Wazkelly Build diary for DIY closing down sale Ash J Bass

[DrNomis_44]

@ Wazkelly One other thing you can try checking on your Ash J Bass is the neck relief, Fender specify a clearance gap of .012 of an inch between the top of the 8th fret and the bottom of the strings, you can use a standard set of Automotive feeler-gauges and a capo to check the neck-relief on your Bass guitar, the first thing that you do is place the capo on the neck just behind the first fret in front of the nut so that all the strings are resting on the first fret, next, select a .012 inch feeler-gauge, then fret the low E-String at the 17th fret, using the .012 inch feeler gauge, check the clearance at the 8th fret while you're fretting the string at the 17th fret, the .012 inch gauge should just fit between the 8th fret and the bottom of the string, tighten or loosen the truss rod till the .012 gauge does fit, then do the same for the G-String, I've found that the neck relief, and truss-rod tension also has an effect on the intonation adjustments too.

Hope that is of some help mate.

[wazkelly]

Thanks Doc. Got a work conference on this weekend in Brisbane so it may not be until Sunday night before I have any spare time to look at it.

[DrNomis_44]

Thanks Doc. Got a work conference on this weekend in Brisbane so it may not be until Sunday night before I have any spare time to look at it.

No worries mate, hope the work conference goes well.

[Simon Barden]

A weekend work conference. Everyone's idea of fun. Enjoy!

[wazkelly]

We have them twice a year and they are pretty dull except for the Saturday night dinner where plenty of booze gets consumed. Not me this time as I have cut back as part of my weight loss mission that does not allow for too many drinks nor desserts for that matter.

[Simon Barden]

Never that much fun when all around you are indulging and you have to stay relatively sober.

[wazkelly]

All good Simon, no longer a teenager so hangovers tend to hit a lot harder and since cutting back to one session per week about 6 months ago, rather than a couple of drinks each night, these days it only takes about 4 drinks for me to start feeling tipsy and therefore time to stop.

[wazkelly]

Finally got around to working on this again tonight.

Removed the PUP's, measured them against the standard ones and they are 5mm taller. Also realised that I had put some high density foam underneath them to act as a bit of cushioning and guess what, that was about 5mm thick too so easiest job was to remove such and screwed down the PUP's. Whilst I was at it the sunken PUP pole pieces were protruding out the bottom and were easily pushed back into place.

Strung it back up, re-tuned and then proceeded to lower action at the bridge as it was now way too high and no chance of touching the PUP's. Dropped the saddles down onto their bellies as they wouldn't go any lower and whilst still a little bit high on the upper frets it is low enough for where I mostly play. Only required a slight tweak of the intonation and now the G string is behaving itself. On another day or night I will swap over to the Gotoh Bridge as it has more mass plus a bit more fore & aft saddle travel.

[wazkelly]

Well, couldn't help myself as it was eating at me all day at work today so after dinner proceeded to swap bridges. Here are the before shots...


Thankfully original mounting holes lined up in exactly the same place for the Gotoh bridge and here are the after shots....


Retuned intonation and all perfect now that there is a bit more fore & aft adjustment room. Had a blast playing this then the EX-5, onto the Ric 4003 and back & forth for an hour or so just to make sure all were functioning properly plus to help get a better perspective on the tonal sound differences between each Bass.

Gotta say, the more I play a 5 string it makes a lot more sense and actually becomes easier to play as you have a bigger spread of patterns in any block position up and down the neck. Pink Floyd's Money is not so easy on a 4 string compared to a fiver and there are plenty of other tunes where using a lower note higher up the neck is not as big a stretch.

Only job/s left on this might be a replacement nut and one of the original tuners on the D string feels a bit dodgy when tensioning up. These jobs will have to wait for another day as they are OK enough for now.

[Simon Barden]

I like it when a plan comes together.