 1lb cuts, so thinner what you typically get premixed here.

McCreed got me interested in shellac. It's cheap, which in my case is good for experimentation. I don't have the clean up the brushes. When I am done, I just let them harden, and when I am ready to use them again I let them soak for a few minutes in alcohol. The shellac itself is so non-toxic it is literally edible. The denatured alcohol is not, but it's safe enough to use in my garage. It seems to stick to pretty much anything, and almost everything sticks to it, so it's good between coats. Even though the experience was not great with the garnet, I was able to remove the botched finish and reapply just using alcohol and without sanding--so in fairness it wasn't all bad either. It has a lot to recommend if I can get the color to go on evenly. Either way, I'll report ;-)

Could you point me to McCreed's information on shellac? Got me curious. I am looking for ways to improve my finishes.

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Originally Posted by XP Rider

Could you point me to McCreed's information on shellac? Got me curious. I am looking for ways to improve my finishes.

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Here's are a few...

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=9674

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ad.php?t=11994

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ad.php?t=12326

McCreed uses a spray gun and compressor for his finishes. I use a brush or wipe on and have never tried to spray any sort of finish that does not come in a rattle can. The people who get the best finishes here, tend to use a spray gun and compressor. That includes the use of shellac. I don't know that it matters if you use it as a sealer or pumice-and-shellac grain filler. But if you use it as a sealer between coats (which is what I use it for most) there is some advantage to spraying, because brushing can "pull" on what ever is below it. It's not been much of an issue for me, but it does pull a little. That, and adding a little color to the maple in necks is mostly what I use Shellac for, and I got that from McCreed. I have a flamenco guitar that was french polished (a shellac based finish)...It's beautiful and thin, but as McCreed says, it doesn't provide much protection.

I mix from flakes. I use denatured alcohol from big box stores...so not as pure as what McCreed uses. Denatured alcohol will usually be called menthylated spirits on this forum since that's what it's called in Australia. Since you are in Utah, at Home Depot they just call it "Fuel" and sell it in the paint department. You can also mix with Everclear which is less toxic (all ethanol, no methanol), if it's legal in your state. It's illegal in FL.

The alternative to using shellac flakes and alcohol is to buy it pre-mixed either in a spray can or as liquid. The only kind I see in stores here is made by Zinsser, but you have to be a bit careful. What Zinsser calls "shellac" is WAXED shellac. You can't use that if you plan to put anything over it--so not good as a sealer, tint or seal coat. What Zinsser calls "sealcoat" is actually pure dewaxed shellac. So if you get that kind get the dewaxed. Also if you get the liquid (as opposed to the spray can) it will be a "2 pound" cut. I tend to use a 1 lb cut which is considerably thinner. You can turn Zinsser sealcoat into a 1 lb cut by adding alcohol at a 1:1 ratio. The Zinsser stuff is also a little darker than the platina shellac I usually use.

Thanks. Haven't heard from Mick for a while, but I know he does it right. Mixing flakes probably gives you some control over consistency? I am one of them non-drinkers up here, so I might get a raised eyebrow if she found a bottle of Everclear in my closet, but I might enjoy the project even more.
Last spring I looked at a tutorial from Driftwood Guitars about using epoxy as a pore filler on open-grained woods. I have an ash body coming, so that is something to think about.

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Originally Posted by XP Rider

...Mixing flakes probably gives you some control over consistency? I am one of them non-drinkers up here, so I might get a raised eyebrow if she found a bottle of Everclear in my closet, but I might enjoy the project even more.

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I just realized that I had not responded to this. Sorry for the delay! My wife is an environmental engineer. I suspect she'd have less of a reaction to Everclear than to more toxic painting products. If you can't get Everclear in Florida, I suspect that it may be even harder in Utah ;-)

As to control... If you use Zinsser Seal Coat in a rattle-can, you get what you get, of course. If you use the Seal Coat in a can it's advertised as "100% dewaxed shellac" and is a 2lb cut. That is about twice as thick as what I use. The good news is that if you want to make it thinner, it's no problem, just add alcohol. To make a 1lb cut, add alcohol at 1:1.

What you can't do with the canned stuff is vary the color. It's pretty much all blonde, but shellac comes in more colors than that. I use blonde (same color as Zinsser) to do maple necks, to given them a light amber color. (In a store-bought neck this would be considered natural). I used garnet (the darkest shellac) to color my tele build. I think it came out OK, but I found it a bit difficult, so may not use it again.

What I use the most is "platina" or "ultra-blonde" shellac which is the clearest. It has a little color, but not much. I use it between different products and as a sealer when I don't want the color changed. In the test swatches for the Jazz bass project, I colored platina shellac with alcohol dyes. I am hoping to create a stain-like effect that I can use over a thick seal coat/hardner.

Aside from that, flakes allow me to make just as much shellac as I need. The shelf life of shellac flakes is virtually forever.

This is 11 coats of PC Petrifier, to which I have been adding a little, very fine paulownia sawdust.

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I am not really using this product as it was designed. What it was designed for is hardening rotting wood. The paulownia I am using is obviously not rotting, but it is very soft. Also, they recommend using 2-3 coats, so I am using a lot more coats than they recommend.

It's one of the few water based wood hardeners that I have found, so that is one reason to use it. According to it's SDS it's mostly water, a very mild solvent (glycol ether TPM) and a proprietary hard urethane. Very low VOCs and toxicity. But my off-book use goes beyond that.

When I first used it I noticed that it dries relatively quickly and hard. It seals the wood well and is about the consistency of normal water, although it is milky white. Since paulownia has huge open grain, I thought it might be interesting use a sanding pad with it, and add some sawdust. From there the idea was to just keep adding a little sawdust and building it up until the grain was pretty well filled. So I have been putting a coat on once a day for almost two weeks. It's now fairly hard, the grain is mostly filled. It dries completely clear with no yellowing. Coats are super thin, and it's only $10 for 8 oz.

Stain won't penetrate, but I have tried it in swatches with colored shellac, with which it seems to work pretty well...although I am still gaining experience with that.

Also, putting a coat on every day has kept me from feeling bad about putting off sanding my Tele project...

This project has been on hold for a while while I worked on the Tele build...also incredibly slow. As I have stated elsewhere, I have been having trouble with General Finishes High Performance top coat on necks... I thought the Tele neck was done, until I noticed some problems in a couple of other maple necks and decided to refinish the back and sides of the Tele neck. While it is curing, I decided to start work on the Jazz Bass neck.

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I taped off the rosewood fingerboard, and put blonde shellac on the rest of the neck to give it a little color. This will be the first neck that I have finished completely with Crystalac Brite Tone Instrument finish. No finish on the fingerboard, except some block oil when I am completely done with the rest of the finish. The back will be Brite Tone satin. I am using Brite Tone gloss on the front of the headstock.

So far I have just started with the front of the headstock. Four coats under the decal, and four coats over. Not sure how many coats I'll have total. I use at least 6-10 over the decal with GF top coat, but with the BT, I may need more since it goes on thinner.

It takes some practice and patience to get the Brite Tone on well with the brush, but my technique is improving. I am having less drips and runs, and a LOT less brush marks than I got with the GF. It may require a few more coats, but hopefully it will sand out easier.

In the last post I had applied a wood hardener, and attempted to use it as a sealer and filler as well. I would consider it well sealed and harder, but it's not perfectly filled... So next step after the neck will be doing some filling with a new product that is supposed to rival Timbermate, but with less odor (which is important to my wife). More as the project progresses...

A little progress to report, though nothing much to look at. While the neck from my Tele project is curing, I put finish on the Jazz Bass neck. My application technique is getting better. I switched to a 1" (25mm) brush taclon bristle brush, and have found that if I charge it with a bit of water before dipping it in the top coat it goes on thinner and I haven't had much problem with dripping. Also quick strokes seem to work best. Both necks are hanging on the wall curing, so I turned to the JB body.

I used a new wood pore filler with this. I have primarily been using AquaCoat Clear. I can get a very smooth finish with the AquaCoat but it takes a lot of iterations, and it is pricey. It's principle advantage is that it dries clear. It's great over stain or fix small problems over color, so I imagine I'll continue using it. But on this build I have decided to go with a solid color, after trying three different stain colors, an disliking all of them. I don't need the poor filler to be clear, so why not try something new?

I ended up getting Famowood Latex wood filler. I have have been hearing that it works more or less like Timbermate, but has less of an odor. I haven't used Timbermate so I can't do a direct comparison, but I have heard that they are comparable. In any case the Famowood product is the best I have tried. Goes on easy. Dries quickly (about 14 minutes and it was ready to sand). It's hard, but not crazy hard, so it sanded well. Very light, but pleasant odor. I looked up it's SDS sheet and was pleased to learn that the filler is actually wood, and that it's abut as non-toxic as you get. It has that in common with the Timbermate (I looked up the SDS on it too). It's funny that reports are that they work quite similarly. I am not a chemist, but they don't seem that closely related composition-wise.

I had previously coated with wood hardener/sealer. There were some small spots were I sanded through when sanding back the filler. After filling, I put three quick coats of shellac over it to seal for the paint. Will be using MTN94 "Ipanema Yellow"...once I get another can at the Art Store...

I was toying with the idea of putting some paint on the body, when I had the bright idea to see if the bridge pickup was going to fit in it's cavity. I thought I might have to clean out a bit of the grainfiller...but discovered that there was a bigger problem. The cavity was just too small, and needed to be a bit wider. I have now widened it a bit with a rotary tool.

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I used an old pickup to do the fitting. The finished bass will have an EMG Geezer Butler PJ set, but I'd rather keep them out of the sawdust. The PJ set is also the reason for the enlarged neck pickup cavity. There are also a couple of small places in the pic where I put a little more filler because, of course, my Dremeling is no more accurate than my playing...and I nicked a couple of places. Lucky for me that paint and pickguards can cover a multitude of sins ;-)

Speaking of sins... I sanded through the sealer in a few places. I can definitely feel where I did that, but when I look under magnification it looks like there is filler in the spaces. I have been debating whether to put one more coat of filler just over the sanded through spots. But I probably won't. If it looks like it needs more pore filling after one coat of paint, I can fill with AquaCoat, which dries clear. If have done that before and it has worked reasonably well.

I put one coat of paint on...just enough to see where there were some spots that were not quite filled. They are obvious whe you see them, but also easy to miss if the light doesn't catch them. So I took some picks and marked them to show me where I need to sand back and add a bit more filler.

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Waited 24 hours to begin sanding. That's not long enough, so I'll give it a few more days and try again...

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It turns out that just wanting the paint to be hard enough to sand does not make it cure faster.

You need to stare at it too, that always works.

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Originally Posted by WeirdBits

You need to stare at it too, that always works.

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Actually, I think the more you stare at it the slower it cures!

I have a feeling there was a dollop of irony in the post from Mr. Bits ;-)


The paint powdered up today, so I sanded a bit and then used some AquaCoat filler which dries transparent. I have used it over color in the past... As well as over shellac, raw wood, wood hardener, and top coat. Will put on one more coat today in the bumpy spots, sand, and keep fingers crossed.

Sent from my CPH2655 using Tapatalk

Well my experiments to gently (and in one case not so gently) remove the sticky on the binding have pretty much failed.

I got the best results with the not-so-gentle use of a razor blade. Not very satisfactory though. I was able to remove some, but not completely and sometimes it just moved gummy around.

I tried a gentle brush cleaning soap (called Pink Soap) by the mfg. It's what I used to clean my brushes after use with the clear coat. Did not harm the clear coat (good!) did not much bother the gummy (bad).

I also tried lighter fluid. One forum recommended the use of naphtha, which I could not get at the big-box store* But then I saw that it was used in Ronson brand lighter fluid--which I have. So I tried it...only to discover that it (a) wasn't naphtha but rather butane and (b) didn't do any better than the pink soap.

*No big green shed here. The biggest one is Orange. We don't have a fun nick name for it because shopping there is not a joyful experience.

At least now you (and we) know what does not work!

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

At least now you (and we) know what does not work!

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Today I tried white vinegar with a little dishwashing liquid. It sort of worked on the fingerboard. It may have made the gummy a little softer on the binding. I worked it with a soft cloth about as long as I could stand. Then I alternated between that, a hotel card-key and a popsicle stick. I got most of it off...but also took off a tiny bit of topcoat on one side of the binding. Ultimately what got the last of it off was some 350 grit sandpaper that I sacrified...since it clogged pretty fast. I used a tiny paintbrush to touch up the spots where I took the finish too far down. Turns out a credit card *can* damage the finish.

So, I don't have a recommendation for something to take off the gummy without taking off the finish or damaging the binding. Closest I get is that you should not leave leave a neck too long (a) with even low tack tape stuck to it or (b) near a window where it gets direct Florida sun (how in the world did I not think that would be a problem?)